Hey there, my lovelies!
It’s become a tradition on this blog by now so of course I’m going for another „Achievements of 2022/ My Bookish New Year’s resolutions for 2023“ blog post. Since we’re only a couple of hours away from the next year I thought it would be good to take a closer look at my achievements of 2022. It’s always nice to look at what I wanted to achieve at the beginning of the year and what I actually achieved during it. I’m pretty certain most of my goals for 2022 weren’t met because the first 6 months of 2022 weren’t any better than the last 6 months of 2021. >_< I was in a big reading slump because I was unhappy at work and it showed in the way I lived my first 6 months of 2022. I barely even read any books and all the joy I used to have was drained from me. Of course my bad work situation ultimately led to me withdrawing from everything and everyone and I had absolutely no desire to read. Which is always a bad sign if you’re a passionate reader like me. So yeah, I decided I needed to change something or I’d be stuck in this kind of limbo for the next couple of months or even years. And nope, not with me. *lol*
I never addressed it here directly before (because I wasn’t ready), but I basically told my boss that I’d either quit or go and take a year long educational sabbatical and that there were only those two options. Period. I’d come to a point where I just couldn’t take the work environment anymore because it started to be toxic for me and at this final point I had to cut my losses before my physical and especially my mental health would suffer from it. It wasn’t easy to leave a company I worked for more than 10 years. And most of those years were good years and a time I wouldn’t want to miss, but there’s only so much good that can outweight the bad and I suddenly found myself at a crossroads I never thought I’d ever come to. So in the end I made my decision and took the leap and I regret absolutely nothing. I have no idea what kind of job I’ll have next year and if I’ll even be able to find a new one before my educational sabbatical is over, but I know that it was the right decision and I stand by it.
All told the first half of 2022 was horrible and pretty much me trying to find my way, which took a lot of energy and effort. During the summer I tried to recuperate from the stress of those last couple of months and since I was a loyal and good employee I worked until the last day and tried to hand over my work as good as possible. I think I might have gotten even more gray hairs than last year but I learned a lot about myself and my limits so despite everything I count that as a win. Last year in this post I wrote that I want to be happy again and that I’m determined to make some changes. Well, I guess I did go through with that! *lol* I said that I deserve to be happy and I finally am! And in the end that’s all that counts, right?
This said maybe I managed to go through with some of my other goals as well? I guess the only way to find out is by comparing notes! Clean slate for the next year, here I come! Let’s celebrate some achievements! Hopefully. Haha!
So without further ado let’s go right to the awesome achievements and the good things that happened to me in 2022:
– I recently celebrated my fourth year of blogging and I’m so glad I decided to go for this blog because it still brings me a lot of joy ! ❤ I can be creative on here and I can be myself and this is very important. =) To have a space to call my own is amazing and I really want to be more active once again. I promised to do better in 2022 and not to stumble from one blog post to the next, but due to all the things that happened I didn’t really manage to keep that promise! I’ll definitely try to be more consistent in 2023, though. XD
– In 2022 I wanted to continue to write two blog posts a week and I had the goal to be more active in the blogging community. Well, the first one so didn’t happen. *lol* There were weeks I only managed to get up one blog post and I was pretty inconsistent. I’m gonna be honest here, it was a struggle to maintain a schedule and I had no brain capacity to make it work. I think I did pretty okay with the second goal, though. I mean I was slightly more active in the blogging community than I was in 2021 and I tried to read other blog posts and to leave comments or likes. =) In 2023 I definitely want to get back to my usual schedule of 2 blog posts a week.
– One of my main life goals for 2022 was to eat more healthy and to take better care of myself. And considering I quit my job and went for an educational sabbatical I definitely ticked off the latter one. *lol* As for the eating more healthy. I did and I am still trying my best to eat more healthy. At the beginning of the year I discovered that I have an intolerance to gluten and totally changed my eating habits. It’s not that I can’t eat gluten at all, it’s more like that I can’t eat it in high doses. If that makes sense?! So my goal for 2023 is to keep to a balanced diet and to eat fish and salad at least once a week. (as a main course I mean. I love my salad and eat it as a side-dish too. 😉 )
– I read 51 books in 2022 and was able to finish my goodreads challenge. I initially set it on 45 books and despite my horrible reading slump I still managed to exceed it.
Eight books ahaed of my challenge might not seem to be a lot but I count this as a big achievement, because for me it is! For 2023 I will set my official goal for 45 books again, but inofficially I want to read way more than that. XD Let’s see how that will go.
– I went for the third round of my own tag – The LGBTQ+ Rep Book Tag (Original!) and this time around I even did it on my BookTube and linked the video in my blog post. I tagged a lot of people in June for this but so far none of them did the tag so yeah. I guess that’s what you call a flop, but oh well, my tag is even making its rounds on IG now so I’m fine with that. Maybe BookTube just wasn’t the right platform for it. *shrugs* I also did my SASSY Saturday blog meme each and every single month! I really love to do this one because it’s so nice to talk about other things than books every once in a while! It’s always good to talk about things that excite you. 
– I continued to write even though my rp-game was pretty bad this year. I still managed to write a couple of posts and I genuinely hope that I’ll have more time for it in 2023 again. As for my poetry and reviews… It could have been a lot better but I’m okay with the little I wrote. To be honest I was in no good headspace most of the year and it took me months to get over the anger and resentment I felt towards my former company. The outrageous injustice I went through was hard to digest and it gnawed at me. So I wasn’t as creative as I wanted to be but I really hope 2023 will make it all better. *fingers crossed*
– I think this is worth mentioning and actually an achievement: I might not have requested a lot of ARCS on NetGalley last year, but I actually got approved for every one I requested?! One is still pending, but hopefully that one will get approved too. XD My goal for next year is to read all the review copies I got from authors over the years and to finally catch up to them AND to request ARCs more actively on NetGalley. I’ve been horrible at reading the review copies I got from authors because I was in a reading slump and didn’t feel like reading most of the times. And when I read I read books I really wanted to read because it was the only way to keep on reading. >_< So yep, 2023 I’ll try to catch up to all those ARCs and review copies. Wish me luck!
– I continued my BookTube Channel and Instagram journey! (@thesassylibraryfox3)
And it’s still going great?! =)) Okay, well I think I might be shadow banned at YT right now because no one ever sees my new videos (even the people that are subscribed to me) but I hope that whatever the algorithm has against me will fade one day?! I still have a lot of fun creating my own video content and I kinda love editing, but it would be nice if someone would actually be able to see those videos?! *lol* (Also don’t ask me what I would have gotten shadow banned for because I honestly didn’t do anything.) As for Instagram: This one has been fun! I made a lot of new friends and posted my photography, Bookstagram pictures and even started to post BTS fanart in June I think! Honestly, I love how my IG grid looks like and I regret absolutely nothing! ❤
– I reached the awesome number of 520 followers on my blog and I couldn’t be more happy! I’m so thankful for all your support and for everyone who still bothers to read my blog posts. You have no idea how much this means to me!
Also, hello and welcome to everyone who clicked that follow button! I’m glad you became part of my „kits“ and I promise I’ll try my best to keep it interesting. 😉
My bookish New Year’s resolutions for 2022 vs. what actually happened and what is hopefully going to happen in 2023:
– Don’t read more than 5 books at the same time! (Well, I think this year I didn’t do all too bad with this. I mean most of the time it were about 5-6 and very rarely when I read a manga and put it on the list too it were 7. But considering it all I did pretty well. Guess I learned my lesson from last year and actually managed to keep it down.)
– Don’t add more than 290 books to my TBR pile. (I only have 285 books on my TBR pile on goodreads right now! And I have no idea how I did that? *lol* Magic! It must be magic because I never managed to reach that goal before. Ever. XD WTH?! Wow, I succeeded at something! And no one is more surprised about this than I am. Haha! Next year I’ll try to go for 280? Will I be able to do that? Only the stars can tell… )
– Read the books I already own!! (I wasn’t doing so bad with this one and actually read a couple of books from my shelves. Unfortunately I discovered the little free libraries around my area and got rid of a lot of books I already read. But what can I say? I discovered that there were even a couple of amazing English books and that discovery somehow added a couple more books to my shelves once again. As for my e-reader: Let’s not talk about my e-reader copies, okay?! ;-P )
– Don’t borrow more than 15 books at the same time from my library! Hahahahahaha! OMG! I still see my bestie bent over from laughing too hard when we went to the library in summer! I really wanted to keep to that system but since I was ill A LOT in 2022 I kinda went for „binge raids“ in some of the libraries, because I knew I wouldn’t get there for months.
So one of those binge raids ended up with me wanting to add 5 books to my library card… and it only took 2 and told me to go to the desk. Turns out I had already reached the limit of 25 books. *LOL* And you know what the precious librarian did when I looked at him totally puzzled and crestfallen? He added the other three to my card and made an exception for me! ❤ So in the end I even blew my card limit and actually had 28 books on there for a little while. I swear, my bestie is still laughing about that incident. XD
– Stick to My Book List 2022 , My Book List 2021 and finish My Book List 2020 & My Book List 2019! At the risk of repeating myself once again: This wasn’t happening. At all! >_< Quote from me last year: „Still, I know 2022 is going to be the year in which I finally finish my 2019 list! I know I can do it! I got this! I repeat, I got this! *lol* (Or I’m just delul. Haha!)“ Turns out I was delul af! Haha! I honestly dunno how many books I ticked off of my lists, but I know I read a couple of books from them so I count that as a win. I definitely need to update them soon. Oh and you probably already guessed the goal for 2023: Stick to My Book List 2023. ;P
– I voved improvement and said I would continue with my „Hugs’n’kisses OR Dismissed by the Missus/Messrs blog meme but that didn’t really happen. I think I only did it twice? Why am I like that? T_T *lol* In my defence I was super consistent with my SASSY Saturday though! I did one every month and it was fun to talk about other things than books as well. So for 2023 I’ll definitely keep it and will try to throw in a couple of „Hugs’n’Kisses“ posts too. Wish me luck! I’ll need it. Haha!
– I said I’d try to create more of my own book tags and …. I didn’t. *lol* I went for volume three of my The LGBTQ+ Rep Book Tag (Original!) though and discovered that I read more and more LGBTQIA+ books every year. I wanted to get up my Original BTS Book Tag but that still didn’t happen, plus I have a concrete idea for another tag that also didn’t happen. 2023 is going to be the year I’ll finally go for them though! It will happen! Yes. XD
– Get 500 followers on my blog! I currently have 523 followers so I guess I reached that goal. My blog didn’t grow as much as I hoped it would though, but honestly it’s my own fault. I didn’t engage as much as I wanted to with other bloggers and therefore barely made any new friends on here while I lost some of my old ones at the same time. A lot of the people I loved to follow aren’t active on here anymore or they deleted their account and don’t even have a blog anymore. It always makes me sad when that happens but I know it’s not easy to maintain a blog and a schedule. So I understand. Me struggling through 2022 should have made that perfectly clear. *lol* I guess for 2023 my goal will be more realistic and I hope I’ll make it to 550 followers. For me personally, every single one of you is already so much more than I hoped for! ❤ You guys are amazing and I can’t emphasize enough how much it means to me that you’re still around! THANK YOU!!
– Reorganize my physical bookshelves. I did that! YESH! Finally something I did! Haha! Something tells me I might have to reorganize them in 2023 as well. Yearly tradition? Yep, I guess so. *lol* There are a couple of books I want to get rid of and others I want to add, plus I actually rearranged my shelves the way I wanted to and made book stacks and it looks cool that way and saved a lot of space. Let’s see how I’ll change my shelves in 2023. I’m already curious. 😉
– Both my IG as well as my BookTube have been growing, even though I get the feeling that my growth stopped recently. I’ve been stuck on 334 subscribers on BookTube for two months now and my IG isn’t growing as much as I want it to grow either. I think I got shadow banned on both platforms and I dunno why. I did nothing wrong, got no warnings or anything, but for some reason the algorithm is against me. It’s kinda frustrating. Not gonna lie, it takes a lot of time to make posts and to record and edit videos and if the algorithm is against you, you can’t do anything. (I tried all the tips they give you to fight the algorithm, but it doesn’t work.) So I guess my goal for 2023 on both platforms is to get my subscriber count on BookTube to 400 (I’ll be good if I manage that fighting the algorithm. *lol*) and to 300 followers on IG. No idea, if I’ll be able to manage this but I guess next year we’ll know. And just for the record: I am extremely thankful for all the 334 subscribers and IG followers I currently have!!! They are still there watching my videos, liking and commenting on them and I couldn’t ask for more than that! ❤
– Relocate some of my longer reviews from goodreads to my blog. I did that and it’s something I can tick off with a good conscience. 😀 I’ll continue to do that in 2023 and hopefully one day I’ll have all the important reviews transferred to here.
– I said I want to host a Readalong on my BookTube and I did!!! I hosted my #Klunealong and it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it immensely! Plus I also went for #Rainboween and read lots of LGBTQIA+ books in October. My goal for 2023 is to host another readalong and to go for #Rainboween Vol. 2 because I had so much fun doing both of them and I really want to do it again. No idea what the Readalong will be about but I’ll come up with something. 😉

So if you read all this you get a medal from me! ;-P I know this was super long so I’m very thankful if you actually read this post until now! 2022 felt like both, a very long and a pretty fast year. At least for me it did. It’s kinda weird but it is the way it is. *lol* How was your 2022? Did you follow your TBR or did you become a mood reader? Which goals did you set yourself and were you able to accomplish them? What got you through this year? (My formular to get through 2022 consisted once again of watching k-dramas on Netflix, listening to and watching BTS dance, lots of Netflix & Chill ice cream when I had an especially bad day *lol*, reading and dancing my heart out whenever I could and of talking with my besties for hours.) What did you do in 2022 to ease your mind and what are your goals for 2023?!
Talk to me and let me know!
And as always try to stay healthy and safe!
*hugs’n’kisses*