As I mentioned in my post last Saturday, I am extremely limiting myself when it comes to reading challenges this year. In 2015, I signed up for (and somehow actually completed) 15 challenges. That's just not going to be feasible this year, especially once baby shows up in April! So here are the challenges I'm allowing myself to participate in this year:​

This challenge is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, and the title is pretty self-explanatory. I am terrible about buying books and then letting them sit on my shelves for years before I read them. I'm working on reversing that trend, and this challenge seems the perfect way to do that. Ideally, I would love to read all the books I buy in 2016, but that might not be possible. So I'm signing up for the Making Inroads level, which is 20-40%. I can always aim for higher if I feel inspired!

This challenge is hosted by Chapter Break. In addition to reading the books I buy this year, I need to start tackling the piles of dusty books on my shelves. For this challenge, reading any book I owned before January 1, 2016 counts. I have plenty of options. . . I'm signing up for the Give Your Shelves a Warm, Friendly Hug level, which means I need to read 21-30 books from my own shelves.

This is technically a read-along, not a challenge. It's hosted by Bex at An Armchair By the Sea and Lynn at Smoke and MIrrors. I have never read the entire Little House series. I tried it as a kid and just wasn't intrigued. But I know these books are classics, and I always planned to read them someday. And it's more fun to do so with other people, right? This read-along focuses on one book a month, so it should be doable to read the whole series by the end of the year.

I thought I should probably sign up for this challenge, since I'm hosting this one! This is my third year now of hosting the Newbery Reading Challenge, and it's done wonders for my personal goal of reading all the Newbery winners. I couldn't let this one slide in 2016! I'm signing up for the Spinelli level, which means I need to accumulate 30-44 points by the end of the year.

These are all of the challenge commitments I am making right now. There are many more calling my name, but I'm really trying to be realistic with my time this year. Hopefully I can complete these four (and possible add a few as the year goes on, if I'm doing well. . .​) !

It finally snowed! We haven't had a good snowstorm here since just before Thanksgiving. The roads are not fun to be out on, but it's a perfect time to be reading a good book in a warm, cozy house!

Top Ten Tuesday - Bookish Resolutions
​Tackling War & Peace
Why 2016 Will Be A Very Different Year of Reading for Me (Announcement here!!)

So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading by Sara Nelson (Awesome book!)
The Year of Miss Agnes by Kirkpatrick Hill (My first read for the Reading Together Book Club)
​Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George (A fun read)

Anne of Windy Poplars by L.M. Montgomery (I'm kind of unofficially participating in Reading to Know's L.M. Montgomery Challenge this month. It gives me a good excuse to revisit Anne once a year.)
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (As I mentioned in my post, I'm going to be putting my weekly progress here so that I have all of you to hold me accountable. I successfully completed my first week of reading - 105 out of 1,361 pages done!

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

I love the beginning of a new year because it means new reading challenges and new goals. I've typically over-committed to reading challenges, yet somehow managed to complete them (which is often more stressful than it should be). I always participate in the Goodreads challenge, sometimes setting my goal as high as 125 books.

This year, I'm reining myself. My Goodreads goal is set at 50 books. I'm severely limiting myself in the number of reading challenges I'm signing up for (a total of 3, as of right now). And the reason for these self-imposed limits?

We're very excited and very nervous, and I'm sure reading will take a backseat to the little one for awhile. Smiling Shelves will definitely continue, although I'm figuring I'll be on hiatus for a little bit in April.

​I'm determined this baby will grow up to be a reader. He already gets a bedtime story every night!

It has been a goal of mine for a very long time to read War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy. I first attempted it in eighth grade, where I somehow thought carrying around that huge volume would impress my classmates. Unsurprisingly, that didn't work, and I pretty quickly gave up on both lugging it around and reading it. My second attempt came in high school, and it was no more successful than the first try.

But I want to be able to say I have read War & Peace​. So I recently put it on my 31 in 31 list to give me some motivation. That means it has to happen before September. I figured it was a good idea to start now, to give myself plenty of time.

I'm planning on reading it little by little so that I can fit in plenty of other reading, too. The copy I have is 1,361 pages long. I am making it my goal to read 15 pages a day​ (or an average of 105 pages a week). That will let me finish in about three months.

I'm posting this so I can have some accountability to help me accomplish this goal. I'll post a weekly update as part of my It's Monday! post. If I'm not keeping on track, please call me on it!

​Now I just need to open the cover and begin!

I'm really not a big resolution-setter, but I have had success with the New Year's resolutions I have set on my blog in the past. I even posted about a couple of these successes last week. As mentioned in that post, I'm going to try to continue with those two resolutions (so most of this list might sound familiar if you are a regular visitor to my blog). But I am adding one new bookish resolution this year.

- Comment on at least 5 blogs a week.
- Limit myself to buying an average of 5 books a month (yearly total is not to exceed 60 books).
- Start recording quotes I like from books I read. I've never really done this, but I would love to have this record of my reading. Now I just need to figure out how to make this feasible for me. Any tips from any of you quote-writers?

Happy New Year! I had a wonderful week last week, traveling to a couple different states to visit family and friends. I didn't get much reading done, but my time was filled very well. Now it's January - a new year - and time to dive into all those books I want to read!

Two New Year's Resolutions I Actually Kept
My Year in Books - 2015
​My Bookish Christmas Gift

Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books by Maureen Corrigan (An interesting mixture of literary essay and memoir)
The Grand Tour by Patricia C. Wrede & Caroline Stevermer (Just as fun as the first one in the series!)

So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading by Sara Nelson (Seemed an appropriate book to start the year with.)
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (My post about this will show up Thursday. Here I go!)

The Year of Miss Agnes by Kirkpatrick Hill (For the Reading Together book club - details here!)

It's a well-known fact among my family that I'm a bookworm. I typically receive at least one book for Christmas, as well as several Barnes & Noble gift cards. This year, though, my in-laws surprised me with something a little bit different, which my bookish heart delighted in.

First, I had to unwrap eleven packages of index cards. . .

Now, I'm a teacher, so I use index cards fairly regularly. But eleven packs was a little excessive, I thought. Then came the big box to open, and it all made sense. . .​

They got me a library card catalog!! The perfect decoration for my library. Although, being the geek that I am, I'm hoping it will be more than just a decoration. My huge collection of books is currently not organized in any way, shape, or form. Now I can change that! I'm so excited!