Afternoon!!

Welcome to a new book tag, it is that time of the year again, say hello to the End of The Year Book Tag! 2025 Edition!

Which I almost didn’t do. As I hadn’t expected it was that time of the year again. Haha. I saw a few bloggers post this one and I was like, wait, it isn’t time yet? checks blog Oh, oh, it is time. So that meant I had to move things around to make room for this super fun tag! Because of course I want to do it!

This year was much calmer than last year (last year I found out my dad had Alzheimer and was in a care home + a lot more), still a bit stressful as of course my dad’s health goes from steady to not so steady + my family is still my family… But at least not the OMG will he die now/can my family just calm the heck down. I found a rhythm that works for my body/health visiting my dad. Twice a month I try to come by and have a fun time (which varies from a few minutes if he is not in the mood/sleepy to an hour+ if he is OK). He had a bit of a meh moment a few months ago with lots of aggression but he is much calmer now and he is very happy to see me.
Coco has had no bad things happening this year so that is nice. Her hip is still not always 100% fine, but that is something she will have to live with her whole life. Coco and I went on several fun trips from the nearby garden centre to shopping to visiting my dad. I am putting that stuff on hold though as lately she has been yipping and yapping and borking when we go out and I can tell you after 10 minutes of that you get crazy. Hopefully soon we can go on trips again and it will be fun again. Other than that she loves her hugs and snacks and she is one happy bundle of energy.
My garden got fixed front and back and it looks so GOOD now. I did some gardening after it was done and now my garden is mostly in winter mode. I just need to clean up a few things, I cannot wait to see my garden come back in early spring/spring, back then the garden was still pure chaos as it wasn’t done until summer, so I am curious to see how my new garden looks in spring.
Baking… well, I wanted to. But my head is just not in it. I did acquire some new baking books and I hope to at least do some Sinterklaas baking soon as my hubby really wants some Speculaas and pepernoten made by me.
Libraries were all fantastic! I got a new big library (which is now sadly closed for two months as they are moving to another building as the main building has to be renovated) and I had a lot of fun getting new book babies from that place. They really have an amazing collection.
And other than all of the mentioned, it was a good year. It flew by though, haha. I am still not ready for Christmas. I still expect it to be May or something.

As for my blog! Well, there were very good days and some lesser days. I am checking my stats less and less, but at times one just cannot resist. Or I need to know because I need to update Netgalley/Edelweiss with my stats. But when I check I do see that my blog is doing pretty OK. Though I still will never get why the stats fluctuate so much. On other non-stat news. I have been updating my Featured Images + making updates to my old GIFs by adding text to them. I am also going through my posts + make sure they all have Featured Images + correct tags. It is a lot of work but it is fun as well!
I want to thank everyone who has been reading + liking + sharing my posts + commenting on them! I really appreciate it! Thank you so much!

Last year’s releases I hoped to read: What the Woods Took (still need to buy it), De krankzinnige kerst van Lottie (loved this one it was so much fun), Kolos (still cannot find it in any store or library it seems it just isn’t popular enough), The Mystery of Locked Rooms (oh this was good though at times the characters were annoying), The draak met de knallende kont (read in English and I laughed myself silly). So that is all good!