TTT: Distractions and Detractions

I discovered all kinds of new book blogs last year thanks to Top Ten Tuesday—just one of the many reasons I love participating in this weekly meme so much.  One of my finds was Reading is My SuperPower, written by the lovely Carrie.  I love her twist on this week's TTT topic, so I'm going to steal it.  Hopefully she doesn't mind 😬 

Before I get to that, though, I want to give a shout out to the lovely ladies over at The Broke and the Bookish.  They created TTT and have been hosting it for a looonnnggg time.  They'll be passing the duties on to Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl starting next week.  So, I just wanted to take a minute to say thank you to all of our hostesses.  I appreciate your hard work in running this super fun meme.

This week's topic is Top Ten Books We Meant to Read in 2017 But Didn't Get To.  I feel like I've already talked incessantly about what I want to read this year, so I'm going to channel my inner Carrie and go with this instead (thanks again, Carrie, for the fabulous idea):  

Top Ten Excuses Reasons I Didn't Read As Many Books As I Wanted to Last Year

1.  Words With Friends—It's embarrassing to admit, but this is definitely one of the top distractions that got in the way of my reading last year.  I've never cared for video games, but it's tough for me to resist word games.  If you play, hit me up—I'm sjwordnerd.

2.  Word Streak (formerly Scramble With Friends)—This is Zynga's version of Boggle and it's actually more fun than WWF.  Since you only get a limited number of free tokens to use for play, I can't waste endless time on it; thank goodness because otherwise I totally would!  I'm sjwordnerd on Word Streak as well.

3.  Family History—Much less embarrassing and a much more noble pursuit is genealogy.  Like many LDS people, I'm obsessed with tracing my roots.  It's fun and it's addicting.  Because it's my church "calling" as well as my hobby, I spend lots of time indexing historical records, exploring my own family tree, and helping others do the same.  If you're interested in family history, I highly recommend checking out familysearch.org.  It's a free, user-friendly site that allows you to search millions of historical records and use them to build a collaborative family tree.  Watch out, though, or you might find yourself becoming as obsessed with it as I am!

4.  Housework—I live in a 5000 square foot home that I clean myself. 'Nuf said about me and my first-world problems.

5.  Family—My husband and kids wouldn't recognize me if I didn't have a book in my hands.  Occasionally, I do have to come back to Earth and pay them a *little* attention.

6.  Lack of Speed Reading Skills—Every year I set the goal of reading 200 books.  Every year I fail.  I'm a fast reader, but I can't speed read unless I want to suck all the enjoyment out of the experience.  No thanks.  

7.  Writing Reviews—I read books faster than I review them, so I'm always—always—behind on reviews.  I review every book I read and I try to do so in a thoughtful manner, considering both what worked for me and what didn't.  As a writer, I've always been a bleeder so composing a satisfactory review takes some time.  Especially when you're still working on books you read back in July!

8.  Book Blogger Relations—I love the book blogging community.  I've been a part of it for a long time because I enjoy it so much.  That being said, it takes time to visit blogs, make comments, participate in memes/community events, etc.  It's fun but it definitely gets in the way of my reading—and that's okay.

9.  Social Media—Scrolling through Facebook and Instagram eats up way too much of my time.  I love keeping up with far-flung friends and family, but it's definitely a time suck.  

10. Volunteering—I love to volunteer in my community and should probably do more of it.  Still, I manage to put in time at my daughter's elementary school, at church, and with the FamilySearch Indexing program.  Go, me!

Do any of these things get in the way of your reading?  What other distractions take your attention away from the books?  What books did you plan to read in 2017 that you just didn't get around to?  I'd love to know.  Leave me a comment and I'll gladly return the favor.

Happy TTT!

*Generic photos/graphics from Google Images.  Family photo by Sidney Ulrich Photography.