Bible in a Year 2017

Bible in a Year 2017


2017 brings a new start and another attempt at reading the Bible all the way through. I'm going to keep trying until it happens, and then I'll do it all over again.

This year I'll be using the devotional and reading plan "Bible in One Year 2017" by Nicky and Pippa Gumbel from Bible.com. This is a different plan than I'm used to as it has a devotional portion in concert with each scripture reading. In addition, it covers (as far as I've seen so far) a Psalm/Proverb, a chapter or so from the Old Testament, and a chapter or so from the New Testament.

I downloaded the Android version of the YouVersion Bible app to have around me constantly so I can utilize any extra time to get the reading in. However, I'm going to try diligently to take special time early in the day to do it so I can re-prioritize my life with more focus on my relationship with God.

At the top of my sidebar on top of the rest of my reading challenges this year is my tracker for the BiaY.  I am tracking my progress by number of chapters read (out of a total of 1189 chapters in the King James Version).

Feel free to join in with me, too.  I need the extra accountability and support.

My Progress

17 / 1189 chapters. 1.43% done!

See my detailed progress after the jump.

The Chronological Sherlock Holmes Challenge

Duration: 1 January 2017 to 21 April 2018

Host: Noonlight Reads
Challenge Rules and Sign-Up Page

The Challenge: Read all 56 short stories and four novels of Sherlock Holmes in chronological order.

For Christmas this year my wife bought me a complete anthology of the Sherlock Holmes tales, almost all of which I have never read. Sad, I know! So, I searched online a bit to find the best order to read the stories or whether I just plunge into the book the way it's laid out. I stumbled upon the Chronological Sherlock Holmes Challenge.

The host blog Noonlight Reads laid out a nice timeline to schedule a purposeful and breathable way to read all of the stories and be able to discuss them weekly. I like her approach, and I think it will certainly aid in my reading goal.

Be sure to visit the links above and see more about the challenge.

I'm looking forward to seeing this one through to its completion.

2015 Blog in Review

2015 is in the books, and I (surprisingly) was a bit more into the books this year than last. This despite becoming a tax preparer as a second job and doing all the other things I did that at this point I don't remember. But it was a busy year, indeed.

One of my most exciting adventures this year, though, was taking our son to the library for the very first time and getting his own library card! He absolutely loves going, and we try to go every two weeks on Fridays when I'm typically off work. Apparently reading the books to him and being in the library regularly has similarly stimulated my reading fervor a bit more, so I feel like I've read more in latter 2015 than the years coming up to it.

Another exciting development was beginning to teach the five-year-old how to read beginning around October using the aptly named Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I found this on Amazon at some point and kind of held onto to it until I could get a feel of when he was ready to start learning. I must have hit it right at the right time, because we got through it pretty quickly and caught on to a lot of things fast. We had anticipated completing it by the end of 2015, but holidays, two weeks of sickness, and a week of winter VBS got in the way. However, we should be finished in about a week now and ready to grow into newer reading lessons from there.

Back to the blog, I wrote last year that I had not found a routine that works for me in reading, reviewing, blogging, etc. I've been frustrated the past few years of trying, and I think that's because I don't have a lot of time it seems. Also, I always seem to be heavy into it until about February and then I don't get back into it again til the next January. And here we are.

Instead of getting frustrated this time, though, I'm just going to do what I can when I can do it. This is mostly just an exercise in writing and putting my voice out there to the random people who land on these pages from Google. :)

I still can't review a book to save my life.

In tracking my reading on GoodReads this year, I included all the books I read to the boy for records' sake, but I didn't include it in my reading accomplishments. I'm sure there's a challenge out there for which all of those books would qualify.

Finally, I failed reading the Bible in a year, even worse than last year. I credit this to working in the evenings as a tax preparer through the end of tax season. The same thing will happen this year as I attempt to make extra money to pay off some stuff, which is going swimmingly by the way. I didn't even attempt starting the Bible in a Year for this year because I knew I'd get derailed when tax season begins (which should be soon).

Challenge Updates:

• Bible in a Year: I read 182 out of 1189 chapters, which is only 15.3% of the entire Bible. I made it to 25.7% in 2014.
• 2015 Authors A to Z Reading Challenge: I read 10 out of 26 authors (not counting the child's books). That's actually pretty good for me. :) I only reviewed 6 of those.
• 2015 eBook Reading Challenge: I actually read 6 eBooks to just exceed my goal of 5! Of course I only reviewed 1/2 of them.

I may forgo challenges this year for lack of time. However 2017 I should hopefully have more time to pay more attention to what I read. And maybe I'll find a challenge I can actually do this year. I want to jump on that bandwagon so hard.

LeviSamJuno

2015 Authors A to Z Reading Challenge

Duration: 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2015

Host: Samantha-Lin.com
Challenge Rules and Sign-Up Page

The Challenge: Read an Author for each letter of the alphabet.

This one allows re-reads and crossovers with other challenges, so I might be able to accomplish this one, I hope.

• A - 
• B - Borgford, Brian: Pepper
• C - Carline, Gayle: Freezer Burn
• D - 
• E - 
• F - 
• G - 
• H - Howell, Dorotohy: Fatal Debt
• I - 
• J - 
• K - Kenyon, Nate: The Bone Factory
• L - Lange, John: Binary
• M - Myers, Tim: Room for Murder
• N - 
• O - 
• P - Paterson, Jill: The Celtic Dagger
• Q - 
• R - Rand, Johnathan: Savage Dinosaurs of South Dakota
• S - Swanson, Cidney: Rippler
• T - 
• U - 
• V - 
• W - Wullert, Mark: The Stolen Adventure
• X - 
• Y - 
• Z - 

Conclusion: I actually ended up reading more books than I really anticipated. Having some ebooks for exercising and taking our child to the library for the first time and reading to him seemed to have helped increase my reading capacity, though not to the point of successfully completing my goal. (I mean, I read most of the boy's library books to him, and if I counted those I might have made it; but I won't count those as most of them were fewer than 20 pages.)

2015 eBook Reading Challenge

Duration: 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2015

Host: Annette's Book Spot
Challenge Rules and Sign-Up Page

The Challenge: Read your ebooks, especially the ones you've accumulated over time.

This challenge has 6 levels ranging from 5 to 100 ebooks. I had attempted an ebook challenge once before on my older blog, but that was the year our boy was born so I found myself without a lot of time to do anything.

Like last time, I thought I'd start out small, so I'm attempting the lowest level of the challenge.

My Level: Bits (Read 5 ebooks)

1. Freezer Burn by Gayle Carline
2. The Celtic Dagger by Jill Paterson
3. Fatal Debt by Dorothy Howell
4. Rippler by Cidney Swanson
5. The Stolen Adventure by Mark Wullert
6. Keeping Mum: Long Weekend by Perrin Briar

Conclusion: Hey! I actually completed (and barely exceeded) a challenge! I didn't do very well at the reviewing part of it. I really don't know how other bloggers do it. It takes me a few days to even process how I felt about a book I read, and by then I'm trying to start a new book or getting off track of even reading at all because of all the other stuff I have to do.

Anyway, maybe I'll try again next time and get farther.

2014 Blog in Review

Well, 2015 is here, and another year has passed. Although life stuff has had its serious ups and downs this year, our family has certainly been blessed.

On the blog-front, however, I seem to have not quite found my routine. It's not that I really expect anyone to read anything I've posted. This is more of an exercise in strengthening my writing skills as well as a expanding my reading experiences. A sort of creative catharsis coupled with a quantitative aspect.

Looking back on 2014, I did accomplish something I haven't done in a while: I actually read some books for pleasure. I've also been reading some bedtime stories and such to the kid, but I didn't really count those.

Something I learned from last year is that I have no idea how to review a book I've read. It takes me a couple of days just to process my impression of the book as a whole (as it does for a movie, song, life experience, etc.), and it seems by then I've forgotten most of what happened in the book in order to summarize it. I'm going to give this another attempt for 2015. If you don't write at all, you can't learn to write better.

I also categorically failed at reading the Bible in a year again. I'll keep trying, though. I'll have to accomplish this at some point, even if I will know Genesis by heart when I reach that point.

Among the challenges I attempted:

• Bible in a Year: I read 305 out of 1189 chapters; that's 25.7% of the Bible.
• 2014 Read Your Freebies: I read 7 out of 12; only reviewed 3 out of the 7.
• Nonfiction Reading Challenge 2014: I read 1 out of 5. Oy!

For 2015, I'll set my goals low again, attempting only the lowest tiers of reading challenges, the details of which will appear on my 2015 Blog Preview post.

I hope yours was a great 2014. Here's to an even better 2015.

LeviSamJuno

Bible in a Year 2015

Bible in a Year


2015 brings a new start and another attempt at reading the Bible all the way through. I'm going to keep trying until it happens, and then I'll do it all over again.

This year I'll be using the Bible in a Year plan (the link on their website is down for me right now, so the link goes to a DropBox copy) from Tabletalk Magazine. This is a simple plan that gives you a chapter or more from the Old Testament and from the New Testament each day, allowing Sundays off for catch-up days or presupposing that you'll be in church being exposed to the Bible then anyway.

Most of the time I'll be reading from the BibleGateway.com online (KJV) since I can access it from my phone or at work or from my laptop.

At the top of my sidebar on top of the rest of my reading challenges this year is my tracker for the BiaY.  I am tracking my progress by number of chapters read (out of a total of 1189 chapters in the King James Version).

Feel free to join in with me, too.  I need the extra accountability and support.

See my progress after the jump.

2014 Read Your Freebies! Reading Challenge

Duration: 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2014

Host: The Book Vixen
Challenge Rules and Sign-Up Page

The Challenge: Read at least twelve (12) free ebooks.

My Android came equipped with an Amazon Kindle app already installed on it. I never really used it much until I stumbled on One Hundred Free Books, a multiple-times-a-day update of free ebooks listed on Amazon.  Plus, my wife's friend has a website Couponing with Rachel where she also regularly posts free Kindle books (as well as other coupon and money-saving links and posts).

As a result, I have slowly accumulated a digital stack of free books that I haven't really gotten around to reading yet. This challenge will help me clear that cache out a bit (probably only to make room for more as the year goes on).

My Level: Coupon Clipper (Read > 12 books)

1. Unnatural Disasters by Daniel Pyle (Editor) [23 January 2014]
2. Ant Apocalypse by Will Swardstrom [25 January 2014]
3. Haunted by Willow Cross [14 February 2014]
4. Through a Tangled Wood by Jamie Campbell [12 March 2014]
5. Murder at Volcano House by Chip Hughes [5 September 2014]
6. Paul Meets Muhammad: A Christian-Muslim Debate on the Resurrection by Michael R. Licona [22 September 2014]
7. Wild Born by Brandon Mull [21 October 2014]
8. 
   
9. 
   
10.  
11.  
12.  

Wrap-Up:

Well, I didn't quite make it. I'm still trying to get the hang of fitting reading into my daily routine. I shall try again next year, though.

Nonfiction Reading Challenge 2014

Duration: 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2014

Host: The Introverted Reader
Challenge Rules and Sign-Up Page

The Challenge: Read any non-fiction book(s), adult or young adult.

Two of my favorite comedians, Tim Conway and Billy Crystal, released autobiographies recently, and I asked my wife pointedly for them as Christmas gifts. She delivered. Since that already set me up with two nonfiction books I'd certainly be reading this year, I figured it would be worthwhile to try applying them to a reading challenge. 

I thought I'd start out small, so I'm attempting the lowest level of the challenge.

My Level: Dilettante (Read 1-5 non-fiction books)

1. What's So Funny? by Tim Conway with Jane Scovell [1-18-14]
2. 
   
3. 
   
4.  
5.  

Wrap-Up:

Wow, a spectacular failure for this reading challenge this year--even after receiving autobiographies for Christmas 2013 (and having a couple setting around). I might try this again for 2015, but for now, just bask in the dismal glory of the amazing laziness that is my reading life. 

Bible in a Year 2014

Bible in a Year


With a fresh year ahead of me, I pray that this will be the year I read the Bible all the way through and hope to grow closer to God and learn more about Him and my role in His kingdom in the process.  Using a plan from BibleGateway, I am once again going to attempt to read the Bible in a year (BiaY). The link above goes to the plan I've attempted in the past that remains an easy-to-follow and much used plan for many.

Two years ago I started out really well until I started missing a day here and there and trying to catch myself up before missing a few days.  Before long I had missed whole books and then abandoned the effort entirely, going right back to where I started. Then last year my Bible app which had an automatic reading plan tracking stopped working and I lost track of where I left off for a long time; then my phone died and I had to replace it. Excuses, excuses . . . .

At the top of my sidebar on top of the rest of my reading challenges this year is my tracker for the BiaY.  I am tracking it by number of chapters read (out of a total of 1189 chapters in the King James Version).  Fortunately the ubiquity of the Bible in many places makes missing a reading difficult to accomplish: I have used my pocket Bible, BibleGateway, the Bible reading plan website, and smartphone app to catch up on my reading in the past.  So, admittedly, I have no excuse to not do this.

Feel free to join in with me, too.  I need the extra accountability and support.

Law
Genesis
50 / 50 chapters. 100% finished!
Exodus
40 / 40 chapters. 100% finished!
Leviticus
27 / 27 chapters. 100% finished!
Numbers
36 / 36 chapters. 100% finished!
Deuteronomy
34 / 34 chapters. 100% finished!

History
Joshua
24 / 24 chapters. 100% finished!
Judges
21 / 21 chapters. 100% finished!
Ruth
4 / 4 chapters. 100% finished!
I Samuel
16 / 31 chapters. 51.6% finished!
II Samuel
0 / 24 chapters. 0% finished!
I Kings
0 / 22 chapters. 0% finished!
II Kings
0 / 25 chapters. 0% finished!
I Chronicles
0 / 29 chapters. 0% finished!
II Chronicles
0 / 36 chapters. 0% finished!
Ezra
0 / 10 chapters. 0% finished!
Nehemiah
0 / 13 chapters. 0% finished!
Esther
0 / 10 chapters. 0% finished!

Poetry
Job
0 / 42 chapters. 0% finished!
Psalms
0 / 150 chapters. 0% finished!
Proverbs
0 / 31 chapters. 0% finished!
Ecclesiastes
0 / 12 chapters. 0% finished!
Song of Solomon
0 / 8 chapters. 0% finished!

Major Prophets
Isaiah
0 / 66 chapters. 0% finished!
Jeremiah
0 / 52 chapters. 0% finished!
Lamentations
0 / 5 chapters. 0% finished!
Ezekiel
0 / 48 chapters. 0% finished!
Daniel
0 / 12 chapters. 0% finished!

Minor Prophets
Hosea
0 / 14 chapters. 0% finished!
Joel
0 / 3 chapters. 0% finished!
Amos
0 / 9 chapters. 0% finished!
Obadiah
0 / 1 chapter. 0% finished!
Jonah
0 / 4 chapters. 0% finished!
Micah
0 / 7 chapters. 0% finished!
Nahum
0 / 3 chapters. 0% finished!
Habakkuk
0 / 3 chapters. 0% finished!
Zephaniah
0 / 3 chapters. 0% finished!
Haggai
0 / 2 chapters. 0% finished!
Zechariah
0 / 14 chapters. 0% finished!
Malachi
0 / 4 chapters. 0% finished!

Gospels
Matthew
28 / 28 chapters. 100% finished!
Mark
16 / 16 chapters. 100% finished!
Luke
9 / 24 chapters. 37.5% finished!
John
0 / 21 chapters. 0% finished!
Acts
0 / 28 chapters. 0% finished!

Pauline Epistles
Romans
0 / 16 chapters. 0% finished!
I Corinthians
0 / 16 chapters. 0% finished!
II Corinthians
0 / 13 chapters. 0% finished!
Galatians
0 / 6 chapters. 0% finished!
Ephesians
0 / 6 chapters. 0% finished!
Philippians
0 / 4 chapters. 0% finished!
Colossians
0 / 4 chapters. 0% finished!
I Thessalonians
0 / 5 chapters. 0% finished!
II Thessalonians
0 / 3 chapters. 0% finished!
I Timothy
0 / 6 chapters. 0% finished!
II Timothy
0 / 4 chapters. 0% finished!
Titus
0 / 3 chapters. 0% finished!
Philemon
0 / 1 chapter. 0% finished!

General Epistles
Hebrews
0 / 13 chapters. 0% finished!
James
0 / 5 chapters. 0% finished!
I Peter
0 / 5 chapters. 0% finished!
II Peter
0 / 3 chapters. 0% finished!
I John
0 / 5 chapters. 0% finished!
0II John
0 / 1 chapter. 0% finished!
III John
0 / 1 chapter. 0% finished!
Jude
0 / 1 chapter. 0% finished!

Apocalypse
Revelation
0 / 22 chapters. 0% finished!

Entire Bible
305 / 1189 chapters. 25.7% finished!

Wrap-Up:

I did not complete the whole Bible again this year, but I'm going to keep trying. I may have the Pentateuch memorized whenever I actually accomplish this, but I'll be better for it in the long run.