My thoughts about 1996 by Kirsty McManus
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When food blogger Anna Matthews takes a vitamin supplement that thrusts her back in time to 1996—and into her sixteen year old body—she is naturally a little shocked. But after a hasty re-assimilation, she decides to take advantage of this amazing second chance to view her teenage years from a more mature perspective.
But with the effectiveness of each dose only lasting twelve hours, and any new actions initiated in the past having no effect on the future, Anna wonders whether taking it again would serve any purpose.
Of course, curiosity gets the better of her, and she soon becomes addicted to travelling back in time to relive what she originally believed to be some of her best memories.
Knowing that her husband grew up in the same area—and with him unwilling to talk about the past—Anna decides to track him down in 1996. But an unexpected discovery forces her to make a heartbreaking decision that will change both her and her husband’s future forever.
31 Days of Bookish Q&A's
This post may contain affiliate links. Meaning, I get a commission if you purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Read the full disclosure here.
March was a life changing month for most of us (I know it was for me), but the Bookish Blog Hops gang carried on sharing their love of books. For 31 days we came together to discuss various topics related to reading, books, and book blogging.
Miss some of the stops? Don't worry I've got you covered.
Bookish Blog Hops: A Recap Of All The Stops On The Spring Hop
1st March - 2020 releases https://www.jolinsdell.com/2020/03/a-2020-release-you-cant-wait-to-read.html
6th March - A Book With More Than 400 Pages
Are you a book blogger?
Want to join the Bookish Blog Hops gang?
2020 Challenges: March Update
WOW! March was not what I (or pretty much anyone else) expected. COV-19 changed our world this past month.
Our schools here in Italy have been shut since 4th March which has meant I've been working my way around the distance learning systems since then. As this whole situation came out of nowhere the schools weren't prepared for it and as such the first few weeks was mainly spent trying out different platforms for doing, and sending school work. My kids schools don't use the same systems and so it was all doubled.
Then there's been the organising of being in lockdown. Trying to work out routines, making sure my husband has the updated form to take with him when he needs to go out for supplies, and organising simple stuff like food shopping which is no longer simple. Trying to keep the kids from freaking out, and helping them deal with not being able to leave the house.
I've also not been well. I've had an annoying cough and high temperature. Still not sure for certain what caused it. It did result in our worry levels going up a notch or two though. I am doing better now though, and haven't left the house in weeks so no risk of me having spread it in any case.
As the situation here in Italy continues to get worse I'm not sure when normal life will restart. In the meantime we try to stay positive, follow the rules, and do our best with what we've got.
Needless to say, my progress with my various challenges for March hasn't been great. The small amount of free time I've had I've either been too ill, or just not in the right mental state to do much.
The Blog Audit Challenge 2020
This is a challenge I created aimed at improving our blogs. You can find full details here in case you missed the introduction post. The goals for March were all related to trimmings.
Website banner
I didn't get round to working on updating my website banner unfortunately. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up once everything settles down a bit here.
The Sidebar
I already did a huge declutter of my sidebar when I did my last big website redesign so there wasn't really much to change. The one thing I did want to do was to add a link to my resources page to make it easier to find (especially given the work I did on it as part of the February challenges).
The Footer
Again, I already did a make over of my footer and so I didn't have anything to change there.
The Audiobook Challenge
This challenge is was created by Eline from Lovely Audiobooks. I'm doing it as a year long challenge.
Audiobooks listened to this month:
- Unfortunately I didn't manage to add any new audiobooks to my list this month. Hopefully April will be a better month.
The A to Z Reading Challenge
Books read this month:
N- Nobody's Perfect by Douglas Clark
Armed with a Bingo
- A book with a number in it's title: 1996 by Kristy McManus
Blog Audit Challenge 2020
Welcome back for another month of challenges for the Blog Audit Challenge 2020!
I hope you did well with the March challenges, and linked up your progress reports in the March Link Up.
Each month we'll concentrate on a different area of our blogs.
The Challenges:
April- Design
May- SEO
June- Links
July- Quality content
August- Content gaps
September- Developing readership
October- Get social
November- Press and collaborations
December- Know your stats
Monthly link ups
In order to keep us all on track, and give us a way to see each others progress, I'll be hosting link ups on the first Saturday of every month where participants can share their links and discuss their progress.
#BlogAuditChallenge2020
April Challenges
Our focus for April is on design.
The April challenges will reinforce branding, improve SEO, and mean we have plenty of images to be shared via social media when promoting our content.
The April challenges:
1. Images
The right graphics can make a huge difference to a blog. Worried about not having any design skills? Think it'll take up too much of your time to create visual elements to go with your blog posts? Don't panic. There are plenty of tools available online, for free, that make it super easy and will only take you a minute to make.
Canva is my go to tool for my blog graphics. I created templates for my blog graphics (blog post header, Pinterest, etc...) so that whenever I do a new post I just open the template, update the text, and insert a different background image. It only takes a minute and each image is perfectly sized, ready for posting.
Make sure every blog post has at least one image.
2. Optimize your images
Make sure every image you post has alt tags. Use keywords to supercharge the SEO on your post.
3. Readability
Design isn't just about graphics and other images. It's about the whole look and feel of your web page. A big block of text will have readers clicking away at light speed. It just seems like too much hard work.
Make sure your post is formatted for easy readability. Break text up into smaller paragraphs, use lists (numbered or bullet points), and take into account the white space on the page. Also make sure your text is easy on the eyes. Generally speaking darker text on a lighter background is best.
Free downloads: You can grab copies of all the extra materials for the Blog Audit Challenge 2020 for free here.
Save the Date!
The May challenges will be posted on 1st May. The monthly link up post for sharing your April progress will be on 2nd May.
The chairman of Barugt Pharmaceutical, Adam Huth, is found murdered at his desk in his office.
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