It’s the first Monday of the year! While in the past I always joked that I hate Mondays, I find myself knowing that this is no longer true. A realization that my life has changed for the better in 2020, with my new job and refound sense of purpose. This morning my alarm went of at 07:00 and I wasn’t tired, instead I was looking forward to work once again, which is quite the opposite of what I experienced a year ago.

This week I intend to share with you a couple of new posts. First of all, I’m looking back at the best books and video games that kept me busy in 2020. But I’m also going to look forward to what it is I’m planning to do this year. I can’t wait to share all the exciting new things with you guys. There are of course a couple of (new) writing projects that I’m working on. “Stempels”, my first Dutch novel is nearing the end, so I’m hoping to finish it somewhere this month. I’m currently well over 50K words, and in all likelihood the book will end up somewhere around 60K words, although I never really care about word counts. The story is finished when it’s finished.

Yesterday I started replaying Super Mario Bros. 3, the edition from Super Mario All-Stars, and it gave me an idea to start replaying classics and doing reviews for them with my nostalgic glasses on, but also to see if these cherished games have survived the test of time. I think it’s going to be interesting to see how well some of these classics hold their own now that I’m older. So that’s going to be fun! 🙂

I’m also planning to read 30 books this year. I am reading two books at the moment and plan on reading non-fiction in the morning and fiction in the evening. So far, it’s been a lot of fun reading the two books I’m currently reading, so let’s hope that’s going to be a trend this year! 😉

As far as the news goes, I am keeping a little watch on the US, as Trump is leaving the White House. It’s still a very odd situation we have back there. And of course, the Corona virus is keeping us all busy. We’re still in “lockdown” until January 19th and to be honest, I’m still not expecting life to go back to any kind of normal for the first half of this year. With the holidays behind us, I think we will see the infections decrease, but we’re still not in the green. However, I am grateful that I still haven’t been infected myself and keep doing what I can to prevent that from happening.

So, what are you all up to? Planning to have a great week? Please let me know in the comments!

Happy Monday!

~Jeffrey