Dear 2025, what a great year! Now on to 2026!
What you will find in this month’s post:
*A Year in Review: “Reflections and Helpful Hints”
*My New Reading Book Challenge for 2026
*My Author Friends Posts About Their Past Year
Let’s get started…
January 2025
In January, I joined the Story Storm Challenge.
The idea was to come up with 31 titles in 31 days. It sounds easy, right? Well, it took some brainstorming and I made it! I can’t tell you all about all those titles I came up with yet. I can say, one of them is a book I plan to make this year.
Helpful Hint?
Think outside the box on what you can do with different titles and themes. Since I’m and author and illustrator, art, coloring, and activity books was in my mind for many of the titles I chose. We’ll see how they play out over time.
If you have a special hobby you enjoy, see how you can incorporate that into your stories.
February 2026
Our winter months here in the Midwest are COLD! Our February weather can give some hints of spring now and then, but it sure didn’t in 2025!
One day in the middle of a snowstorm and very cold day, I made my favorite for lunch, something I never do. (When I cook for the most part, it’s always for dinner.) Yep, I chose, “Chicken and Dumplings.” My favorite!
Helpful Hint?
If you live where the months are tricky to get out and about, have all your favorite foods stocked up. This can help in our hot summers here, too.
March 2025
March weather here is cold, but signs of spring do start to make their appearance towards the end of the month. It’s still a time to stay in a lot. I had my Middle Grade book, “Magical Fashion Show Contest” to work on and time to play around with some art projects which turned into cards.
Here is a card I made when experimenting what styles I wanted the triplet’s to look like. After I finished it, I realized it looked exactly like my best friend! How did that happen? Ha! Yes, I mailed it to her. ❤️
Here are some more I made.
Click the play button! The sound is supposed to sound scratchy. After all, they are paper dolls dancing on my wooden art desk. 😂 How fun is that?
PS. If you are interested in how to make these Dollies, let me know. At one point, I was going to produce a coloring activity book on how others could create these, too.
Helpful Hint?
Save back those projects you want to get done inside and do them in March. It’s a perfect time to get caught up with spring cleaning too.
April 2025
This is the time of year our baseball batting cage gets a full workout with Spring Training!
As many of you may know, we have a batting cage in our backyard, and have for many years. This has been going on since our son’s were young. It has been replaced and updated, now for our grandkids and their teams.
This Batting Cage is the length of our yard! It’s big!
This means, practice, practice and more practice.
We can have players anywhere from 5 – 15 years old at our home weekly.
My husband and I don’t hang around at these events. We may watch a bit, but distractions is the one thing these players don’t need. I love watching them at the beginning as they huddle together listening for instructions. Then, they go to their designated stations, their coach, our son, has cleverly set up. These players have learned what to do from the get-go and that always impresses me. They don’t have to be told one time what their role will be for the evening.
Oh, and another thing we noticed with these players? They respect our home and we never find even so much as a gum wrapper or empty water bottle. (Thank you players!) ⚾
Helpful Hint?
April is a great month to get outside and appreciate all the wonders of spring. Take a walk around the block and check out all those beautiful flowers popping up everywhere.
I hope you will be able to attend some sporting events. They will love your supporting cheers.
May 2025
For over a year I worked on “Magical Fashion Show Contest.” (My first middle grade book going solo.) You may remember, Cat Michaels and I worked on, “Just Between Sam and Me,” back in 2020. I have past videos and blog posts on that if you wish to get some insights on how we co-authored. Let me know and I’ll point you to them.
My book was all done and ready to go…so, I thought. What I learned is how things had changed on Ingram Sparks since I published “Moonshadow Mae.” They are always updating to make it better. It’s a good thing, but again a huge learning curve. PS. If you go that route, study their PDF from front to back for their most current rules.
I did things differently this time for my book launch this time around. Instead of running it off daily Facebook posts, I released the news on my websites with posts. I didn’t get the traction I expected, but that’s okay. I needed to watch my time on the computer which I will tell you about in my September section. (See below.)
This book continues to give me smiles from those who have read it and their feedback. Thank you, Reviewers! 💙
Authors and writers, things take time. I’ve learned it’s impossible to expect those out there to learn everything we want to convey about our books on launch day. Please try not stress about these things. Enjoy the ride!
If you want to read more about my book launch, click below. 🙂
Helpful Hint?
Do your homework. Yes, sometimes we have to learn ourselves through the process, but doing lots of research ahead of time, does take away some of the stress.
Book Launches? They are fun and a great way to meet new readers. Don’t expect too much. Your book has a lifetime to launch.
June 2025 – Baseball Season Starts
Let the baseball games begin!
One of my favorite signs I see every year. 💙It’s so true! 💙
Our KC Royals are in full swing so that’s always a fun part of the summer months, too. 💙
Helpful Hint?
Again, another time to have those meals in the freezer or have meals ready to go. Eating at sporting events are great now and then, but doing it at every game, is not something we probably should do…for health reasons. Those cheeseburgers sure are good, though! 😂
July 2025
Our family loves, loves, loves the 4th of July! (My family will tell you, it’s one of my least favorite. The worry of someone getting hurt always hangs over my head.)
We gather with our family and a few friends over for snacks and fireworks and it does always end with fun times.
Helpful Hint?
If you entertain a crowd, I have the perfect meal for you to have on hand.
Tacos!
We invested in a three pot crockpot years ago and it has been a lifesaver for crowds. It has one large pot in the middle and two smaller ones on the sides.
Fill your taco meat in the middle, cheese dip in one of the smaller ones, and refried beans in the other small one. Have all your other ingredients ready to go and everyone serves themselves.
August 2025
In August, I reworked my website a bit. I cleaned out the old, added new and changed the titles of some of my headings, too.
I was excited to add a new page called:
My first guest featured was author and illustrator, Rebecca Lyndsey. You can read more about there here. ►In The Art Zone
Scroll down on this page to see other guests, too.
I haven’t had too many guests yet and plan on doing more with it in 2026. The ones I’ve approached lately are pretty busy with the Christmas season, which is completely understandable.
Oh, and I can’t forget another page I changed. I now have a page called:
You can check this page out, too. ► “Featured Authors – Interviews with Rosie Russell at Books by Rose.”
If you would like a feature on either pages, please let me know. We can set something up for a future interview.
Helpful Hint?
Don’t be afraid to change your website now and then. You will know when it’s time. I’m happy with my setup now, but if I want to change or add something new, I won’t hesitate in the future.
September 2025
Oh boy, with all this computer time, I sure have paid the price for it.
My neck, shoulder blade, and elbow, started hurting like you wouldn’t believe. I even went to the doctors. They put me on steroids, but after one dose, I ended up with a migraine headache. Phew. I thought, now what am I going to do?
After much research, I realized it would required me to do lots of self care.
I now sit with a pillow on my armrest and limit my time on the computer. I think it was a pinched nerve, but I’m not taking any chances from here on out.
Helpful Hints?
Take lots of breaks from your computer. Don’t do what I did and not pay attention to how you are sitting. When writing my middle grade book, I think most of the time, I had my elbow hanging off of our computer desk. I had much less illustrating with this one and more writing.
I’ve also made a goal to drink more water. I make myself get up to get drinks instead of having it sit right next to me.
October 2025
I thought things would slow down by in October, but “Fall Ball” was still going. It was nice to go to the games once the weather cooled down.
Our grandson also plays hockey in the fall and winter months, so we always have that to look forward too. The games are not as long as baseball, they only last an hour each. We love going out to brunch or lunch after the games. If you haven’t attended a hocky game, give it a try. They are so fun and can get very intense.
Crafty News: You can read more ►here if you’d like. At this point, I hadn’t shared what this would be quite yet. Here’s a photo of a craft I made. (See November’s news.)
This also was a good time for me to stay away from our computer. Making hands-on art didn’t seem to affect my elbow issue.
Oh, then something else happened which kept me away for our computer in October. We got a new computer. Woah, things have sure changed since we had our old one. All my drawing programs were no longer compatible with Windows 11 and we had to get all new programs. The learning curve has been tremendous and I have a feeling it will take me awhile to get back to how I made my images and write my books.
Help Hint?
Make sure you save as much as you can when getting a new computer. My husband did a beautiful job doing this. We also have a little black box we save everything to. Memory sticks are very helpful, too. It’s also a good thing to do in case a serge of electricity from a storm runs through your computer. One year, we learned the hard way and lost a lot of things. 😞
November 2025
In November I revealed what my craft would be turned into. Yep, my next book. Although my book will not be a pop-up book, it was fun to plan my story out in a different way.
This image below is one of my favorites. It’s a little window I made looking into a room with a bed and a book. (Beta readers will remember this image with they read this line.)
I did not draw all you see here, just the little girl and the book. I found some illustrations from old magazines to add and added little bubbles for the sentences. So much fun!
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. You can read about that and more here, ►Grateful November News 2025 at Books by Rose
Helpful Hint?
Working in a different way is something we can get stressed about. Try to prepare for upcoming situations. Don’t expect it to go as planned, there are always going to be some glitches. Try to remember, it all works out in the end. I found myself feeling thankful for what we had and not the changes we had to deal with.
December 2025
If you read my blog in December ► here, you know I’m making some changes on my reading goals for 2026. In the Goodreads Challenge for 2025, I committed to 50 books. If you scroll through my list on Goodreads, you can check those books out or go through some of my pass blog posts. Most of these I posted were adult books. I had a few middle grade and children’s books in there, as well.
In 2026, I’m going to still read adult books, but will only report on the children’s and middle grade books. I hope to have a list of them here for you each month.
Having a Little Free Library in front of our home will help a lot when the weather gets to be too much getting out to the library. You can also check books to be read online from your library. I was surprised how many people were not aware of that. I love it! Especially the audiobooks.
I’m not going to put a goal to the number of books I read this year. I’m just going read and enjoy.
Helpful Hint?
When getting ready for Christmas, or any holiday, again, try to prepare as much ahead as you can. I’ve learned over the years, this cut my stress way down. The only bad thing about that, I plan so far ahead sometimes, I forget what day it is, ha!
I found working on our Christmas meal the day ahead was a lifesaver, too. I still had lots of setting up and reheating the day of the meal.
January’s 2026
News and Reading Challenge:
So far I have these 5 star books to report on.
”My Brown Bear Barney,” by Dorothy Butler (Author), Elizabeth Fuller (Illustrator)
Cute book with adorable illustrations.
Although Barney the teddy bear goes everywhere with his young owner, her mother says he’ll have to stay home when she goes to school. But the spunky little girl has other plans.
Where does he go?
Readers will love the repetition in this story.
“Make it Yourself Pop-Up Art,” by Pam Chenevert
As you all know, I love paper art and this was a simple book to follow. Readers will be making gifts for their friends and family after reading this in no time.
“Just One Flake,” by Traviz Jonker
This very simple story will leave readers turning the pages.
Will Liam catch one snowflake?
Answer: He does catch on, but not like you would expect!
I like this short book as it may encourage a young reader to try and read it by themselves after a cozy read-aloud time with a loved one.
“Even Yetis Get Colds,” by Carlianne Tipsey
Author and illustrator, Carlianne Yipsey, brings this story to life with her whimsical illustrations.
Poor Yeti, Coco’s best friend, gets a cold! Coco decided she was going to stay on top of it this year and she has a plan. Does it work?
Readers will love this book and will have fun hearing this story to the end.
“Finding Grateful,” Dianne White and Illustrated by Faith Pray
What does it feel like to be grateful?
The young main character in the story walks along the city streets and looks for more things to be grateful for.
A book to read to you little ones, or big ones, too! This book holds lessons in, hope, compassion and presence.
“My Grandma and Me,” by Mina Javaherbin and illustrated by Lindsey Yankey
An universal story for all readers to celebrate love through the constraints of time and space.
The author and illustrator creates together this lovely story about a girl and her grandmother. I’m sure her grandmother is shining down on this author as she honors the time they spent together.
“Nana in the City,” by Lauren Castillo
This story about a young boy, his Nana, and a very BIG city!
At first the boy cares nothing about all the noise, the busy, streets, the loud traffic, not to mention, the scary feelings he has when they venture out for a day.
Nana has an excellent idea to help him cope with all these things as they go out the next day.
Will he change his mind about the city?
I’ll be back with more reviews for children’s books in February.
Helpful Hint?
If you decide to make a goal to read a certain amount of books in a challenge, it helps to record your thoughts right after you’re finished. Say you want to re-read a book, will you remember? Many times you won’t and you’ll have to backtrack. Also, since I like to leave reviews for the books I read, this has helped me a lot. 🙂
That’s all I have for now.
I’m wishing you all a happy, happy 2026!
Before you go, don’t forget to tell us some highlights from your year in 2025.
Please don’t forget to check out my author friends posts. You will enjoy and learn so much from them.
As always,
Happy Reading!
Rosie
Julie Gorges
Sandra Bennett