Ten Books & Other Things I’m Thankful For In 2024

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Hi everybody, and welcome to a new Top Ten Tuesday!

Today’s topic is a Thankful-freebie in honor of Thanksgiving in the US. While we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Belgium, I do always enjoy listing things that made me happy in the past year. Because it’s always a good idea to focus on everything we have to be thankful about, right? So today’s post is all about the things that I’m thankful for in 2024.

As always, I just want to say that of course I am most happy for my husband, family and friends and their health and mine. That is ALWAYS number one. But this post focuses a bit more on the little, everyday (and perhaps a bit more material) things I’m thankful for. So without further ado, let’s go!

Well, this is a book blog so OF COURSE you knew books were gonna be in this list! Even in my slumpiest days, I couldn’t imagine my life without books. Reading helps me escape for a bit, it helps calm me down, it helps hype me up, it helps pass the time, it just… helps. In every way possible.

So here are just a few of my favorite books of the year:

I’m thankful for music for being my constant companion. Just like books, music just helps me. And shoutout to Spotify, because making playlists counts as a hobby right? Like, any way I could get hired to make playlists for a living? That would be nice.

Here’s just one of my favorite songs of 2024:
(as always my full top ten is coming somewhere in December!)

Yes, this music band gets their own special shoutout, because how often does your favorite band have a comeback after so long and such dark times and how often does it rock this much?
Of course I will always miss Chester and he will always be a part of Linkin Park. But I’m also so happy that the rest of the band is out there again doing what they love and I love the addition of Emily’s vocals. The new album just feels so much like Linkin Park and I’m just so grateful that I got to experience them releasing a new album again!

I’m thankful that I got to see some live music again in 2024! Specifically, I got to go to a 4-day festival that is held pretty close to my home and it was amazing. I saw some amazing artists like Lenny Kravitz, Sum 41, Avril Lavigne, Maneskin, Simple Plan, Yungblud, Nothing But Thieves and Marc Rebillet. AND my personal highlight: I got to see Against The Current live again (my second time watching them live) and it was still just as amazing <3

As much as I love reading, I also equally love being able to get immersed into a really good TV show. And I’ve watched a lot of good TV shows this year. Keep an eye out for that end-of-year top ten post as well, but here are already a few highlights:

BACK TO BOOK-RELATED THINGS 😉 I’m thankful for my Kindle. I procrastinated on purchasing one FOREVER and got by with reading ebooks on my phone. But, as you can imagine, that was not ideal for my eyes. So I finally caved and why did I wait so long? Reading ebooks is so much nicer now AND I can still take it everywhere with me.

In May I went on a trip to Disneyland Paris with my family-in-laws and IT WAS AMAZING. Despite the weather being way colder than expected (but hey, I got an excuse to buy a Grumpy sweater) and the wait for each attraction being super long, I had the time of my life. I’m so thankful I got to go and I already want to go back 🙂

In 2024, I’ve really been thankful for flowers. For those of you who follow me on Instagram and see my monthly wrap ups, flowers have almost always been included. We planted quite some flowers and shrubs in our garden early in 2024, and it has been such a joy watching them bloom. And also on our walks with our dog Pixel, just seeing flowers bloom has brought me so much happiness this year.

I’m thankful for celebrations in 2024 and I’m thinking specifically of my brother’s wedding. It was a beautiful day, the bride and groom both looked beautiful and happy, the venue was amazing, the weather was sunny and everything just went so well. AND I did a speech, which had me super nervous (major introvert here, public speaking is NOT my thing), but I did great so I’m proud and thankful for that!

And, as always, no list is complete without our little spitfire of a dog, Pixel. Thank you Pixel for being a bundle of energy, for becoming more cuddly every day and granting me those cuddles, and for making me go on walks and breathe outside air even when I’m sometimes tempted to hole up inside forever.

Tell Me:
What are you thankful for in 2024? Do we have anything in common?