Talking about books, food, and life in general…
Woo-hoo! I won these three books from the Read It Forward crew! I’m so excited, I never win anything, ha! More great historical fiction to dig into 🙂 They all three release in January and I’ve already seen some buzz about them, so I’m thrilled to have been a lucky recipient of this giveaway!
The last few months have been pretty tough personally. The loss of my grandfather really put things into a completely different perspective for me. My son also had a medical issue that we feared could be something serious, but luckily turned out to be something very simple.
But those two things have made me really step back and analyze my priorities.
When I first started this blog back in 2008, I had no idea where it would take me. I had no idea how much time I would end up putting into this blog. Of course that was before I had two children and I had all the time in the world to do what I wanted when I wanted to. Now I’m in a completely different life situation. My only “me” time usually comes after the kids have gone down for the evening. I find myself having to decide if I want to read or watch TV. The blog never even crosses my mind. And I’m ashamed to admit how often TV wins out over reading.
I knew things were not looking good for the state of my blog when I started getting serious about keeping a book journal on paper rather than turning on the computer to blog my thoughts. Every time I would sit down to write a book review I realized that my words were empty; they were generic from the previous review. I mean how many ways can I gush about a book? It feels so repetitive to me.
I thought maybe I would “rebrand” myself, incorporate more personal stuff to fill in the gaps that my lack of reading was leaving. But I couldn’t even make myself do that. I’m a pretty private person, and my husband really hates me putting so much out there for the world to see, so sharing personal stuff has always been a challenge.
This is not an easy post for me to write. I think this is harder to write than my first post was. Because I don’t know what I’m wanting to do. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know what the future holds.
But I know that right now this blog is not a priority in my life. I feel a true disservice to my readers. I haven’t had any quality material in a very long time.
I suppose I’ll pop in from time to time when the mood strikes, but nothing regular anymore. And I’ll still be around on social media and I’ll still be reading other blogs. I’m not disappearing completely into outer space 🙂
Maybe someday my blogging mojo will return. Perhaps a few months “off” will jumpstart things back up for me … but for now I have to leave this with a “see ya later.”
… for the week. We are off on vacation! A cruise to St. Maarten, St. Thomas, Nassau and Antigua.
Katelyn has to stay home with the grandparents because she’s not old enough, and this will be the first time Nathan and I have taken Garrett on vacation without the help of other family members.
WISH US LUCK!
See ya next week!
Samantha won my 30th birthday giveaway! I thank all of you who entered and “celebrated” with me. So far 30 isn’t as bad as I thought it would be (… in other words, the world did not end, ha).
2014 hasn’t been too bad of a reading year for me. It started out pretty good and then I lost steam somewhere along the way. Actually I lost steam about the time I found out I was pregnant AND moving out of state (which was in the same month) … so can you really blame me?
But here’s something I discovered as I was living with my parents during the 3 weeks that we were between houses and technically homeless.
It had been entirely too long since I had picked up a book on a whim at a bookstore and just read it.
So this really got me thinking about 2015 and what I wanted to “accomplish” with my reading. I know it’s going to be a tough year. I still have a gazillion things to do with this house (boxes are everywhere). And let’s not forget the fact that almost mid-way through we will be welcoming another child into this world. So to say that 2015 will be insane .. yeah, that’s a pretty good description!
So …. I am taking back my reading in 2015. I am not going to accept review copies (I have three more previous commitments left, one scheduled for later this week, one at the end of December and one in January – after that, I’m done for a while). I am going to read my books. I’m going to read what I want when I want to. I’m not going to worry about how many books I read, how many pages I read, how many books fit challenges that I’ve signed up for. Nope, nope and nope.
I am reading for me and me alone.
I am not officially signing up for any challenges at this point. There have been a couple of TBR centered challenges that have seriously caught my eye. But I tend to feel bogged down when I sign up for those things. So I may or may not be participating in any challenges. And if I do, it will more than likely be unofficially and something that I keep off the blog.
2015 is going to be a year of reading for me.
And I’m sooooo excited to start!!
Wow is my life just about to get totally insane!!
Since 2008, my husband and I have been living in Paducah, KY. We were brought here by a job opportunity at the City for my husband. It’s an hour away from home for us, and overall, we’ve been very happy with our time here.
But there comes a point in time when you want to move home. This happened shortly after we welcomed Garrett two years ago. We’ve been antsy to be closer to our families ever since then.
But engineering jobs in southern Illinois are few and far between. So we knew that it would be a long and difficult road to get us back home.
My father owns a concrete company. He has wanted my husband to come into the company for quite some time, but the timing was never right. Three weeks ago he had a plant manager put in his notice. Shortly thereafter, he offered my husband the position. And he accepted.
So we are moving back home. Finally.
This is coming along with some other things going on. We have a house to put on the market and sell. We have to find and purchase a new home. We have to find a good daycare to place Garrett into (the first one we toured last week was a huge bust).
So my life is about to be turned completely inside out. But when we’re all settled it will be well worth all the hassle that comes with moving out of state.
I’m posting this because I have a feeling that I’m going to be going very quiet here on the blog. I’m just not going to have the time until things get a little more settled. I have previous commitments that I will still be able to meet, but I will most definitely be slowing down for some time.
Just wanted to let everyone know what was going on in my neck of the woods. Hope everyone is doing well. Have a great weekend! Happy reading!
So a couple of weeks ago you might have caught my review of Deborah Crombie’s The Sound of Broken Glass as part of a Partners in Crime Blog Tour.
If you did miss it, I sure hope you take the time to check it out now. It was a really good book, and even if you have never read any books in that series, please don’t be scared to jump on board.
I’ve been alerted by the Partners in Crime Tours team that Ms. Crombie is going to be appearing on Blog Talk Radio tonight at 7pm eastern time.
I hope you have time to not only spread the word about this opportunity but to stop by Blog Talk Radio’s website, listen in, or maybe call in and chat with Ms. Crombie!
Just a quick post to claim my blog on Bloglovin. I’m not entirely sold on it yet (curse you Google!), but if this is what you’re switching over to I hope you change your settings accordingly to follow me.
I now return you to your regular programming 🙂
I’ve been toying with this idea for quite some time. But I was always hesitant to pull the proverbial trigger. So here goes….
This blog is going to be taking a new direction. I will still be posting book reviews, but there’s going to be a lot more to this blog from now on. Obviously this has already been quite a year for me personally. I am going to be welcoming my first child in early June. My hometown just got hit by a tornado, and three of my family members’ homes are either severely damaged or destroyed completely. There’s a lot more going on in my life than just my reading. I’ve only finished 5 books this year. I’m not posting enough. I have a lot to say, just not all of it revolves around books. I don’t really want to change my blog name/address. I don’t really want to start a new blog completely. I just want to morph this blog into something else to suit my needs.
I hope that I don’t lose followers/readers by making this decision. I understand if I do, though.
I just wanted to let all of my readers know that I’m being spotlighted today over at Kittling: Books as part of her Scene of the Blog series.
To go directly to the post where I’m spotlighted at please go here.
I hope you’ll go over to her blog and check her place out and find out a little more about me!
Tales of a Book Addict 