Category: Miscellaneous Ramblings

… when you can’t help but laugh because your husband didn’t use “the shield.”

Boy mommy’s should understand what that is 🙂

Oh it’s been one heck of a week around our house. I’m on jury duty during the month of April and it is going to be one mess of a month. I can only hope that I will get called soon and be sat on a jury so I can be done. It’s hard when you’re a part-time stay-at-home-mom. And your babysitters are an hour away in the town where you work. But, Kentucky doesn’t seem to care a lick about that situation. I just want to get it over with so they won’t call me for another couple of years. By then it will be much easier with Garrett … of course by then I could have another little one too, you never know.

I finished a really good review book this week, “Evidence of Life” by Barbara Taylor Sissel. I CAN’T WAIT to share my thoughts on it with you. It was such a great book. I could gush for a long time about it, but you’ll have to wait until 4/11 to read my review. I hate when I finish a good book and I can’t immediately share my thoughts with you guys. I’m not a very patient person.

We booked our trip to Vegas over my birthday. Woo! Last year was the first year in ages that I stayed at home over my birthday and while I enjoyed it because Garrett was a teeny tiny baby, I am ready for a weekend getaway with my husband. Bonus is that my brother-in-law and his fiancee are going with us, we’ve never been out to Vegas with another couple our age, so we are looking really forward to having a blast. The bad news is that I only have 3 months to get my body into swimsuit shape. … Round is a shape, right? Ugh. I never have to worry about bikinis again, Garrett leaving me with a lower stomach full of stretch marks took care of that … but I need to lose about 20 pounds (I’ve got a lot more than that to lose, that’s just my goal for July). Either way, I’m really looking forward to the trip!

I can’t hardly believe that I’m already thinking about Garrett’s first birthday. When did my baby become not such a baby anymore? It’s really sad. My mom said that this is the point when she started to get the itch for another child (sadly, I was an only, they were never able to conceive again), and I will say that I have the itch, but it’s definitely not strong enough to even consider it right now. I’m kind of looking forward to having him be a little more self-sufficient for a little while longer before I jump back into another pregnancy and have to start the infant stage all over again. Besides, this year is busy busy – I’ve got Vegas planned, two weddings to attend this fall as well as our 10 year high school reunion … I have no intention of being pregnant during any of that. My clock ain’t ticking yet 🙂

I found out a few weeks ago that a good childhood friend lost her 4 year old son. He had health issues from the day he was born, but to know that she had to bury her son. It just pains me so much to even think about it. I definitely hugged Garrett a little tighter the night I heard the news. I reconnected with her sister on Facebook this week, and she gave me her cell phone number, but I haven’t been able to work up the courage to call or text her yet. What do I say to her? I know I shouldn’t be so selfish, but I’m just at such a loss at to what to say to her … I don’t want to put her into hysterics or anything, but I want her to know that I’m here and thinking about her. It’s a fine line I have never had to walk before – I’ve never known someone who lost their child other than miscarriages. Definitely going to be a hard phone call to make, but it’s one I need to do sooner rather than later.

Well I’ve rambled a lot longer than I had anticipated. And Garrett has napped a lot longer than I anticipated too 🙂

I guess have a good weekend and wish me luck with the jury duty, lol.

So earlier this week one of my favorite bloggers, Trish over at Love, Laughter, Insanity, wrote a very poignant post about being more than just a book blogger.

It’s like she read my mind.

This is something that I have been struggling with for some time now. Most of my loyal followers know that I have considered closing up shop completely.

But the truth is, I worked darned hard to get where I am today with my blog. I worked very hard to get the connections that I have with the publicists/authors/publishers. I’ve made what I consider friends through my blog. I might not ever meet them in person, but I always know that I can count on them for good thoughts, recommendations and insights when they’re commenting.

And it’s like I told my husband – do I really want to give that up? Do I really want to give up 5 years of my hard work just to have a little bit more free time?

Well, the truth is – not really.

However, that’s not to say that some things don’t need to change around here. Because they do. I’m still not 100% happy with the way things are run on my blog. I’m not happy that I have too many commitments to be posting as many reviews as I used to (oh, but my son is SO worth it!). I’m not happy that 95% of the stuff I post on my blogs are memes. I’m not happy that I feel as if I am a book blogger and I can’t step outside those boundaries and post personal stuff.

That’s not who I am anymore.

Sure, I’m a book blogger. But is that really how I want to continually define myself? Is that where I see this blog in a few more years?

Not even close.

I am a mommy. I am a (sort-of) foodie. I am a reader. I am a sports fanatic. I am a dog lover.

And the fact of the matter is that this blog doesn’t really reflect any of that additional stuff. Sure I’ve posted a few recipe posts here lately. And I’ve done a few personal posts, but those were mainly done while I was still pregnant – and hormonal, ha!

Trish made a bold move a few years ago – she changed her entire blog. Well, actually, she merged two into one. And as she explains in her post from earlier this week, she took a risk that paid off.

This is something that I’ve been considering for some time now. To be completely honest, I never truly enjoyed “Tales of a Book Addict.” It’s just a name I came up with on the fly when I was originally setting up my blog. I don’t think I anticipated sticking around as long as I have. And I don’t think I truly understood that your blog name would be your brand, and that it would be nearly impossible to change.

I should have changed it last year when I bought my domain name. I seriously considered it. But then I realized that people wouldn’t be able to find me. And I definitely didn’t want that. And I was also a little scared to take that leap of faith. The leap of faith that my faithful readers (all 5 of you – ha! joking!) would follow me no matter which way I decided to go on. However, it’s a change that I’m not going to be making now. I’ll keep my domain name, but I might change the actual title of the blog itself. To something more appropriate for what I’m feeling.

So, what does this big long rambling post really have to do with anything?

Here’s the deal. I’m sticking around for longer. But definite changes are happening here on my blog.

I am no longer strictly a book blogger. I am throwing that designation out the window effective immediately.

You will see more personal posts about me, my family, my life in general. I will obviously continue to do my book reviews and some book related memes, but I’m also going to incorporate a lot more stuff into my blog.

I also am going to step away from taking on so many review books. When I first got into the book blogging business, I saw so many big bloggers getting free books. And I wanted to know how they were scoring all that awesome loot. Now I’m bombarded by offers. And I’m overwhelmed. I have a very hard time saying no. I’ve taken on WAY too much already and I am actually booked through May right now. So, once I am finished with the commitments I already have on the table, I will be taking a major step back from taking on any more. I will probably only continue to utilize NetGalley and Edelweiss as well as the tour companies I host for.

Am I going to lose readers who only want book-related stuff? More than likely. Will it matter? Not to me – because I know the readers who truly care will stick with me through this transition. They are the ones I consider friends.

Get ready folks, big changes are happening. And I don’t think I am the only book blogger out there feeling this stuff right now. There seems to be a tide turning within the book blogger world. Who knows where we will go from here.

But wherever we go … we will go with our books in our hands and our hearts on our sleeves.

If you’re still reading this – thanks for sticking with me. Please understand this is a change I have to make for myself. If you’re not still reading this – I wish I could say I was sorry. But I can’t.

My name is Tara. And I am now a book-foodie-mommy-life in general blogger. Have a nice weekend and Happy Easter 🙂

… for a few days.

We are off to the World of Concrete in Vegas.

I have absolutely nothing scheduled for the week. Sorry.

I hope to be back to my regular schedule next week 🙂

Way back in 2008 when I first started this blog, I set up a very simple 0-5 rating system. You can find it on my left-hand sidebar. It reads:

• 5/5 – excellent, loved it, wonderful, etc.
• 4/5 – enjoyed it, really good, recommendable
• 3/5 – good but nothing too exciting
• 2/5 – eh, could have skipped it
• 1/5 – hated it
• 0/5 – didn’t even finish

I’ve been seriously considering doing away with the numerical system. I find it harder and harder to put a number to the books I read. I looked back over my 2012 reviews and more than three-quarters of them were rated 4/5.

Sometimes I feel bad when I rate a book a 3. And if you read my description, a “3” is not a bad book. But it feels like it’s a bad “grade.” I think it goes back to my time in school when we were graded A-F … a C was only mediocre.

So what does this mean? I really feel as if I should give up my numerical rating system. I noticed that there were a few review books from 2011 that I left the rating off completely.

Here’s the ugly truth – I don’t review books I don’t like. Why? Because I almost never read books I don’t like … at least not in their entirety. You can find a few DNF “reviews” on my blog. That’s what happens when I read a book I really dislike – I don’t finish it (life is WAYYYY too short to read bad books!) And the only reason I “reviewed” those DNF books was because I was trying to keep track of the books that I couldn’t get through for whatever reason.

I might keep the rating system around for a little while longer. But don’t be surprised if it disappears from my reviews and sidebar sometime this year.

The true reason I bring this up is because I want to start a discussion with you, dear readers.

How do YOU rate books you review? What is YOUR system? Do you have one written out? Numerical? A-F? Or do you just “recommend”/”highly recommend”/”do not recommend”?

I look forward to seeing how you guys rate your reads 🙂

Okay, so my long-term readers might remember that back in November 2010 I was the proud owner of a new Nook Color. I was thrilled to have one. My parents even let me have it a whole month before Christmas. I was ecstatic.

Then reality hit. The battery life sucked. (I am still convinced mine was defective since my mom’s battery life was a gazillion times better than mine … and we had purchased that extended warranty that “promised” a replacement Nook if something was wrong – LIARS! They did all these stupid updates, made me get on the phone with customer service, blah blah blah .. and essentially did absolutely nothing to fix the darned thing).

So it sat. Unused, practically. I think I could probably count on two hands how many e-books I read on the thing. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.

In the back of my head, I was silently kicked myself in the butt because I knew when my parents bought it for me it wasn’t the one I really wanted. At the time I wanted a Kindle. But my mom is so anti-Amazon that she was determined I would not be getting a Kindle. We were having the Nooks and that was that. Okay, fine, but did I really need the $250 Color? No! And in fact, I told her I specifically wanted the e-ink version. That it would be much better to read on. That the Color was going to be like reading on a computer. Yeah, you can see how that worked out – I walked away with a brand new Nook Color.

And at first I was happy. But then I started having trouble with the battery life and by that point I was so frustrated that I never wanted to pick the thing back up. I did read on it here or there a few times. But nothing serious. Heck, I had to charge the thing every night if I used it even 45 minutes (see – it has to be defective!). I would take it to the gym ready to read only to find out that it was completely dead. FRUSTRATING!

Now it sits in my entertainment center collecting dust. Sad, but true.

My birthday rolled around in July. And I got some cash. I was determined I was going to buy that $69 Kindle. My husband talked me out of it – he claimed that I wouldn’t use it because the Nook sits unused. Then I decided that I wouldn’t be happy with the cheap version anyway, so I never purchased one. Christmas season started to hit and I started up again on how I wanted a Kindle. My husband actually went to Best Buy on Black Friday (later in the day, he didn’t fight the crazies at midnight) and purchased me a brand-new Kindle Fire. Came home with it. And then I had to tell him that it wasn’t the one I wanted. I wanted the Paperwhite. He took it back. And found that you couldn’t find the Paperwhite anywhere. And the website says it’s not available to ship until Dec. 21st. I wanted this thing to take on our upcoming trip to Hawaii … before Dec. 21st. So then he said, well what about a Nook?

I got on the website and started looking around and saw that they made a new Nook with Glowlight. I was immediately intrigued. I wanted one. But he made me go to the store and look at it before he agreed to buy it for me.

I walked away with a brand new Nook with Glowlight that day! And that night I bought my first e-book on it (Killing Kennedy) and was reading up a storm on it. As you can imagine, I think my husband is glad that I am actually using the one that he bought me 🙂

So will I stick with this one? I sure hope so. Will it end up in the entertainment center like the Color? I hope not.

Who knows. I’m so fickle you never know what I will decide. But I will say that I’ve bought 4 more e-books and downloaded one from Netgalley already, so I obviously have plans to use this one.

I just still can’t figure out why on earth I let my mother talk me into the Nook Color two years ago! I knew I wanted the e-ink version at the time. But now I have it and I hope I’m happy with it for the long term.

Wow, have I been lucky here lately. I’ve managed to snag two free copies of books that have sounded really great to me. Plus I got approved for another book on Netgalley that has me SUPER excited!

So I bet I’ve got you curious now.

First I snagged a copy of “Fireproof” by Alex Kava from LibraryThing.

Then I got approved For “The Lincoln Conspiracy” by Timothy O’Brien on NetGalley.

And this morning I got notification that I had won a copy of  “The Secrets of the FBI” by Ronald Kessler through Goodreads!

PLUS I’m #2 in line on my library wish list for “Gone Girl”.

I’m a lucky gal who is going to have some exciting reading ahead of me! Hooray!

 

After a good year of contemplating it I finally did it. I have my own domain!! Hooray! I went the easy route and remained with WordPress.com so I don’t have to change anything. I can use everything the same way as I did before, I just have a spiffier looking website name!

WordPress is *supposed* to make sure that all my links get forwarded to where they’re supposed to be. As far as everything I’m reading seems to be indicating, all I had to do was give them $18 a year to make my new address http://talesofabookaddict.com. Hopefully it worked right! Oh on a side note to anyone thinking of making the change, for another $8 you can make your registration private. I chose to do this because they ask for your address and your phone number. And I don’t want everyone to have access to that info.

Please let me know if you have any trouble with my site not loading or my links not forwarding correctly.

In the very hear future I will Be setting up a new email address that is also hooked into my domain.

I think this makes me look a lot more “professional”. Even though I’m only doing this for fun, it definitely makes me feel more established. I’m thrilled with my decision to make the switch 🙂

Now hopefully everything works correctly because I have no idea how to fix anything. Haha

Oh and definitely look for a new site design too. I’ve got the itch to switch things up 🙂

Good Sunday afternoon to you all!

I’m in need of some advice. If you can help me out I would greatly appreciate it.

I have been contemplating dropping the “WordPress.com” portion of my blog address. Yep, that’s right. I want to jump in and make the switch to talesofabookaddict.com (assuming its available).

But I honestly have no idea as to where to begin. I understand that I have to pay WordPress a yearly fee. But is that it? Or do I need to have some kind of a host as well? Like through godaddy or something?

And how much HTML knowledge do I need to do this? Because I have very little. Although I’m sure I could read up online enough to get by in a minimal capacity.

This is something that I’ve been considering for some time now. I’ve just been afraid to take the plunge. But now I’m ready and need any and all advice I can get.

So please tell me, dear friends, any and all experience/advice you have on this matter.

Thanks!!