Blogger Confessions

It’s been a while since I’ve published a blog post so I have some catching up to do! Good news is we have officially moved into our new home and everything is set up. I have a beautiful new office that has room for my crafting business and a book nook. The kids love our new home and I am so happy that we decided to sell and upgrade.

I’ve taken a small step back from reviewing as much as I used to. I still have a handful of ARC teams I am happy to stay apart of, but for the most part, I am not signing up all over the place like I used to. I’m still in love with reading just as much as I was when I started this blog journey, but I started writing!

I am happy to say that the first draft of my first work in progress is finished and currently going through personal edits. It’s set to go to an editor in November and I already have a cover designed! This whole process has been a whirlwind of crazy but I am so excited to see where this new journey takes me. I will be writing under a pen name since my husband is still active duty, so if you’d like to reach out and find out more, be sure to click the Let’s Talk and send me a message! I love connecting with readers and writers!

Since this blog is for my reviews, I won’t be posting my own work here… wouldn’t look right if I started reviewing what I write haha. But I will continue reading and reviewing as I am able to with this new journey I’m on.

I hope you all have been safe!

Much love and all the happy reading,

So before I dive in, just let me say that it’s been a LONG WHILE since I’ve logged in. Reviews and blogging took a major backseat because we have HUGE news. I’ll get to that soon.

The world gone to shit, like literal shit. My daughter is high risk so we’ve been self quarantined since mid-March and with two small kids, it’s been… tiring. My current house is 1200 square feet. There is NO ESCAPE from anything in this house. And quarantine taught me that I love my kids, but I need an escape route.

So last month, we made the decision to put our house up for sale and upgrade to a bigger home. The housing market is BOOMING right now so to our surprise, we found a home we wanted, a 2200 square foot home to be precise, put in an offer and it was accepted. Then our home took a week to have an offer come in. It’s been a SUPER FAST PROCESS! But with the process of selling a home comes all the things you weren’t ready for. Repairs, painting, more repairs, more painting, making sure everything looks good.

Y’all, my stuff has lived inside a pod for over a month now. I miss my stuff. I miss my knick-knacks. I miss having a home that FEELS like a home.

We have a little under 3 weeks left until we close on both homes and officially start a new journey in our new home. But this move has taught me that I am NOT superwoman and I have fallen so behind on my reading and my reviews and just life in general.

So over the next week or two, I will be doing my best to catch up on EVERYTHING! The repairs and painting are almost done, and once they are done, it’s just a waiting game for our new house to be ready. Once it is, it will be balls to the walls again with crazy, but until then, I am taking the time to read and relax because I honestly don’t know when I will get that opportunity again.

Thank you all for the patience with me as we work through this and move on to a bigger home. I appreciate you all!

It’s been a while since I’ve just posted a regular blog post so I figured I’d come do that. I’m not even sure why… D2 The Mighty Ducks is on TV, my youngest is playing video games because it’s technically game night but she’s the only one who actually cleaned her room. So here I sit, just finished another review… not sure what else to do. Luckily I am caught up on my backlog of reviews until the next set of book releases roll through. I have a few on my TBR that I have been patiently waiting to dive into but haven’t had a chance to so I will probably fire up one of those soon.

I am actually really excited for how things have started falling into place with the blog. I have more of a system in place that has helped me keep track of everything, I am posting a review each day, or trying to. I even have a running draft for my best of reads for the month that I add to each time I finish a book that I know belongs on that list. It’s been really good having this type of routine with it. And to top it off, my amazing husband bought me a book blogger planner for Valentine’s Day! It has everything I need to track my TBR, my reviews, and even spots to help me with my bookstagram account! It’s amazing!

I am really excited for how all of this has slowly really started to come together and now that I have this routine in place, maybe I can find some time to write my own. I only have my prologue written so far, just need to find the place outside my fear and just go with it. I won’t know unless I try.

But I guess this is it, enough rambling from me… at least until next time.

Be sure to stay tuned, I have quite a few books coming up for review soon that you won’t want to miss and I know you’ll want to have them on your TBR too!

Happy reading addicts!

So today, I’m doing some major work on the blog. And I got to thinking… I want a welcome page. So I wrote it up, set it as the static homepage, updated how my reviews were listed so now they are separated by the year I reviewed them versus one long giant list. I got together a list of all of the books I read in 2019 that were published in that year to make my Best of 2019 post. And I am slowly catching up on the reviews I am behind on.

And then I stopped. And looked at my window and saw my Word doc open in the corner… my work in progress. I’ve only made it as far as getting a prologue written. I haven’t taken it any further than that. And I sat here staring at the Word icon and tried to figure out why I can’t get past the prologue. It’s fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of judgment, fear of failing, fear of not making it. But how do you even know you can do something unless you take that leap and do it? How do I know I am going to fail? How do I know that I won’t make it? I already know that judgement will happen…. it’s just how the world works. As people, we are naturally inclined to judge. And so, I am going to work on that book some more. I don’t know where it will take me, but I won’t get anywhere unless I try.

So I am going to go back to working on reviews right now, because I am behind and I can’t work on my own stuff knowing that I am behind on this other stuff. My brain would just keep telling me that I am finding ways of putting off the reviews and I can’t do that. The authors who sent me these books put their trust in me to do what I said I would do.

Until next time…

The start of a new year always means reminiscing about the last 365 days. What did you do with the last year of your life? What did you want to do, but never go around to? Did you get that checklist done? For me, this time of looking back is seeing where I could have done better, been better, and where my strengths are.

Let’s be real here, I suck at the whole updating every day thing. I can try and try but I will ultimately fail because I just don’t see myself being able to come in and do a new blog post every day. Reviews are different. So I decided, once a week… I will come in and do something. I will review every day but with the blog itself, it will become weekly. I haven’t fully decided yet on what aspect I will go into every week and I have to figure out if this is a weekend thing or what. All I know is that everyday blogging isn’t my thing. And that’s okay.

2019 held a lot for me. I read SO many books that it’s kind of ridiculous to look at my final numbers and be like WOAH, I read THAT MUCH? My finishing total for 2019 was 1007 book. Yep, one thousand and seven books. Some were re-reads, but majority were brand new to me reads. I like to blame the deployment because I needed the escape, but he came home in August and I was still putting away up to three books a day.

This year, my word for the year is Focus. This is more of a broad word than I have used in the past but I need it so badly. Focusing on God’s word, focusing on my family, my health, my self care, my time, the moments that may look small but are actually a pivotal part of the bigger events. These are all the areas I want to focus on.

I’ve also decided to balance my time better. I am putting an effort into making time to make time. I want to write, I want to read, I want to continue my crafting business, I want to do ALL these things but balancing my time is impossible. So I took my Panda Planner back out and I decided to give it another go. Because I NEED this.

This weekend, I will be posting another blog post. My top reads for 2019. And that is going to be a feat for me because I read SO MANY BOOKS, but I want to narrow it down and really showcase the creme de la creme, the pick of the litter, the top of the crop… and all those other analogies that make sense in this situation. I am taking the next couple days and pulling together my top reads. I don’t know how many I will feature but this is something I want to do and maybe it will make way for a new monthly post of reads for the month.

Thank you for hanging in there with me. I can’t wait to see where this new year will bring this journey.

So my husband returned from deployment a couple of weeks ago, which curved everything I had in my routine. Finding a new rhythm when you’ve been going one way for so long is pretty tedious. It is not easy at all. So while I have kept reading, I don’t read near as much as I was while he was gone and I definitely haven’t been blogging.

To help me find a way to really get myself in gear again, to build this blog up like I want, I got a new planner. Real talk – planners only last a month or two in my hands and then I forget their existence and they become banned to the outlands that is known as my closet/desk/filing cabinet. Not even a joke. So here I am, attempting to use this new planner to help me figure out life with everything I have on my plate. I am a mom and wife FIRST. Then I am a leader at Celebrate Recovery at my church. I am a den leader for my son’s cub scout pack. I am a business owner of a small crafting business. I am a book blogger. I am a member of a group of amazing women at my church, well two groups – MomLife and a Military Wife small group.

So with this planner, I am going to try and figure out life while handling everything I have on my plate. From meal planning to cleaning to laundry for the home to all the extra stuff I do because for some reason, I can’t SAY NO. But I want to make this work. For me. This blog is FOR ME. And I want to build it up. I can’t say it enough, I want to spread my love of books and share that love with everyone I can.

If you’ve been with me so far, don’t give up on me yet. I promise that big things are coming. I just have to find the rhythm and get myself in gear.

Here’s to a promising new beginning, a new rhythm and finding what works for me!

I’ve been staring at this blog for a long time, not sure where I want to take it. If I want to take it anywhere. I love reading. It’s what makes deployments bearable. I love reviewing the books that I read. I love sharing what I read with everyone. But for some reason that isn’t enough.

A couple months ago, I started in the venture of writing my own book. I don’t know if I will ever publish, or even share my work. I got through four chapters and then I stopped, unsure of what I was doing. Becoming a writer is a HUGE deal. And it terrifies the hell out of me. When I review books, I am reviewing works already done and read by hundreds or thousands of people. And here I am trying to write a book.

So now I am debating on revamping the entire blog and making it more than just book reviews and a place to randomly share my thoughts. I want to share my writing, recipes, and my story. My very real, very painful story. I’m not there yet, but I am working on it.

Next up on the reviews is one of my favorite series – The Titan Series. A 12 book series by Cristin Harber. I’ve read them before and I’ve always found that reigniting my love for posting my reviews could be found in a book I’ve read before. So here I am. Re-reading a series that I loved so that I can share it with all of you.

See you on the review page. And be sure to stay tuned for my revamp.

It’s been a while since I’ve written an actual blog post. I have no excuse other than I just wasn’t feeling the blog for a while… including my reviews. Shocker I know. But then I received an ARC from an author I’ve been following for a while, it was the 4th book in her series and one I have been waiting months for. And I knew that I needed to make my way back here.

Since I posted that review, I have posted a review on every book after it. I plan on taking the time after each book to put together a review for this site. I feel ashamed that I didn’t do this in the first place. But this is my learning curve, my ability to make things right and better for this blog. This is not meant to get any bigger than it is… just a place where I can share my personal insight on each book that graces my Kindle.

I have put myself out there quite a bit more with authors. I am networking and hoping to get more ARCs in the future. These will be reviewed here as well as on Goodreads. I’m also hoping to break into the world of reviewing on Amazon but one step at a time.

So here I am laying all of this out for you. I don’t even know if anyone reads this… but when the day comes that someone does, I want them to know. I am not perfect, I never claimed to be. I am just a reader who loves books and wants to share it with others.

So until next time……

When I first started this blog, the goal was to be on it every single day. Whether it was making a new review post or it was a new blog post, my GOAL was to do something with it everyday.

Obviously that hasn’t happened. Life happens. Things happen. It’s okay that these things happen. The best laid plans may not be the ones that always work out… however… they will be the ones that drive you to continue doing whatever it is that you planned. So here I am…

I’ve been fighting a sinus infection for three weeks. THREE WEEKS! I’ve been on three separate antibiotics and not a single one has touched it. So in the next couple days, I will be getting a call from my primary doctor and hopefully after discussing everything with her, we move forward with the next step in the process – a referral to the ENT.

As the graphic above states, “everyday is a fresh start”. So here I am, with a fresh start on a Sunday. A fresh start to my day, a fresh start to my week. I have a plethora of books to review but I promise not to overload all in one day. I am still reading every day, sometimes multiple books a day. Reading is still very much my escape.

During the days I haven’t been on here, I also made some decisions regarding my reviews. I don’t want to just post the good and amazing. I want to post the ones that had me questioning why I even read that book. I want to give my own personal review. Constructive criticism, if you will. But part of me is TERRIFIED because I don’t want anyone to come at me for posting negative reviews.

So I will do my best to post my most honest reviews on the books that I read. I will give my honest feedback, whether its good or bad. I will be posting a few reviews later on this morning. Until then…

So while hanging out on Goodreads last night, updating my profile for my reading challenge, I got a message asking me to read and review a novel by an author. WAIT… WHAT? Me? I never imagined this would ever happen. Like ever. Seriously. I just enjoy reading and now I have a book downloaded into my Kindle library that was sent to me by an author who wants an honest and open review of her book by me. ME? Whoa, my brain just exploded. Like seriously. I never pictured this happening. Seriously. I admit, some part of me screamed like a teenage girl who just realized she was going to her favorite boy bands concert. Yea, it was that exciting. I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon after starting my blogging and review adventure.

So now, I am sitting here wondering am I really good enough to do this? I’m just a really avid reader, I mean, my book count is now at 305 books for the year. When I posted on Facebook, I got some comments telling me about reviewing professionally. MIND BLOWN. Wait, what? REALLY? Could I really have a job that lets me READ BOOKS and REVIEW THEM? WHAT?

When I started this little blog adventure, it was never in my mind that I could actually do this for a profession. I know there are people out there who do, but I never once pictured me being one of them. I am just a military wife in Fort Campbell reading books to escape the daily life of deployment. Seriously.

There’s so much to think about in a venture this big. So much to consider. I already read plenty of books, and I have a lot more in my “want to read” list. Can I do this? Can I really become a professional book reviewer?

Time will only tell. For now, I will read the book the author sent me and I will give it my most honest review that I can. You will see it up hopefully by the end of the day because no matter how hard I try, I can’t slow down how fast I read. If this is something that happens, then I will be excited to move forward with it. And no matter what, I will continue my love of reading and I will continue to share my love and reviews with each of you.

Until next time.