I'm back!

Or, at least I hope to be. 

I know I haven't been around much lately.  It's been almost a year since I posted.  Yikes.  Let's just say that life has been crazy, I've had some health problems (one of which makes me feel tired all the time) and well, life is crazy. And unfortunately because of my job I'm away from home for about 12 hours a day.  So it doesn't leave a lot of time in the evening for other stuff, and weekends are spent doing all the other stuff I never get done during the week. Sometimes it sucks being a grownup and needing to have a job so you can pay bills and rent and buy food and stuff.  I miss college...

Anyway, I've missed blogging over the past year.  Yeah, it had kind become yet another task I needed to cross of my "to-do" list.  I think I lost my focus.  I forgot why I was blogging in the first place.  All the social events and things are fun, but I really started this blog to share my love of books with other readers.  So in trying this restart that's what I want to get back to.  Hopefully a few of you stuck around long enough that I'll still have readers when the posts start flowing again. 

I do want to send a big thank you to Jennifer, Katherine, and Suzanne.  You know who you are.  :)  It's been the thought of all of you over these last few weeks that's made me want to get back into doing this.  You've definitely been my motivation, so thank you for that.  I hope all of you are doing well!

I haven't posted reviews in a long time, and I feel like that's a "get back to basics" thing I want to start.  But in the meantime, my tastes have branched out.  So although you'll still see me review lots of YA and MG like I always have, I might sneak a few other genres or picture books in there (because I'm finding I'm quite the picture book junkie lately). 

My goal right now is to put up at least 1 post per week.  I know, I was doing about a post a day back in my peak (right around 2009).  But with life the way it is right now, that's kind of a worthy goal.  We'll see how that goes for awhile and maybe step things up along the way. I'm also sprucing up the template a bit.  But not much, since I'm really not that tech savvy, and even more so since I don't do Twitter and Facebook and Google+ and all that stuff.  But I'm making some tweaks here and there and updating my sidebars and things. 

So what's coming in the next weeks?  Well, like I said, I would like to get back to doing reviews.  And maybe I'll get back into doing a few of the regular features I used to have going.  I'd also like to continue the YA Book Battle, as unfortunately we only got halfway through last year (since things fell through right in the peak of that).  I don't think I'll pick it up again this year, since I'm easing into things.  But next year?  We'll see.  September will be my blogoversary, and the blog will be turning 7 years old this year.  Yikes!  And by December I hope to have A Shady Glade Christmas again.  But that's 7 months down the line, and getting a little ahead of myself.

So let's try this again, shall we?