Monday, December 21, 2015

Monday Musings

Monday Musings #4,

Musing Mondays is a meme hosted by Should Be Reading, in which book bloggers muse about about something related to books. (Usually.) Rants, raves, random thoughts are all welcome here. I personally will be using Musing Mondays to talk about my other job: being a middle school librarian.


Musing Mondays / School Library Updates

Welcome back to my corner of the world!

So much has changed since I last posted. Yes, I am still the librarian at my school. What is new, is that I am now also a wedding photographer. This is something I've been working SO HARD at, and I am so proud of where I am.


Because of this change in my plans, I was VERY busy this past year. I had 1-2 weddings every week, on top of my other job, and coaching cheerleading. So, as I was afraid of, I cut time by cutting reading.

Like every new year, I am trying to push my reading habits back to where they were, and here I am.

Our book fair, I am proud to say, did the best this year than it has since I've worked here. I believe that is due to the fact that the book I recommend to students this year was The Zodiac, by Stan Lee, AND it was available in paperback, for only $8. As a book lover, I'm surprised when we get the book fair, and they have older titles available only in HC for 12-20 bucks. My middle schoolers don't have a lot of money, and asking parents for $20 for a single book is a hard sell. It was much easier this year to show them a quality book for half the cost as usual.

So, that is my quick and short welcome-back Monday Musings. I've been thinking about posting some wedding photos too, but I don't know if anyone would enjoy that, either. Do you prefer book-specific blogs? Or ones that are a bit more personal? Just let me know!

Monday, January 19, 2015

Hello, Goodbye, Welcome Back!

A hiatus was never planned, but like most things, it was inevitable.

I hate to make excuses. However the fact remains that I have a life outside of blogging, and it doesn’t always align with my blog’s goals. I’m sorry. I hate to leave something ‘unfinished’ and without updating I plan on taking a leave, but I didn’t know until it was too late.

As you all know by now, I work as a librarian at a middle school. While that may seem like the perfect job to correlate to a book blogger, it doesn’t really. That, and I have a two year old.

My husband ended up having to work 90 hours a week for months due to his boss being in a car wreck. Have I mentioned we also have three dogs and a cat? Our house is a zoo.

And, when it comes down to reading, I can’t always read exactly what I want BECAUSE of my job. I felt guilty not reading and reviewing recent releases. In my middle school (6-8th) the reading teachers really focus on genres. In 6th grade, the teachers start discussing dystopian. Without fail that for the first month or so, those students only want to read dystopian and ask me for recommendations. I have yet to read the Ugly series by Scott Westerfeld, but it is high on my to-read list because students always ask about it. 
  


In a round-about way this is an ‘I’m sorry I’m not sorry’ apology. Once again I had to remind myself, this blog is more about ME than you, the reader. I am not a popular blog, I do not have publishers mailing me books to share with you, I am under no obligation to post new books. I am however unfaithful if I don’t blog often. So there you have it.

My blog is back once again, but the content will be more well-thought out and planned than before. It will be purposeful. I hope you will once again contemplate following me on this journey! 



-----
Weekly Recap
Books read:
All the Bright Places, 2 stars, review to come soon!
Black Ice, 3 stars, review to come soon!
Some kind of Normal, 3 stars, review to come in June
Gone Too Far, 4 stars, review to come!

Upcoming reads:
The One
One of the Guys
When Reason Breaks
Fairy Tale Reform School: Flunked