I'm Not Dead (Groveling Included!) and A Couple of Changes

I am officially the world's worst blogger. I apologize from the depths of my soul for dropping off the face of the planet for the last several months. Please feel free to virtually flog me if it makes you feel better.

Not to make excuses, but my life has been in almost constant upheaval since September, which caused my absence. First, my sister-in-law was a bit down on her luck and ended up coming to live with us for a little bit in late September. Around Thanksgiving her 13 year old daughter joined us as well. Just to recap, I have 3 children of my own ages 9,7, and 5. So there are now 7 of us living in a 3 bedroom, not that big home. Add in the fact that it is winter in Utah and too cold to go outside and you'll understand that just finding a quiet place to read for more than 2 minutes has been difficult to say the least. It's been a bit of an adjustment but we're making it work.

Then in January, my husband bent over to pick up something and ended up on the floor in massive amounts of pain. A trip to the emergency room later, we found out he had a major herniated disc in his back. Big fun! He was working landscaping at the time so that pretty much forced him into unemployment. In the end, it ended up being a bit of a blessing (not so much the back, that still hurts, but the job situation). A guy in our church let him know of a job opening and now he has a great job making more money and the best part...it's not physical labor. Yay!

Now things are starting to calm down a bit. Life is feeling a bit less hectic and crazy and I found I really missed blogging and I'm hoping to get back on the horse. I did read a little but nothing from the list, just all the fun reads I didn't have time for before. I discovered that my list goal was severely limiting as far as being able to walk into the book store or library and just pick up something that caught my eye. I don't want to keep passing up all these great books because they haven't been deemed 'list-worthy'.

So, I've decided to change things up a bit. I will still take several cues from the list, there are still a ton of fantastic books on there that I'm looking forward to but I won't be limiting my choices to the list. I plan on doing a combination of list books and non-list books from here on out. I started this to read more and to have fun and I think this is the best solution to keep things light and fun. I hope you all understand.

Big thanks to all of you who stuck with me through my extended absence and even just through this very long post.