Hey everyone!
It's me!
I don't normally do posts like this.
Usually I stick to reviews and when I can remember, cover reveals and book news, but once or twice a year I like to let you know of any changes here, because, for some reason, a lot of you come back and read this weird ass thoughts of mine.
So, you know, thank you for that. :)
This summer has literally been FLYING by. I can't believe it's almost over.
My twins are turning 17.
They are started their senior year of high school in a month.
My youngest is starting grade 1.
I will be working more in the fall.
So I wanted to get more of the updates I have planned done this summer.
But that hasn't happened.
Because it's gone by soooooooo fast.
And my youngest is ... demanding.
So since being mom comes first (as it should), when the seven year old needs to be entertained, all my bookish plans go to the side.
I've been lucky to find time to read the arcs I'm sent and review them, honestly.
The only reason I have time to write this is because it's raining.
Long explanation for something so simple ... which is why I called myself the rambling book nerd.
Some updates I have already done.
Lots are getting done.
Slowly.
Won't be finished until the fall, when my kids are in school and I have a few hours to myself, but I'm working on them when I can.
What's been done, and is the most obvious to my regular readers, is that I moved the links organizing books by tropes and genres to the top, main menu, instead of the side.
I did this for a few reasons.
One of them being that the tropes menu is long. And getting longer, because I'm going to be adding to it. Considering it's listed in alphabetic order, it was time consuming to add buttons, as I had to move them all individually to add new ones. Another reason, is that every time I went into my editor, the buttons scattered, and I had to fix them every. Time.
Not worth my time.
And finally, the buttons were not mobile friendly, which is just not acceptable.
I don't know about you, but 99% of my internet browsing is on my phone.
So I played around, and made my site WAY MORE mobile friendly.
No more continuous scrolling. My site only displays 20 posts per page now, so you can actually reach the bottom of the page now.
That is also where I moved all my widgets, like my goodreads count, currently reading, netgalley stuff, etc...
So if you want to find a book by trope or genre now, look at the main menu. :)
Another thing I worked on was the search bar. It's now at the top of the page, and you can easily type in the title of the book, or an authors name, and if I have read that book, it will pop up! Something I have implemented on my new posts is the addition of trigger warnings.
Now, this isn't THAT new.
When a book had obvious trigger warnings in the past, I put that at the top of the review.
But as I get more and more into the book community, and listen to other readers, I've learned that there are non-obvious triggers in books as well. So I am now adding triggers to my reviews.
As for what else there is to do, well, it's really the same that I started earlier this year.
Continue going through ALL my old reviews and updating graphics, and cleaning up any typos
Add genres and tropes to all my old reviews, so they are included in the searches.
Update all old reviews to new rating scale (which I might change ... we'll see)
Different content. If you follow me on instagram, you will see my content is WAY different on there. More bookish news, bookish memes and funny tiktoks I like to share, new releases, book quotes, and bookshelf tours. I want to share some of that on here as well. So from time to time, expect to see a post showing off some special edition books, or cool book merch.
Work on bookish merch. I have some cool things planned, but the ADHD guys. My poor brain.
Actually send a newsletter? haha
Actually finish one of my WIP
I'm playing around with maybe adding on one or two more reviewers. We'll see. Right now, I like having more control. Maybe I will test it out with some guest posters?
So that is it for now.
Is there anything you would like to see on here? Comment below, or contact me. Seriously, I'm totally open to suggestions.
I have a big year ahead of me personally.
I'm going to brag about why.
My first babies are going to be seniors (I can't believe they are almost as old as I was when I had them.) I'm so insanely proud of them. They had the odds stacked against them, and a lot of people had no problem telling them, and us, that they couldn't do something because they are on the spectrum.
We were told there was a chance they might never speak normally.
They were speaking fluently within the year.
Halfway through middle school, they were both doing the same schoolwork as the neurotypical kids, with the exception of math (which frankly, who cares, because math sucks hard.) They were told by a guidance counselor that they needed to "reign in their expectations" when talking about the future, and because they had some modified courses, they would never get into a post-secondary school.
One of my girls proved her wrong. She has already been accepted to a university, with the expectation that she continues to keep her GPA up and takes one of those modified courses again.
Which she did this summer, and passed with high honors.
My other child plans to apply for college this year.
They both have jobs and earn their own income.
They are both LGBTQ+ and proud. They won't let anyone bring them down for being who they are, and loving who they love.
They are both such sweet, understanding, open, and curious people, and we are so proud of them. I don't know how we got so lucky.
My youngest is going into grade 1 excited for the school year, after exceeding our expectations in kindergarten. She is a big personality, and the definition of chaos and sass, as is typical with the baby of the family. She is also on the Autism spectrum, and while we wouldn't never want to change that, or her quirky personality, there are some things we are waiting for help with.
Like diet.
The girl doesn't like to eat, and considering it's something she has to do to function, and you know ... live.
So lots happening this year. Grad photos, prom shopping, college/university prep, working with professionals that specialize with sensory issues to try to find some ways to get food into our daughter that isn't a chicken nugget happy meal, on top of regular school work, our jobs, housework, and life in general, tim is not my friend ... but I will figure it out.
After all, I do love doing this.
Okay. I'm rambling! BYEEEEEE!!!!