Hello Again!

Hello, friends! I know I haven't been around the blogosphere much lately, due in large part to pure lack of motivation, but the blame for getting zero reading or blogging done last week belongs entirely to a certain lady named Irma.

If I had to sum up Hurricane Irma in a few words, I'd say, "scary AF!!!!!!!" This wasn't the first hurricane I'd experienced; around this time last year, Matthew dumped a ton of rain with strong winds. When I lived in New York, Hurricane Gloria hit back in the 80's, and we had plenty of nor'easters, a couple of blizzards, and one blackout. Irma, however, was set to wallop the whole state of Florida, and as the track kept shifting west, Central Florida braced itself for a direct hit.

With the utter devastation that Hurricane Harvey left behind in Texas fresh in everyone's mind, as soon as Irma started looking fairly serious, people here wasted no time beginning preparations. Melissa and I went out early in the week to try and stock up on bottled water, canned goods, batteries, etc., and stores were already chaotic. I hate going to home improvement stores in principle and only do so when absolutely necessary, and this was a case of absolutely necessary. And it was pure hell. We also filled up our cars with gas, and it was good we went when we did because long lines and empty pumps quickly became a common sight.

Forecasts saw us getting hit the hardest last Sunday night into Monday, and our county, like many others in Florida, put us under a curfew. I camped out at Melissa and Ally's house to hunker down with the rest of our family, and as I was packing up what was essentially a go bag, I realized a few things. One, I have entirely too much stuff. As I was looking around trying to quickly determine what I absolutely could not live without if, God forbid, I couldn't return to my own house, it dawned on me how many things were just lying around, taking up space. I told myself that some seriously de-cluttering was in order, if we survived. And let me tell you, with the way the wind roared through the night, I was truly afraid that we were all going to blow away.

I hope this doesn't sound laughably melodramtic, but it was a bit sobering to think that my entire life was briefly contained in a suitcase, or at least as much as I could fit into it. Extra clothes. Basic toiletries. Important documents. The governor emphatically stated in his news briefings that objects were replaceable, but people were not and to heed all safety warnings. I completely understand that an object is an object and nothing can ever take your memories from you, but I still couldn't help feeling torn over leaving things like family photos behind. I wrapped the albums in a plastic garbage bag and put the bag on a closet shelf, then hoped for the best. My anxiety went into overdrive, and I had visions of roofs tearing off and windows being blown out and water gushing in, submerging everything.

None of us really got any sleep as we listened to the wind howl all night. When daylight finally arrived, I was scared to peek out the window to see if my house was still standing. I was beyond relieved to see that it was, although it does need some repairs. A few houses down, a big tree had fallen; fortunately, it had landed in the street and not on the house. We were extremely lucky to have a generator; our neighborhood lost power for almost 24 hours while other areas were without power for days, and some are still without power.

Around where I live, things are slowly returning to normal. It might be a while before I can once again try to bust out of this horrible reading/blogging funk I'm in, but I'm very, very, very grateful that the damage here wasn't as bad as it could have been. I've missed blogging a lot and am going to try to at least blog hop occasionally. In the meantime, I hope all is well with all of you, and I'll get back to blogging—eventually! :D

A Bit of a Break

One of my favorite quotes from the Shatter Me series is, of course, a Warner one, when he says to Juliette in Unravel Me, "I am so tired, love. I'm so very, very tired." Well, I can absolutely relate to that sentiment at the moment, a thousand times over. Before I go any further with this post, I'd like to say that I know I'm not alone in finding it difficult to balance reading and blogging with everything that's not reading and blogging. I also realize that I wrote a similar post a few months ago. But I think I'm even more frustrated now with how I seem to be spinning in circles in just about every aspect of my life, including blogging. So I'm sorry to once again use the blog as an outlet, and if you wish to bail on this post now, I totally understand.

I've allowed something that I vowed would never happen to do exactly that—I've let both reading and blogging become a second job. This stems from my failure to turn off work mode when I come home from my actual job, which has been keeping me extremely busy as of late. I've reached this point where I actually feel guilty if I find myself sitting for more than five minutes doing nothing. I should be doing laundry. I should be grocery shopping. I should be cleaning the house. I should be writing a book review. Bottom line: I've been trying to schedule every minute of what should be free time, emphasis on the "free" part. Ridiculous? Absolutely, and it needs to stop. I'm tired of heading out most mornings with an upset stomach and generally feeling burnt out and like my time belongs to everyone except me.

So I need to make a few adjustments to my outlook. One, work is work and work mode ends the second I leave it for the day. Two, the blog is not my job, and I have to quit treating it as such. I started out the year with the right mindset, resolved not to get bogged down in schedules and stats. Somewhere along the way since I wrote my blogging resolutions post in January, my resolution to keep blogging stress-free went out the window. Right now I'm finding blogging to be a chore, and so I'm taking a few days (like, five), off. And I promise, it's not the kind of break that starts out short but ends up permanent. I just need a couple of days to recharge my blogging batteries as well as kick this nasty cold I've picked up because I'm quite rundown in general.

After the brief break, I'm adopting a Zen-like approach to blogging. No posts? No worries. I'll write some eventually. As much as I love adhering to a schedule and having posts stockpiled and ready to go, that isn't always manageable for me anymore, and I need to accept that fact. If I can knock out a few posts in a week, awesome; if not, it's not the end of the blog. I love it too much to pack it all in; I just need to take a step or two back and not make it the sole focus of my free time. One of my personal resolutions for this year was to live in the moment more, and I've been a total fail at that so far in 2014. I've got to take more time out to just enjoy life, starting now. And if that means taking short blogging breaks more often, that's what I'm going to do. I'd rather do that and return refreshed rather than struggling to keep it up and driving myself to quitting. And so, I'll see you back here in a few days! :)

The 500th Post

I'm a bit obsessive over stats and stuff, and I just thought it was cool that the blog has officially reached 500 posts. It's also a little hard to believe because I really do feel like the first post only went up. We didn't plan anything special for this milestone of sorts; I mean, I was too short on time/too lazy to even slap together a graphic for this post. We will, however, do something to mark our second blogoversary next month, so be on the lookout for that (and I will come up with an image for that post. By which I mean I'll mostly recycle the graphic from last year's first blogoversary post.).

The Melissa's Big Shakespeare Score

Take a look at my prettyful! Please try to control your jealousy. ;)

I got my hands on this totally awesome copy of Macbeth during my spring break. Story time! So, my friends and I took a four day trip to a cute little town with a beautiful river. We spent a day shopping at various thrift stores buying all the prettyfuls we could afford. Anyway, we were rummaging through a bunch of old books when one of my friends stumbled upon this 1903 copy of Macbeth. I practically ripped it out of her hands. Sorry! It's a good thing we all have different favorite Shakespearean plays or there would have been a full-out war! Mwahahaha!

I love the tragedies and my favorites happen to be Hamlet and Macbeth. I love it when people go insane and kill other people! I know, how morbid, but that's what I like. And old stuff. I like old stuff. I was definitely born in the wrong generation. Anyway, this was a big win for The Melissa!

A Quick Update

Ahh, it feels so good to blog again! I've missed it terribly. It drove me crazy to leave the blog neglected for the five days Melissa and I were in New York, and I felt the need to write at least a short post. We returned home yesterday, and I'm still unpacking and otherwise trying to get myself together. We had an incredible time in NYC, and I hope to assemble a post about our trip—with pics!—soon.

I really want to focus on getting back to a somewhat regular blogging schedule again. I didn't have a chance to watch the final episode of The White Queen before I went to NY; I'm going to try to catch it this week and write the recap post. Not only do I have a ton of reading to catch up on (I am clueless as to what books have been released in, say, at least the past month), but I also have a lot of TV to watch. I'm afraid to look at the space left on my DVR because I don't think it's very much. I think my best bet is to set aside a Saturday or Sunday and do nothing but sit in front of the TV. My buddy Braine at Talk Supe says I need to check out Dracula with Jonathan Rhys Meyers; I'm working on finding it on demand, I promise!

I'd like to thank all of you who continue to read this blog. I really, really, really miss interacting with you; that's been the hardest part about having the time I used to spend reading and blogging cut so drastically. I was quite stressed out about ensuring that the trip to New York went smoothly, and now that it's over, I feel like I can get a better handle on managing my spare time. And now I'm off to try and get some reading done . . . .

Melissa's Fill-In Post

In honor of Lee's birthday, Melissa, the lazy, is writing a post so that Lee doesn't have to work on her birthday! Well, she does have to format this post, but it's the thought that counts, right? How kind of me! I would have written it for yesterday, but Lee was insistent on putting her giveaway up. I cannot fathom why on earth one would give on their birthday when one should be doing the receiving! What can I say, Lee is a strange one . . . .

Happy belated birthday, Lee! I can't wait for you to open your freakin' awesome present on Saturday. (Because Saturdays are much better days for parties than Wednesdays.) If you guys are lucky, maybe she'll show you the epicness. Lee, thank you so much for being such an awesomely wicked cousin and book blogger! I hope you had the greatest birthday ever. I'm sure you did because I made darned sure of it! You're welcome, birthday wench! Don't die or anything until you get your life alert. ;)

On an unrelated note: You owe me a strawberry banana smoothie! Mwahahaha! >:) I told you I'd write the post eventually!

Another unrelated note: This is Larold. Larry for short. He's a fish.

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