It's been a while...

Busyness.  At times it seems so all consuming; between the kids, the household, work, and life in general, it seems to just pile high like the snow.  After a stretch of time, when you start to glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel, you want to lace up your shoes and sprint toward the finish line.  Not the finish line of life (I'm not that old yet, lol), but the end of whatever it is that you've been working on, that has you completely bogged down.  That thing in life that enters your world for just a season, then like a flash, it disappears.

After a little over 1 year (has it been that long?) of taking online classes (only 3), my last class I am in will finally come to an end the Sunday before Christmas.  Yes...you read that right, the Sunday before Christmas (talk about bad timing)! Also bad timing would be my broken laptop (for the second time) while taking classes!  That requires me to do all my schoolwork at work before and after hours.  While it might not be the ideal date on the calendar, I am thankful for this "extra" in my life to be coming to an end.  I will have my level of certification that is needed to maintain my job, and life can go on as normal (whatever that is).

While I haven't been keeping this blog up-to-date as often as I would like, I have been busy writing and reviewing still!  I've been working on Amy Clipston's street team (she is a ton of fun to work with, I just wish it could be in person), Katie Ganshert's street team (another great one to work with...she has an AMAZING new series out called The Gifting), and reading and reviewing for The Library Journal, a professional review magazine most libraries use.  Needless to say, with everything that has been going on, I was disappointed to see one of my review affiliations had expired when I logged in this morning (BookLook Bloggers)...but never fear, I refiled a new application and hope to hear back from them soon!

So what's been going on in your life?  As you can tell from the pictures above, we received snow over the weekend.  I don't mind the snow, as long as it stays off the road!  It was pretty to watch as I worked at the library on Saturday, then our Saturday evening plans were cancelled (due to the weather), so we put up our Christmas tree.  I've always loved having a smaller tree, but the downfall is that you cannot fit a lot of ornaments on it.  Which I'm okay with, I would love to only have lights on it...but the children, they feel differently.  They love to look the decorations and recall when and where they received them or made them, and because of that reason, we tend to rotate ornaments each year.  So while the tree may look sparsely decorated, it's not what's on the tree that matters; the memories that are made from year to year are what will last with your loved ones for a lifetime!