*peeks out*

Hi, guys. Um, it’s been awhile.

2016 sort of got away from me. I won’t lament the year like so many have done. It wasn’t terrible for me personally. Sure, I’m a bit terrified for the future of our apparently-fragile republic and saddened over the passing of a few too many public figures, but neither of those are why I stopped blogging.

I just got busy.

Around the same time that I had Kai, I am pretty sure the world started spinning faster and the hours in the day actually shortened. Life with one kid wasn’t easy, but I still seemed to find time to do the things I loved. But life with two kids? Nope. I wake up, I drop off kids, I go to work, I pick up kids, I pick up toys, and suddenly it is time for bed so I can rest up and do it all again the next day. And weekends aren’t any better.  I don’t even want to know what happens when you have a third baby. Do parents of 3+ kids even sleep? I doubt it.

Well, I like sleep. So I gave up on the blog. And, honestly, it seemed silly to keep up the guise of a book blog when I was barely reading (see previous paragraph). And it felt good to let myself off the hook and not feel guilty about not blogging.

But I miss it.

I miss having a place to share my thoughts. Twitter is fine, but 140 characters only gets you so far and everyone just wants me to call my congressman (spoiler: Gus Bilirakis is never going to do what I want). Instagram is still my favorite form of social media, but it’s hard to get out more than a sentence or two. Facebook is still basically the worst, so that’s out. It was always my blog where I could say what I wanted, when I wanted, and sometimes people listened without trying to get their own agenda out in front of mine.

So I am going to see what happens if I let myself give this another try. I will talk about books if I ever find myself reading them.I might share some photos if I ever pick up my camera again. I may talk about politics (y’all should really call your representatives) or work (oh, btw, I just started a new law firm), and I will most definitely talk about my kids.

I don’t know if anyone is still reading this thing or if anyone even noticed that I was gone. But I hope to reconnect with some old friends and try to find my voice again. We’ll see what happens.

Dinner is over. It’s not yet bedtime. I can’t put Kai down. It’s dark and cold (well, Florida cold) outside. Ben is teaching. I am standing up at my kitchen island, bouncing an unhappily teething baby in the ergo, while the preschooler watches an episode of Mickey in the living room, typing this post.

My free time is almost nonexistent. By the time the kids are asleep, the bottle dishes are done, the lunches and bottles are prepared for tomorrow, and the diapers are in the wash, it’s 9pm. We go to bed at 10pm, knowing at least one kid will wake us up in the small hours and that they will be up for good before it’s light out. I get that one hour of free time (and maybe an extra hour on the weekend if – big if – the boys both nap simultaneously). Sometimes I read. Mostly I watch television. But I definitely don’t blog. Nope. I cannot bring myself to use my one hour of free time to “work” on what was once my primary hobby. So I don’t. And this blog stays silent for weeks on end.

Yet I don’t give us all closure and pack up and move on from this space. While I can’t bring myself to spend my free time writing book reviews, I don’t want to give up this space that I made my own – this tiny, minuscule piece of the internet that is all mine.

When I think of officially declaring an end to this blog, I start to get nostalgic. I think about how much life has changed since I began blogging in 2007. I was a law student, with more free time than I thought I had. I read for fun and I chatted about it online. I met other readers and developed deep friendships. I began officially reviewing books at some point and I eventually made it my goal to review every book I read.

But the law student became a lawyer and then a mother and then a mother again. And slowly through all of this change, this blog became less of a hobby and more of a chore. A chore I did not want to do. I read less. I reviewed less.

So now, here I am. 32 years old. A mother. A lawyer. A wife. And yet…still a reader beneath it all. And still wanting to hold on to this little corner of the internet that I create.

So I am going to hold on. But I am not going to be a “book blogger” anymore. I promise no more official book reviews. To be honest, I have come to loathe writing book reviews. I am not clever or patient or thoughtful enough to stand out among all of the other book reviewers. I don’t think my reviews add anything meaningful to the conversation about a particular book. And I generally don’t end up having a conversation at all, but just shouting at the world my generic thoughts about a book.

When I first started “blogging,” I was on vox and I had maybe 15 readers. I posted about what I’d just read, with maybe a few sentences about how I liked it. And those 15 people replied and posted on their own vox pages. I posted about what I was going to read next. I also posted about my travels or school or dance or whatever was going on in my life, but mostly I had small conversations about books.

So I am going to go back to this. I am hoping for more of a “real time” blog again (which is why I am hitting “post” now and not “schedule”). Posting what I’ve just finished reading, what I’m about to start, what I’m listening to at the moment. I am hoping this will be less of a job to me but still allow me to keep this blog going in some form. I hope to also post about my kids and any adventures we go on.

I hope this brings back some of the joy I had in writing.

And now the baby is asleep. Mickey is over. It’s time to play pirates for 10 minutes and then go put these boys to bed. In the words of Evan’s favorite mouse, see ya real soon.