Friday Free For All

Friday has always been my favorite day of the week and in celebration of that, I've decided to set it aside for a "free for all" posting. It's my day to post chatty, personal, or possibly even non-book reviews. (Occasionally there will be the Friday that has a tour scheduled since they have been scheduled months in advance.) I have been toying with this idea for a while now, and would appreciate any feedback you have. If you really don't like this feature and think it detracts from the flavor of this blog, don't be shy - let me know! Your opinions are important to me.

So here we go......

For the past few months, this blog has been neglected and I really need to apologize for that. I feel I owe all my readers an explanation...

Two years ago, our oldest graduated and went to college, so I had decided that blogging would fill that small void by keeping me busy. This blog started as a place for me to talk about what I was reading, and not have to deal with the glassy-eyed stare I'd get from hubby when I'd start talking about my current read. The blog took a life of its own and became a monster - one that I loved working on.

Then my father died and I buried all that pain in more books and more reviews instead of really dealing with what was going on. That began my downfall. When Dad's insurance check came in and his funeral was paid off, my brother stopped speaking to me and still isn't. The worst part for me is I haven't a clue why. Just a couple of weeks after Dad died, my MIL had a stroke and we found ourselves back at the same hospital Dad died in. Then it seemed to just snowball from there: my godmother was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease, a dear friend of ours began having kidney stone after kidney stone removed and tons of infections with no real diagnosis, my uncle was diagnosed with cancer, my husband's best friend (a dear, dear close family friend) died, MIL had a massive heart-attack that she really never was able to go home from. She had several others and then finally the last one took her from us. My godmother who was diagnosed with Crohn's was misdiagnosed and instead they have linked her problems to arsenic poisoning from her water since the water tests come back with over the top levels of arsenic!! Last but not least... our daughter has graduated and will be leaving for college next month, but is currently away working at a summer camp. Oh, and our friend with the kidney stone problem... the doctors couldn't figure it out and he almost died. He gave up on them and turned to more natural measures. Guess what! He's actually starting to mend!

As all this has gone on, I've done nothing to deal with it, except keeping up with homeschooling my daughter, getting lost in books and trying to keep blogging. It didn't work and I ended up crashing and burning. I think it was all the alone time during the day with our son off doing his internship and our daughter away working at camp, it just crept up and took hold. For me, it's been a time of severe grief and healing. Now it's time to put the "big girl pants" back on and get it all together!!

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger." -Friedrich Nietzsche