About Me

So, you want to know about me? Well, I grew up in Virginia, went to school at Alabama (Roll Tide!) and have lived in Kansas (twice), Texas (twice), Georgia (as a stopgap), and this is our second time in Wisconsin.  I’ve been a Chemical Officer in the Army, a distribution supervisor, an early childhood teacher, Tupperware Consultant, Tastefully Simple Consultant, Library Circulation Clerk, and retail Customer Service associate.

Somewhere in there, I got married, had three kids (two in college at Alabama, one is a senior in high school), have been a mom to 5 fur babies (two of them are still with us now; Cleo and Sadie are featured prominently on my Instagram feed), and still haven’t figured out what I want to be when I grow up.

What I like…

If I were to list the things I like to do, or that I used to like to do, I would tell you that I like to read, run, crochet, drink craft beer, and watch football.  If you ask anyone that knows me what I like to do and I can promise you that almost 100% of them will tell you that I like to read.  It is a well-known, long established fact that I am a reading junkie. 

About Me and Books…

When I was little, I used to refuse to get out of the tub until I heard “The Cat in the Hat” just one more time.  Seriously.  I was the kid that brought books to Girl Scout camp.  I pulled many an all-nighter in high school to celebrate the release of a new Stephen King book.  There have been periods in my life since high school when I’ve had more time to read and there’ve been periods when I’ve had NO time. Did I mention that my kids are, start to finish, less than three years apart? I didn’t read anything but picture books and parenting books for YEARS! Nowadays, it’s hard to find time to sit down and read so I usually have an audiobook going in the car and while I’m doing chores so I can still embrace my reading habit. I read and enjoy most genres, which is probably why I get so excited to talk to so many different people about books.

You know how it is when you really love something?  You just like to talk about it?  Yeah, that’s me and books.  I guess I talk about books so much that people have figured out they can ask me for a recommendation, or to share their opinions and ask mine, and I will always listen and I will always have an answer. 

Books make me happy.  Even books that leave me in a pile of tissues weeping for a week; it’s possible that I’m an emotional reader, but getting that lost in a book makes me happy.  If you look at the jobs I’ve had, there is a common theme throughout most of them and that’s service (although service in the Military is on a much broader scale, so that particular job is kind of an anomaly).  In most of my jobs, I’ve been in a teaching and/or serving position and usually the end result is that I have made someone happy.

About My Blog…

Because I want to be a writer, I’m sensitive about telling people when I didn’t like a book.  I want people to like what I write, but at the same time, some things just don’t connect.  They just don’t.  Because of this, I only review my favorite books.  That leaves a TON of books that I liked and would still recommend, but leaves me room to not review books that I read but wouldn’t necessarily recommend.

My hope in writing this blog is that I am able to share reviews, recommendations, and opinions that help you find books that make you laugh, cry, and think.  I hope you read something that takes you back to high school or makes you think of your favorite elementary school teacher or makes you remember that book you and your best friends all read together in eighth grade that you’d totally forgotten about.  Books bring joy and I hope that I can help make that happen for you.