It's Like the End of a Horror Movie

...because you may have thought I was dead and gone, but...surprise! I'm still here!

Also, there is no major tragic reason why I've been offline for nearly a month. I just was, okay? There are some complicated family things going on, and it was the holidays, and I was trying to get a pair of socks knitted by Christmas, and I had a bunch of reading to do, and then it just got away from me.

*waves*
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You know what the sweetest part is though? Nicole of Feed Your Fiction Addiction actually contacted me to see if I was okay.

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I spent most of the day today putting together a list of titles for the Popsugar Reading Challenge, which is hilarious, because I'm notoriously bad at doing challenges where you have to read specific things. Still, it was fun, and it made me excited to read (which is also hilarious because hello? I kind of read a lot already?)

I've also come to the sad realization that I will NOT be making it to my Mt. TBR goal, which was 75 books.  17 books in 28 hours is a bit much even for the dedicated and speedy reader I pride myself in being. However, 54 books, the amount of books I read from my classroom library, is nearly 1/4 of all the books I read this year, and THAT is a good thing, right?

I'm tossing around some ideas about New Years and 2018. Not quite resolutions or goals, but just...things to consider trying.  Like controlling what I buy for my classroom better, not to mention controlling my shopping overall. Like maybe experimenting with a return to the process of checking out a bunch of books from the library and then READING OR RETURNING those books before I check out more.

The last couple of months I have started soooo many books that I never finished. Some at home, some at school. Audiobooks in the car. Read alouds with each kid, as well as with each class. Books I started too late and had to return. Books I forgot I was reading and so I started reading other books. This might be part of why I basically stopped writing, or it might be another symptom of whatever malaise was keeping me from blogging. A complete lack of focus will do that to you. I know I do best with routines in place, but then I get resentful of having all these restrictions placed on me. Because, apparently, I'm 13. (Direct quote from my kid: "Stop telling me what to do. You know it makes me want to do the opposite.")

Here are a few posts you can expect hope to see from me in the next week.

• The five star books that snuck in after I'd written up all my five stars of 2017
• Books I gave as gifts this Christmas
• Mt. TBR formal wrap-up post
• New Years Tag bastardized from AJ's tag on Read All the Things
• photos of those socks AS SOON AS I FINISH KNITTING THEM
• lists of books I've been asked to provide lately 
• thoughts about what challenges I will or will not be involved in this year

*high fives self for finally getting a blog post up*

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