My year in books...

As we approach the end of another year, I thought I would reflect back on what I have achieved reading wise over the year. After all I started this blog initially as a 'book blog'.

This year hasn't been all that prolific for me in terms of reviewing books... REAL LIFE has gotten in the way of this mostly and I do find myself having less and less time for writing full detailed reviews. However, I have continued to read a lot, as always.

Mainly the 2nd half of this year I have been reading a lot of older books, I've been in a bit of a retro vibe! And also, the amount of kindle one-click purchases appearing on my bank statement was getting to epic levels so I actually thought I should knuckle down and actually read the books I have been collecting and putting on my groaning bookshelves! Which, I admit are mainly of the old school variety...

oooh, look at all the pretty colours...

Old skool romance FTW!

And surprisingly I have actually made my way through quite a lot of them!

Going forward, I am thinking of different ways to continue to keep this blog as a book based blog at its core. Such as mini, on the go reviews as I'm reading books or just a monthly summary and star rating... I've not quite decided.

But whatever happens, don't worry I'm still out there reading and enjoying romance novels as aways. Maybe one day I'll actually get through my entire book collection...

Two NEARLY full book shelves (p.s. theres also two more 'non romance' bookshelves in the other room...)

Xx

App for it....

So, it appears you can now blog directly from your phone on the blogger app, who knew?! 

I seem to always be a few steps behind on these kind of things. But be prepared for a lot more photos of Pete being blogged!!

In fact, here's one now...

The Great Big Career Change...

A lot has changed since I last posted on here. You may (but probably won't) remember that earlier on in the year I was having a bit of difficulty with the ol' life/work balance - basically I had none! Cutting my hours back helped a bit, but it didn't take long until the additional duties, and asking me to do extra hours, phone calls on my days off, etc, started piling on again.

It was around the end of summer when I realised that I. Was. Done. with my job. In the nearly ten 10 years since university I have only ever had one employer, and yes I had a 2 year break off work during that time, but enough was enough and I felt a change was needed.

And boy was it a big one. Let's just say going from banking and insurance into working for the NHS is veeeerrrrrryyyy different. Very! Applying for the job in the first place was a bit of a whim, actually getting an interview was surprising, and then to actually get the job was a complete shock!

Fast forward 5 weeks on and after a gruelling 4 weeks of full time training, which included 2 exams and audits, I am now flying solo and finding it, well er, challenging. Going from a job that I didn't like but could basically do with my eyes closed, to one where I actually had to use that brain that I'd buried away years ago has been a bit of a culture shock... But they say you can never go home again so I do want to make the most of this new role.

Not only that it works out so much better for my work/life balance. I only work 20 hours a week now over 4 evenings making it a lot better for me and my husband and Pete the dog!

Watch this space for more updates on the new job...! It might be interesting!

Xx