I'm BACK!!! (P.S. It's my Birthday too!) + Giveaway

I'm Back!!!

  I have written this post so many times.  It has been on write, erase, repeat for almost a week now.  If I'm being honest it is now Sunday (and my birthday) and I am writing this post because I NEED to get this up because I wanted it up Thursday.  THURSDAY people, and I'm doing this now. I feel that it's falling flat of everything I want and NEED to say.  Oh, how I have missed blogging but I suffered from something...  Something terrible... Blogger burnout.

Blogger Burnout 

  I left here because I was burning out...  I felt that I wasn't doing the best I could by this blog, I wasn't doing the best I could for all of you, for the books I was reading.  So, I thought with college and home life crushing in on me I would be better off somewhere where there was less pressure. Though moving gave a temporary relief, I began to feel like I was lagging, like I just didn't fit into the blogging community anymore.  Though my new blogging family did everything in their power to make me feel  right, I slipped further into burnout.

 

  The struggle was seriously real and the harder I fought, the more it pulled me under.  I was drowning in the books that I was so excited to buy, the ones I was once happy dancing to receive.  Books were staring at me from my shelves accusing me of neglect, and the longer this happened the worse it got. 

  My solution...  I stopped forcing myself to read.  I bought the books and I appreciated them but I just didn't try.  I was sad and I missed reading but it had to be done.  Miraculously one day I realized that there was no longer a guilt, no longer a pressure.  So, I tried to pick up a book.  I was cautious but I wanted it so bad and to my delight I loved it.  So, I picked up another and another and another. 

 Then my real test came... Writing a review.  I struggled.  I struggled with what to say and if the review was good enough and if anyone would like it.  Then I remembered that pressure that I felt and started to panic. How could anyone ever want to read my reviews when I had been gone?  When they aren't as good as so many reviewers, reviews are?  After a bit of a meltdown I remembered...  THIS IS FOR ME.

  Yes, I want people to enjoy my reviews and my blog.  Yes, I want authors and publishers to want me to post about them on the blog but it's okay if they don't.  I may never be hugely popular but I will have people, authors, bloggers and others that support me and I will do the same.  I hope that many of you will find my return happy.  That you will share your blogs with me so I can visit and start being an active part of blogging.  I want to support others and I WANT to be a part of the community.

So for all of you reading this:

Giveaway

  So because I'm back and super excited about it, and because today is my birthday I want to give one of my readers something!!  You will have a choice of a Book from the Book Depository up to $20 or something from Evie's Society 6 store up to $20 (this is not from Evie it's just I love her store and I REALLY know many of you will love her awesome designs).  The only catch is you have to be in a country in which the BD ships free and if you pick the Society 6 route I will ship when the shipping is World Wide free.

Here's the link to her store if you want to scope out what you could pick:
Evie Seo's Society 6

a Rafflecopter giveaway