Hey Guys!

Long time no write – or read – or review – or anything really!

There is literally not a day that goes by where I don’t feel smothered by guilt because I am not doing the things, I committed myself to do when I started this blog. I swore I would write daily or at the very least, every other day. I swore I would provide interesting content to my readers, and useful reviews. Alas, this pandemic has drained me of every ounce of passion I once possessed for my beloved blog.

I have never in my life experienced such an extreme block in terms of reading and writing. It is nearly impossible to focus on a book. I simply pick one up, read a few lines, and put it down again, only to pick up another the next day. Lather, rinse, repeat. These are not DNFs either. These are books I KNOW are going to be fantastic by authors I love. But I just can’t do it. There have been a few exceptions, but it always ebbs and flows with the number of COVID-19 cases plaguing our city, province, country, THE WORLD.

Of course, I realize compared to the world’s problems this is meaningless, but in my small world it is everything. If I’m not reading, then I’m not reviewing. If I’m not reviewing, I am not keeping my commitments to publishers and authors. I’m also not keeping my own commitment to Reads & Reels.

You may be saying to yourself, “But she’s writing right now?” and I guess I am, but this is more of a stream of consciousness. Verbal vomit that I need to get out of my fevered brain. Excuses to myself and to my readers. If I even have any readers anymore. This isn’t creative writing, but it is real, and it is all I have right now.

So, what have I been doing with myself? Well, despite my lack of reading, it seems as though the rest of the world is reading more than ever and that my friends is GREAT for business! R&R Book Tours is busier than ever before, and it has been non-stop! Wonderful news, and I can’t tell you how grateful from the bottom of my palpitating heart I am to all the authors, indie or otherwise, publishers, big and small, and the MASSIVE group of bloggers and bookstagrammers who have made it all possible.

To say life is busy is an understatement and I know I am not alone in this! Both my husband and I have been working from home since March 2020 (Incredibly thankful for continued employment), and our tiny human has been in and out of school. Right now, she is remote-learning, and we are under lockdown.

My day is a coffee-fuelled circus comprised of running a business, a household, home-schooling, running social media for two different clients, and most importantly, keeping my tiny human safe, fed, and entertained. It is accurate to say that I don’t remember when I last washed my hair. People talk about self-care and self-love? Ha! Basic hygiene, meals and more than 5 to 6 hours of sleep a night would be grand. Again, I know I am not alone in this, and everyone is struggling in their own way. I only hope my over-sharing will help people feel better. There is solidarity in this. We are in this together!

Is it any wonder I’m not reading? Even if I had the attention span to read a book, where do I find the time? By the time my house is tucked in for the night, the only thing I am physically capable of doing is laying in bed and binge-watching a show on Netflix, right now it’s The New Girl.

AUDIOBOOKS HAVE SAVED MY LIFE!

My bookish life hasn’t become a completely barren wasteland though. Audiobooks have literally become my lifeline in terms of reading. The one platform I absolutely despised, has become the only way to “read”. I have learned how to be more selective, especially with narrators, and genres and as a result, my audible account gets a regular workout. My exhausted mind, body, and soul simply pops on a book and pulls up a game of Candy Crush and gets carried away. Why Candy Crush you ask? Audiobooks lull me to sleep if I am not doing something with my hands.

60 books completed for my Goodreads challenge and most of them were audiobooks. Wonderful stories I enjoyed immensely but still can’t review. I simply don’t have it in me. I will get back to them though because those authors earned those reviews.

Anyway, I think I am losing steam here, and the ability to conclude this post in a meaningful and succinct way. Brain is shutting down. I will share one last thing with you. There is one small nugget of creativity hiding out under all that anxiety and that’s photography. I take pretty pictures of books and it makes me happy. If I can’t read them, I can at least share them on Instagram with people who are reading.

And on that note, I need to answer 8 billion more emails, and figure out what’s for dinner tonight!

Stay safe and healthy!