Update: 12/5/18

Hey everybody. I wanted to take a moment to give you a quick update on what’s going on with me and the blog.

THANKS!

First, I want to take a moment to thank everyone who responded to my Rating Scale Update post. So many of you left a comment either here on the blog, or on Twitter and each of you gave me some great feedback and left me with things to consider. I really do appreciate it. I’m still contemplating what I want to do in terms of whether or not to continue giving a star rating, and I may do a trial run for a few reviews to see how it goes.

THE DREADED CERTIFICATION EXAM

On Tuesday night I took the “final” exam for the certification course I’ve been enrolled in this fall. I say “final” because it’s the only test we’ve taken and it isn’t for a grade. This is just one of those preparatory courses to help you take the real exam later. Tuesday was a 90 question test and I have no real idea how I did. I’ll find out next week. But the good thing is the class will be over after this Tuesday. Woohoo! The bad thing is I still have to study for the real exam which will be twice as long. Did I mention before it only has a 57% pass rate for first time test takers? Yeah…57%. This is gonna suck.

I’m scheduled to take the exam December 31st. Between now and then I have work (obviously), family coming into town, have to clean house before family comes into town, multiple ballet performances to attend (to watch my daughter), and Christmas. At some point during all that I’ll be studying for the exam. All that to say I won’t be publishing much here on the blog until January. I may do some quick easy stuff like Waiting On Wednesday posts and maybe even some year end stuff like best of’s and ideas for next year, but don’t expect a review. It may happen but don’t count on it. Reviews just take more bandwidth than they probably should.

AND THEN…

And then in January we are taking a family trip to Jamaica! My father-in-law is thinking about retiring and before he does and the income diminishes he wants to take one final big family vacation. So the in-laws are paying for my family and my wife’s brother’s family to all take a group outing to the Caribbean. I know, it’s a hard knock life.

We’ll be going about mid-month for about five days. The trip will obviously cause a delay in posts too. But I’m not complaining cuz JAMAICA and we all really need the vacation. If you follow me on Twitter you’ll definitely see more posts about the trip as it gets near and if I can figure out whether our data plan will work you may see some updates while we’re there. I’m currently deciding on my reading list for the trip which I’ll probably post about too.

What Am I Reading?

“What,” you ask, “you have time to read but not blog?”

Well…um…yeah. I’m always reading. When I get burned out on studying it is my go to thing. So yeah I’ve been reading and yeah my list of pending reviews has piled up a little, but I’ll get to it.

At the moment I’m reading A Tale Dark & Grimm by Adam Gidwitz.

“Why that book?” you ask. “Isn’t that a kid’s book?” you ask. Well, back in January I told my kids I wanted to read one book each of them recommended. I took a long time to get around to it but I figured now was a good time. A Take Dark & Grimm is my daughter’s recommendation. She loves this series and this author. She even reviewed one of his later books for our local independent bookstore a couple of years ago. When she put this one on my TBR I couldn’t say no. So far I’m enjoying the read. It’s a funny re-telling of classic tales of Hansel and Gretel, and it has a great narrative voice. I can see why kids would love it. After this I’ve got to read some Percy Jackson.

Well that’s all for now. Be on the lookout for some quick easy posts between now and January and hopefully a delinquent review sometime after that. Until then happy reading (and thanks for sticking around).

OH! I almost forgot. The blog turned a year old back in November. I didn’t say anything at the time because I was busy and not posting anything. But yeah…that’s kinda cool.