Blogging Hiatus: I’ve Been Running on Fumes

Hello friends, I’ve finally decided that I need to take a blogging hiatus. I am usually really good with taking periodic breaks, but this year has been really rough and blogging became one of the few things I looked forward to. Unfortunately, I have been running on fumes for the last few months and have kept putting off taking a break. I do have one important post (Talk Chisme to Me, featuring books by Latinx authors that come out in July) that I want to go up and I will be scheduling it at the end of the month/beginning of July. I will be back July 10th-ish. I will still be active on Twitter and at least occasionally on IG. I might even do some blog hopping while away. I have been terrible with this and I think part of it is that I am exhausted from blogging and by the time I have a chance to blog hop, I just don’t have the energy. I need to refuel and hopefully come back with renewed vigor.

One last thing, there are a lot of resources out there that you can use to educate yourself about systemic racism, petitions you can sign, and lists of companies you can support. Please check out the following:

A Radical Library

Taking Action for Justice

Black-owned Indie Bookstores

Where I’ve Been…

I know many of you are probably wondering what happened to me. I’m usually really good at letting everyone know if I’m taking a hiatus whether planned or unplanned. I’ve gone over in my head what I would say and how much I would say to you when I decided to come back. I still don’t know, so I’m just going to go for it.

I don’t talk a lot about my family. I’m not very open online when it comes to them for several reasons. Some of you may know I have two brothers. One of my brothers unexpectedly passed away. It hasn’t been easy. I have so many thoughts running through my head. Our older brother was always so much older than us and so my brother and I were always super close. We fought so much growing up. So many of my childhood memories are irrevocably tied to him.

I’m still processing. I’m still hurting. But I missed this space. I missed all of you and the camaraderie. So I’m tentatively coming back because I think working on the blog will help me feel some kind of productive or at least help me focus on something else at least for a little while. I can’t promise you I will be here consistently or that I’ll always be on top of comments, but I want to be here. I’ve still got my Latinx Heritage Month series in my drafts and for now, that might be the only thing going up on my blog. I appreciate any offered condolences, but probably won’t be replying to most or maybe none of the comments for this post, just a heads up.

Hiatus Announcement: I’ll Be Back in August

It’s finally come. I’m really nervous about this hiatus as I will be taking the entire month of July off and I haven’t been away from my blog for so long. I’m feeling a lot of things. I’m sad that I probably won’t interact with most of you while I’m away (I will still be on Twitter, but I don’t know how often), I’m unsure about what I will do with all the free time (other people have hobbies that don’t include reading and blogging???), I’m excited for the break (I love blogging, but it can be stressful), and I’m already thinking about August and stressing a little (I can’t be the only one who likes to blog ahead).

The plan is to stay away from the blog for the entire month of July, but you might see me on the Latinx Book Club’s blog because I am one of the cohosts for the month and that’s where we will be making more formal announcements (no, this is not cheating, how dare you). I mentioned before that I will be on Twitter, will still update Goodreads, post a few pics on Instagram (when did this become a part of my online presence?), so I won’t be disappearing entirely. This hiatus is mostly about me taking a break from working on the blog and constantly trying to keep up with everything. I might do some blog hopping while away, but I promise this every hiatus and I don’t think I’ve ever succeeded.

I will talk to you all soon and know that I will definitely be missing you. See you August 1st!

Welcome to My New Blog…Kind of

Welcome to my new blog…kind of. If you visited my blog yesterday, you saw that I had planned to change things up. I originally was just going to go with a simple header, button, sidebar labels, and background change. So I did it, but then I wanted to see what other themes WordPress had to offer. I went through so many and finally settled on the one you are seeing now. I had to add another color to my header in order for the theme to really work for my graphics. I’m really satisfied with how everything came out. There are a couple of things I want to be nitpicky about, but I’m just going to go forward and see if these things end up growing on me. Also, I appreciated all your kind words yesterday. You all are amazing. And one last thing, isn’t my new button so pretty? I love it so much.

This is the last, last thing. For WordPress users, do you get conflicting follower counts? When I click on my blog on my phone is says one thing (specifically in the app), but when I look at my stats in the insights section it says another. Yesterday I discovered a completely different number when I was looking at my follow my blog by email widget. Anyone know which of these is the correct number?

Tell me what you think of the new layout! Have you ever gone through a dramatic blog change? Did you ever regret it? What do you wish you would have done differently? Let’s talk in the comments!