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Dec
31
Happy New Year!
2008 at 3pm Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
Happy New Year, dear readers!
This post is a few hours early, but I know I’ll be too busy this evening (and won’t be up early in the morning), so I figure an early Happy New Year is better than none at all, right?
2008 has been a pretty great year. It all started with my wedding on January 5th, when I got married to a wonderful (if a little weird) man in a gorgeous library. I’ve blogged about it here and here, if you missed the original posts. We headed out early the next morning for a honeymoon at Sandals in Antigua, where we lolled about on the beach reading great books and sipping fruity drinks with umbrellas in them.
In February, I was promoted from part-time bookseller to full-time community relations, marking my official transformation into The Book Lady. My experiences since then have provided great fodder for my Adventures in Bookselling series.
March, April, and May were pretty uneventful. I worked a lot, read a lot, and accepted the fact that being married didn’t really feel any different than living together had. In June, I had a great girls’ weekend in New York City with my best friend, where we ate a lot, walked a lot, and saw Avenue Q, which made me laugh harder than anything I’d seen in a long time. How can you not love a show that has a whole song about schadenfreude?
On July 1st, I started this blog under another name and posted my first book review shortly thereafter. I started the blog as a way to keep better track of my reading and to have a creative outlet. I love writing, but I have absolutely zero talent for fiction, so I figured I’d combine my love for books with my love for writing and literary analysis, and book reviewing seemed to be a good way to go. I never expected things to take off the way they have, but I’m totally delighted.
In August, I planned and hosted a midnight release party for Breaking Dawn, then I wrote a spoilerific review that generated tons (and I do mean tons) of traffic, elicited snarky remarks from angry teenagers, and continues to get hits from people looking for Cliff Notes to the book. The mere concept of that makes me crazy.
I continued reading and reviewing through the fall and found myself becoming increasingly involved in the book blogging community. I discovered the wonders of the Google Reader and am still finding great new blogs almost every day. I’ve reviewed books for publisher and author requests and have had the pleasure of becoming friends with a few of them through extended email conversations. I’ve even become good buddies with one author in real life. Never saw all of that coming.
I wrapped up the year having read 59 books in the six months since I started blogging, so I’m guessing that I’ve read somewhere between 95 and 120 books in the last year. Not too shabby, if you ask me, and I’m so glad that I’ve found a way to connect with other readers and writers and to make my reading even more meaningful.
This evening, I’ll celebrate the new year by sharing dinner and a movie with my hubby and my best friend, then we’ll head home to watch Dick Clark and count the minutes until the big ball drops in Times Square. We discovered several years ago that NYE events are rarely as exciting or fun as your hope/expect them to be, so we started having quiet celebrations together, and it’s become something I really look forward to. We’ll kiss at midnight, and then we’ll head out to a diner to continue a tradition that began on our first New Year’s Eve together back in 2001.
That night, hubby (who had only been my boyfriend for a few months) and I were in St. Louis with his family. We met up with a few friends at St. Louis’s First Night celebration, and when the festivities were over, we were starving. So, we did what any good mid-westerners do when they’re hungry in the middle of the night. We went to Steak ‘n Shake. One order of piping hot french fries and an old-fashioned cherry coke later, we were sated and ready to start the new year. No matter where we’ve been each New Year’s Eve since, we’ve jumped in the car just after midnight (usually in our jammies) to hit the drive-thru for what has become our traditional snack.
Now, we find ourselves living in a state that doesn’t have a single Steak ‘n Shake, so we’ll be searching for a diner that’s open late and hoping against hope that they make their cherry cokes the way we like them.
What are you doing tonight? Any fun NYE traditions?
No related posts.
Red shoes on your wedding day?! Very cool! I was dressed up in beige & black for mine with black boots!! :O) Happy New Year!! We’re heading to a friend’s house to share a Tunisian meal!
What a great year you’ve had. Happy New Year and Happy Anniversary!
Happy New Year!
I never post comments on your blog because of my poor written english but I read you really often. Hoping 2009 will bring you many great moments, in books and in life!
Happy New Year!
I’m reading and Hamburger is already asleep…which is prety much tradition around here.
Happy New Year!
My friend has a kid-friendly NYE party. We are on West Coast time but we watch the CNN feed on TV and pretend it’s midnight at 9pm. The kids have no idea and it gets us home before the drunk drivers hit the street.
Oh and I forgot add the most important thing of all…
Happy New Year!