Yes, I can’t believe it either! It took me almost two freaking years to get my blog back online after the regulation that must not be named dropped in May 2018. I had started readying my blog prior to that fateful day but for someone who’s selfhosting with a custom theme (curtesy of Crini) and only a bare minimum of IT/programming knowledge, it was a lot. It didn’t help that between my bouts of “I miss my blog, I should put in the work to get it back online” often lay several months in which I’d already forgotten all about the things I had to do and the ways to do them. The last straw was my comment template that didn’t work with the add-ons I needed, so I had to rebuild it almost from scratch – at least the top part, the response part fortunately was just copy-paste. I spent at least thirteen hours on that alone because I kept breaking some things and tried to fix others that didn’t need fixing in the first place (should have remembered clearing the Chrome cache two hours earlier to save me some headache). It’s still not 100% perfect but much better than I thought I’d manage on my own. So here I am, back online, looking forward to (not) posting. If the past has been any indication, it’s going to be just as rocky as ever, but who cares. At least I’ve already written up some reviews. If only I had taken the pics as well …

Anyways, maybe you’re wondering what live has been like since May 2018 – since I’m not particularly active on social media either. Well, …

Living the best bookish life still working in publishing. I had an absolutely intense time at work, helming the PR and Rights department while my colleague was on maternity leave. Didn’t think I had it in me but I actually surprised myself. I learned and grew so much! Nowadays, I’m dabbling in Rights, Royalties and Online Marketing, changing my job description every year or so. Still loving it so very very much! I’ve been working in publishing for four years now and I sometimes still can’t quite fathom how lucky I am. Now if only the stress level were going down … but April is nigh!

Living a totally bookish life drowning in books. Naturally, my book buying addiction is still going strong. I bought over 700 books during my hiatus (kinda glad I didn’t have my blog; writing all those newbie posts would’ve killed me) got a couple more shelves but I’m running out of space and my last attempt at finding a new place was disasterous (found a perfect flat, let the perfect flat, planned moving into the perfect flat – found out the flat wasn’t so perfect after all. I’m just glad I know myself well enough I took the precaution of not cancelling my then – and still current – flat). Hopefully, someday I will find a nice place for me, my books, and one or two cats. Until then, at least I have my books! Lots and lots of books! If only I would read them …

Living a somewhat horsey life. Actually, it hasn’t been going all too well on the riding side of things. We changed our instructor (just when I thought I’d finally found my stride …) and suddenly I have to get used to yet another way of riding and it’s not going that great. Didn’t help I managed to break a leg at the beginning of last summer working with a young horse in what was possibly the most anticlimactic accident you can have when working with horses (not that I’m complaining, I’m really glad it wasn’t anything serious) – at least that meant I had 6 weeks to get some reading done. This year started out ok (if we can ignore the fact that I just managed to more or less fall of while mounting … haha), but now I have no idea when I’m able to ride again. I’m currently stuck 1.5h away and I won’t be able to get to my parents anytime soon.

Living a somewhat Ireland-less travel life. Of course I’ve been to Ireland but just not nearly enough! I only managed to squeeze in seven fabulous days and I cannot wait to get back. Originally planned on going in May but with the current situations, it rather looks like I’ll have to live with some more Ireland withdrawal. Fingers crossed this is all going away soon because I ache getting back to my beloved island!

So there’s that, the most prominent components of my life. From now on, I’ll try to keep you updated …