Pressure of the first post

I'm feeling a bit stressed here. How do I write my first post? Many years ago I had a blog called "Read it again, Mom!" which I loved.  Mostly I posted children's book reviews and craft ideas. A lot has happened since then.  Life has happened.  I closed down the blog and moved on.

Now I am at the time in my life where things are relaxing once again.  They are NOT yet relaxed!  But they are relaxing.

I am in a job I love with a library system that is awesome.  I just finished a book about my grandpa that I believe would have made my parents very happy, my married life is wonderful and my kids are growing up to be such wonderful adults.  It is time I try and do something for myself.

That is a HARD concept.  I've been in care-giving mode for the better part of 30 years.  How do you switch?   Well my switch got flicked on by a scare from my doctor in October 2020.  He never has yelled at me.  That time he yelled, and I heard.  I was facing type 2 diabetes if I didn't make some real changes.  As soon as I walked out of that office, I gave up sugar and processed foods.

I have lost over 100 pounds and am in the best physical shape of my life.  I still work out every day and feel awesome. (and would LOVE to knock off another 30 pounds if possible!  UGH!)  You can actually see my progress on my TikTok videos!

With the physical change came a mental one, and I decided to do something fun for myself - become a children's author.  I sort of fell into it.  I self-published my book about my grandpa using Amazon KDP.  In order to get comfortable with the process, I played around creating children's books from songs I have made over the years to use in storytimes.   I bought a subscription to Canva and jumped in with both feet.  OH MY GOSH!  It was so fun and so rewarding to see my ideas in print!  

Early Literacy development is a passion and I do whatever I can to help new parents see and learn how easy it can be to help support their children in learning early literacy skills that will help  them be successful in school and beyond.  I am silly and goofy and create many many songs based on "Bingo".  Hey, any 5 letter word can become a Bingo song!  Try me!

I started creating my Bingo Books and then spread out to include other things I had created over the years.  I did a mass self-publishing of over 30 books in a few months!  HA!  Ok, too many and not smart... I could have spread them out over time, but I wanted them all out there so that any family finding the books may find a topic they like and want to try (ninja, llama, gnome, shark, socks - yes, SOCKS! etc).   I was totally devoted in getting these books out to the public.  I truly feel they are fun books that can help parents and kids engage with each other and spend quality time together.

I invite you to please take a look at my books and let me know what you think!  If you would like a pdf file of any of them to review, I will gladly send you one (or a link to one, if the file is too big).  I would like input from people other than family!  I do love my family, but you know, the more input the better!

I'm looking forward to diving in to social media again.  If you've happened upon this blog, welcome, and thank you for stopping by.