We’re on the final countdown.  Hours to go.

How did yet another year get away from us?

Here at Keeper Bookshelf I’m ending the year with a good feeling.  While I may not have accomplished all of my goals – I’ve made a darned good start, and I’m content with that.

On a completely personal note, I got some disturbing news recently.  Seems that the blurry and fuzzy words on my monitor and Kindle cannot be fixed with a new glasses prescription.  Instead, next week I’ll begin to find out how bad and what can be done with a cataract on my left eye.  Funny, I always thought I’d be able to see one of those suckers on my eyes – but apparently not always.  For someone who loves to read as much as I do – aside from having several bookish blogs that need daily attention… this kinda hit me hard emotionally.  Oh, I know it can be fixed.  It’s just something that happened to my grandmother – not me.  *sigh*  How silly we are at times, right?

Anyway, because of the strain I’m putting on my eyes right now (current glasses don’t work and cannot get new ones because they wouldn’t work either)… I’m probably going to slow down just a bit on my reviews.  I don’t want to – but I think until this is resolved, I need to.  I imagine I’ll still be posting at least once a day – and I have tons of posts and reviews that are scheduled, so you may not actually see very much difference.  But I’ll know what’s happening in the background so I need to effectively deal with that mentally and emotionally.

2016 will offer up challenges for us all – that’s not anything new..  My wish for you is to have a safe New Year Eve’s celebration — and then enjoy the rest of the year doing what makes you happy.  Big – small – it doesn’t matter, but doing what you love is a gift we give to ourselves every single day.  I wish that gift for you.

May 2016 bring you every happiness you ever dreamed of – and may you go through it with your sense of humor, faith and love intact.  Can’t wish for much more than that, really.

Well, look at that.  We made it through, well almost through, 2015.  Five more days to put the finishing touches on the plans for 2016.  And then we’re gonna start all over again.  Gotta love dedicated readers like us, right?  🙂

And I’m just abut a week away from having Keeper Bookshelf up and running on a daily basis for its first complete year.  Not bad at all.  This is an accomplishment I certainly am proud of.

I learned a lot.  Certainly embarrassed myself at times.  Met some amazing book people.  And talked to authors for the very first time.

And I guess most importantly – I didn’t give up on the dream, the plan – the crazy idea to take what I love doing, reading, and create something about that personal joy of mine.  I’ve got a long way to go, but I kept at it for this first year.  Day after day, even when I was certain no one even knew this place existed.  But I did – and that’s all that mattered then.

So here I am, late in the evening letting my mind wander to all the things I want to do this coming year.  And wondering just how the heck I’m going to manage it.  I’ve got this notebook that I’ve jotted stuff down in all of 2015 – you too?.  So now comes the time to take the ideas and make them reality.  That is the scary part, but also the adrenaline pumping part too.

I simply wanted to say to all of us who sit and read, find that extra moment to get lost in another world for a bit – to those of us who call ourselves review bloggers or book bloggers… Good Job.  Take a bow, we’ve earned it.  Okay – now back to work.  The new year is about to start and it’s time for us to jump in to the reading frenzy for another round of the stuff that we consider fun.  Yeah, maybe a bit crazy but someone’s gotta do it.

Thank you for a fantastic 2015 — and here’s to an amazing 2016.