The Sunday Salon: I'm Exhausted. So Change is Here.

It's not like I can't immediately see how many "followers" I have when I sign onto my Blogger dashboard, but earlier this week I decided to remove the Google Friend Connect widget from my sidebar. I was hovering at around 350 followers for the longest time and every time I went up or down, it would drive me nuts.

Then I remembered blogging is my hobby not my day job.

My day job already causes enough stress. It's sometimes fun, mostly overwhelming, but all in all, it's my job and I expect a certain amount of pressure. It's what pays the bills and I'm not naive enough to expect that my day job would afford me any type of relaxation. Blogging, though, is for fun. It is to relieve the pressures and stress from the real job and everything else. And to blog about books is the break I take from it every week.

Lately, though, I've been getting frustrated, overwhelmed by review request emails. It's something I know everyone has felt at one time or another, so I know I'm in good company. The overwhelming number of requests never seem to fit your preferences even though the Review Policy clearly outlines it.

Sigh. I'm sure you've all read a post like this one many times before, in a variety of different ways, on a gazillion other blogs. My apologies if you're patiently reading through this. And I don't want to sound ungrateful.

I've been lazily crafting this for a while and it wasn't until Andi over at Estella's Revenge who recently wrote about Book Blogger Liberation that made me sit up and take notice of my feelings. My first thought was, "YES!" She is much more eloquent in her thoughts, so I encourage you to head on over there to read.

I've been declining review requests for months now and it has made me feel so much better. I only have one coming up and it's been the first one in months. My husband pointed out that when I first started blogging, after I got over the initial excitement of receiving ARCs, what I really enjoyed was the community and interaction with everyone. That was what fed me.

So here is my decision, my new change at Coffee and a Book Chick and it's fitting that I would have come to this choice this past Wednesday, July 4th, Independence Day: I am removing my Review Policy. I'm not accepting review requests for a while. I will spend my time at the library and Netgalley, where I can overwhelm myself with selections that I want, with no pressure to review it by a certain date. I adore audiobooks as well, especially as work is very busy for me right now.

So. This was a long way to say that I'm done with the pressures from hobbies.

And since I'm running now, you can definitely expect more audiobook reviews here. And...as some of you may know, I'm trying to get healthier, so I'll also be at my new blog, This Chick Will Run. I hope to stay consistent with it and maybe putting it on paper will help me. Of course, I'll never, ever leave this book corner of the blogosphere, but I have to spend a little more time over there, so I hope you'll visit me!