Archives - Weekly Update

At the beginning of each year, I have lots of ideas about what I want to take on personally and professionally. Now, 31 days later, I think of everything I have done. I got the Christmas ornaments back to the attic, redid my bedroom closet, and celebrated my two sons’ birthdays. We did three big “Bookaccino Live” events, I conducted five “Bookreporter Talks To” interviews, we hosted four Winter Reading contests and two Word of Mouth giveaways, we packed up 80 books for our year-end Bets On contest, we got two sets of “Bookaccino Live” prizes out, and we did five weekly updates.

On Wednesday morning, I got in my car and the thermometer registered -4 degrees. I somehow have not grasped that my car can be started remotely and warmed up. Instead, my cold hands gripped the steering wheel, and I turned the heat gauge up to 96 degrees. It hit something like 65 degrees by the time I got to the health club. One day I will learn the concept of remote start. Note that I have had this car since 2008, so let’s call this one long learning curve.

Francesca, our Contest Coordinator, and I hunkered down on Wednesday to mail the prizes for the Year-End Bets On contest. My kitchen table had 80 books on it when we started the packing. A randomizer was used to select the winners --- and from there we tried to match readers with the books we thought they would enjoy reading from the genres that they noted in their entries. Yes, we took our roles as book concierges very seriously.

And just like that, it was a five-day workweek!

Before we talk about this week’s news, I wanted to take a moment to send our thoughts out to any of our readers in Southern California who literally have been in the line of fire. We reached out to author friends all week, and we heard from others on social media. This has been such a harrowing time for so many people in the Los Angeles area. I have been to many of the places that saw fire damage this week, and what I keep thinking about is how to rebuild the history and character of a place. I am seeing burned-out places, but in many ways I wish people could see what was there before. Yes, we are seeing horrific damage, but overlays of how things had looked will show more of exactly what was lost. May the winds die down and stay died down!

Wow, what a great couple of weeks of holiday celebrating! It was lovely seeing family and friends and just kicking it back a BIG notch.

I also spent time organizing. I know that does not sound very festive, but the eight boxes that I brought home from our office in 2020 are no longer sitting outside my office here at the house. They have been sorted and filed...and yes, a lot was tossed. Ah, what a great way to kick off 2025.