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Musing Mondays #3




This is a weekly meme hosted by shouldbereading, which is where you can post your musings of the week. This can be describing a reading habit, what books you've bought, what books you want, what you're reading or any rant you can think of book related.


My Monday musing is about the wonderful world of book blogging. I only started doing this about a month ago and when I started I didn't really know what to expect. I love books and the idea of being able to talk about them at length online to others who love them just as much; well, that just sounded amazing to me. But talking about my thoughts and feelings on a book is the easy bit. It's everything else that I seemed to struggle with.

Blog design, that will honestly be the death of me. I go to all these amazing blogs and see there amazing backgrounds, layouts and graphics and I feel like I want my blog to look that good. My problem is that even after watching tutorial videos and reading tips and tricks on it, I am still rubbish at design. I tried PicMonkey and Gimp and still could not manage it. After three days of trying, I admitted defeat. Hopefully it is something I can learn over time and little by little I will improve the look of my blog.

Something I learnt very quickly was how amazingly inclusive and supportive the book blogging community is. I really worried that no one would ever actually see the blog and I must admit the first time I got a view from an actual person I was so excited. I was like "I got a follower, I got a follower" to my boyfriend who, to his credit, acted like it was a big deal too! But by the time I got my first follower, and my super excitement at that, I think he may have thought I had lost my mind. But, to me, it was really a big deal.

I want to say a really big thank you to the amazing people who followed my blog this week. I have only been doing this for over a month and it really makes my day when someone likes my blog enough to follow me. So thank you to the following bloggers, who made my day: Somewhere Only We Know, Bitches n Prose, A Night's Dream of Books, Itching For Books, Flood of Books, Manda-Rae Reads A LotKimberlyfaye Reads, Grace Books Of Love, The Book Bundle, Jenn Rennee Read & Book Cupid.
You guys really made my week, it feels nice to know someone liked my blog enough to follow it!


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17307145Last week on the blog I reviewed Time Between Us and Time After Time by Tamara Ireland Stone and I also reviewed Pawn by Aimee Carter. I really enjoyed all of these and it felt really nice to be able to read three books in a row that I liked.
 







Library Story #3

It's that time of the week again! Time to share another story with you lovely people. However, I must admit that this one seems a bit too crazy to be true. But it most definitely is. I know that some of you who have nice, quiet libraries are probably thinking that libraries can't get that bad, but they can. My nan and grandad have a small library in their tiny village with only one member of staff and I can say that their library is never like mine. But I work in a library in London, which is a big, crazy city full of crazy, unique individuals and that is why my library, at times, gets... crazy!

So we try to run events often, aimed at different age groups and near Halloween we ran a cupcake decorating event for small children (4-12). During this event, with 15 children and their parents happily decorating away, in stumbles an inebriated elderly(ish) man. He makes a bit of a scene and tries to take some of the cupcakes away from the children in order to eat them. The senior librarian has gone over to tell the gentleman that he will have to leave because he is disturbing the event (and being totally inappropriate). He has had a bit of a grumble, but he eventually walks out.

Two minutes later, he stumbles back in and while the senior librarian is walking over to tell him to leave, he pulls down his trousers and exposes himself to the children. No, I am not exaggerating and no, I am not lying - an actual person did this to a group of poor, shocked kids. Now, the particular senior who was working this day with us does not take any crap from anybody. So he had immediately had one of the librarians call the police and told the man to pull up his trousers and get out. The drunken man has decided it would be a good idea to then turn around and punch the senior in the stomach. Luckily, our senior is 6ft 5-ish and really big and didn't even flinch but I was shocked. That was the first time I had seen a customer hit a member of staff; I had heard stories but never seen it.

The man seemed to be sobered up by his own stupidity then as he apologised and after a couple of minutes of more back and forth, he finally agreed to take a seat over in the corner of the library and wait for the police. A rather eventful day and I felt really bad for my senior but also for the poor kids, I mean, who needs to see that on a Thursday night!




Thanks for stopping by.
Please leave a link to your own MM and I will check it out!

8 comments:

  1. So many things to comment on. I have to say I loved your Library story. Oh my goodness. Our library is not that crazy! I am in a smaller city thought, I am sure in the bigger cities it gets crazy. I do know that when my daughter worked at the library one summer a man went around screaming about the apocalypse. That was interesting. Never a flasher thought (that I know of) One of my besties is the teen librarian so I will need to ask her.

    The blogging community is wonderful and yes very supportive. I have a few that really make my day because of their back and forth interactions. I love their comments and I love to comment on their wonderful blogs. I feel that I have made some friends for sure.

    Don't worry about the way your blog looks. The content is the most important part. yes to be honest, many people, including myself, find their eyes drawn to certain designs but that is not what keeps a reader. Content does and you have wonderful content. When you are ready, if you ever are, there are many great and nice priced blog designers out there. I am so dumb at HTML and web design, even following a template, so that is what I did. I didn't until about 9 months of blogging though. I wanted to make sure it was something I kept up with since I don't follow through on things for long. I must say I love book blogging though.

    Follow and feature Fridays are a great way to meet and gain followers that will no doubt love your blog.

    If you need a chat or anything just stop by. I will keep reading your stuff for sure!

    Oh and I can't wait to read Time after Time. I am getting it on audio as soon as it releases. Loved the first book. Heading over to read your review now!

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    1. Oh dear, we have a few like that.

      I will porbably do what you did and look into a blog designer if I keep this up for at least 6-9 months. I don't see myself stopping anytime soon as I really am loving it. Even if sometimes I lose sleep, trying to find time for work, reading and blogging!

      I have been really surprised by the support you get and the wonderful comments people leave. It really makes my day and I always try to go visit their blogs and comment on posts they have made as well.

      I will have to have a look at Follow and Feature Fridays as I haven't seen any yet!

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  2. Glad you're enjoying this, it is a good way to speak about things we love - books!
    Also, the layout of a blog takes time, you learn little by little, and what works for one doesn't always work for another.
    http://cupandchaucer.wordpress.com/2013/10/07/musing-mondays-october-07/

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    1. Yes, I'm hoping to put more of myself in to my blog as time goes by. I will learn little by little, I'm a beginner and should realise that when I'm looking at these incredible blogs.

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  3. Oh goodness. What a library story but I used to work in a large city library and it is really crazy sometimes. Welcome to blogging. I am a new follower. Love to have you follow back. Here is my very short MM

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    1. I will be checking out your blog :D Yeah, I'm not sure people understand just how crazy they can get!

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  4. I've been blogging since mid-August and, like you, had no idea of what to expect--but now I am hooked!
    I agree with the comments above about focusing on content over appearance. As a reader, I may be initially attracted to a fancy blog, but if I don't connect with the writing style, or if the content isn't well written or meaningful, I don't stick around. My blog is pretty bare-bones in terms of design, but I've gotten some nice comments and followers, so I think I'm on the right track! I figure that there's always time to pretty it up later! :-)
    Good luck to you from a fellow "blog newbie!"

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    1. Thanks :-) I'm also thinking that I can work on my blog content first and get around to the design later on! I am hooked as well, I love it!!!

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Thank you so much for taking the time to comment, it always makes my day! Because of time restraints, this is now an award free zone but thanks so much for considering me! Feel free to leave a link to your own blog and I will come visit.