hop over to here 
In recently responding to a comment on my 2016’s Most Impactful Book post, I saw that I’d promised one commenter that I’d blog about all the books I read in 2016. That was back in December. Oops. I never did it, hence this late post about said books.
http://youthdiaries.org/1025-dte27550-free-online-dating-over-40.html I read only ten books all last year, which I find a bit disappointing. I’d like to read at least one book a month, but some years just don’t allow that. The books I did read are as follows.
As a child, I rarely made my bed, except for when my mom made us clean our rooms. She taught us how to lay the pillow with the open end of the pillowcase toward the edge of the bed. Then we pulled each sheet and blanket up to the top one by one, smoothing out the wrinkles so the bedspread would lie neatly on top. If there were wrinkles underneath, they showed through to the top layer. Mom taught us how to pull the covers and sheets until there were no more lumps. I’m glad she took the time to do that, even though I seldom used the skill regularly until my late twenties.
Exciting news! My book, Meet Shelby Culpepper, is on the cusp of being released by 
I got up at 4:30 this morning. That’s a solid two-and-a-half hours earlier than I normally get up. But it was important.
I’m struck today by how complicated Christmas has gotten. A friend caring for her husband who has Alzheimer’s feels bad because she hasn’t had time to put up a tree or decorations. She just isn’t in the mood to do it. Others are frenzied with activity, yet they feel they still must do Christmas baking and complete their shopping from elaborate gift lists. What happened to silent night, holy night? From where I stand, all is certainly not calm or bright.
It’s been one of those years that I haven’t had much reading time. As a writer, I’m supposed to be a huge reader. I think of myself as a huge reader. But this year, I wasn’t. I’ve only read a total of eight books.
I know. I can already hear some of you (probably my adult children) saying, “What’s the big deal? If your kids are adults, you don’t really need to parent them anymore.” I get that. Really, I do. But you see, there’s this pesky problem of the name I’ve had for the past thirty-three years.
My last blog, Parenting With a Smile, obviously had a parenting theme. You can still check it out