As a kid, I was hooked on the usual: Nancy Drew, Amelia Bedelia, The Boxcar Children, Anne of Green Gables, etc. I grew up in a tiny town and spent many hours trudging down to the library, browsing through books, checking out a stack and lugging it home. The walk down to the library was a breeze - all downhill. With my arms full of books, the trek back home was a little more difficult. It was worth it, though, to be able to visit the library whenever I could, without waiting for my parents to chauffer me.
Even though it wasn't the cool thing to do, I still read voraciously as a teenager. My tastes tended toward mysteries and horror at this point. I remember my Dad raising an eyebrow at all the sinister-looking novels his good little girl was bringing home. Perhaps that's why he introduced me to Mary Higgins Clark. Her clean mysteries kept me up way past my bedtime on numerous occasions!
I also loved to write as a child, composing cheesy little stories and even submitting work for publication in national magazines. I laugh now at my naivete. In high school, I spent many, many hours writing and editing articles for the newspaper and yearbook.
My interest in reading and writing propelled me to major in English at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah (its distinguished alumni include Stephenie Meyer, Brandon Sanderson, and Jessica Day George, to name a few). As part of my Journalism minor, I became a reporter for the college's newspaper, The Daily Universe. It was also in college that I met Eric, the man who would become my husband. We got married in August of 1997, a short time after he returned home from an LDS mission in Chile. I graduated from BYU in 1998; later that year, I gave birth to our first child. I stayed home with him, wrote articles about books on the Internet (which you can probably still find by Googling my name), and read lots of books.
In 2000, we moved to Arizona, where we still live. My husband owns his own business mentoring company. We now have 4 children aged 18, 15, 12 and 8. I stay at home with my kids full-time. Besides reading and blogging, I like to cross-stitch, listen to music, eat (can you say chocoholic?), travel, play word games and spend time with my family.
I started Bloggin' 'bout Books as a way to record what I was reading. Back then, I had exactly three readers: my husband, my mom and my sister. One day, I was trolling the Web for reading recommendations and stumbled across A Patchwork of Books. Amanda had dozens of links to other blogs on her site - I started clicking around, and a whole new world opened up to me. Suddenly, I was part of the big, exciting book blogosphere. I love being a part of it. I've "met" tons of wonderful people, read books I otherwise wouldn't have, chatted with lots of authors, and have just had a good ole time. I love what I do!
