Five Alive

Today is my 111st birthday! Oh wait wrong book....I just turned 5 years old. My blog that is. That's right. Books, Movies and Chinese Food turns officially 5 today! (Never mind the date of the first post on this blog, I wrote that the day after and just backdated it).

Five years is a long time in the book blogging world. To paraphrase the band 311 "I've been here a while, ain't going nowhere". Yes I'm now an oldie when it comes to book blogging. I see so many blogs being a year or less old and I feel like the senior in high school that has stayed back for several years.

As always, the reason why I started blogging was thanks to Camy Tang's blog which inspired me to write my own blog. My main goal was to blog about the books I read because I figured I'd like others to know about the good books that were out there. I honestly can't believe that it's lasted this long and I hope to keep going strong. I had no idea that there was a book blogging community when I first started this thing. I didn't know about getting ARCs, going to book blogging conventions or that I would have met so many wonderful new friends.

I feel like I've changed A LOT since I started book blogging. In all different venues but who doesn't change in 5 years?

Personal life:

In Sept 2006 I was a senior in college, working part time at a library and dating my boyfriend.
In Sept 2011, I now have my master's degree, work full time as an archivist and have been married for 3 years (to previously mentioned boyfriend).

Reading style:

In Sept 2006, apparently it took me a day to read half a book, I owned only 300 books and I read 90% Christian fiction.
In Sept 2011, I have read 19 books in one day (24 hour readathon, special circumstances folks!), I own over 3k books and I read 60% Christian fiction, 20% YA and split the rest between several other genres.

Blogging Style:

In Sept 2006, I started a blog, foolishly put hyphens in the address, used different colors for every post and pretty much had no idea what I was doing.
In Sept 2011, I have posted over 900 book reviews, won several awards, have had my reviews used as endorsements and still pretty much have no idea what I'm doing.

I feel like I've changed a lot in terms of how I read in the past 5 years. While I still greatly enjoy Christian fiction, I feel like I've grown as a reader. I am more picky about what types of books I want to read and I find myself becoming frustrated with the market and the direction it is heading sometimes. I've been more vocal about it lately and while I don't feel like I'm making a huge difference, it is nice to get my words out there.

In terms of blogging...well if you've reading in the past year, you know that I've had my ups and downs lately. Just a bunch of feeling left out or jealous. Petty stuff. In terms of the future of the blog, I hope by this time next year, I should have at least bought my own domain. Small steps :)

As of today I have written 911 book reviews, 83 movie reviews (I swear I will have my Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 review up someday), and had 158 contests. When I first started my blog I had a mere 300 books. As of today I have a whopping 3190 books in my collection. Last year I had 2683 books. That's an accumulation of 507 books in one year! At this rate, if I live to be 90 I'll have over 35,000 books. Oh well I can dream can't I?

Due to a lack of funds, I have nothing to celebrate the day with. No giveaways, no contests, no birthday cake. However, I am going to ask YOU to do me a favor!

I'd like to know more about my readers. So...I've got a survey here that I would love it if you could fill out for me. I haven't done a survey in a very long time so I'd really like to know your thoughts. (I would like to give credit to The Story Siren for inspiration with creating some of the question for the survey)

Reader Survey

Thanks so much and I really appreciate everyone who's stopped by in the past five years!