One Year Blogoversary + Giveaway

The Quiet Concert Turns One! 

Today, err yesterday, we celebrated our one year blogoversary. We cannot believe that a year has gone by already. When Ashley suggested we start a blog together, neither of us really knew what we were getting ourselves into. All we knew was that we both loved reading and talking about books so it sounded like a fun idea. Never did we imagine that it would be this much work, but neither did we imagine that it would be so incredibly rewarding. This community is amazing. And it is seriously an honor to be a part of it. We have met so many wonderful people and feel truly blessed to have had a chance to share our love of reading with each and every one of you. 

Looking Back

Believe it or not, when we started blogging we didn't know what an ARC was, we hadn't heard of BEA, we didn't know about Edelweiss or Netgalley. Hell, we only just recently learned about requesting print copies from publishers (not that we are there yet but thanks Jessi @ Novel Heartbeat nonetheless!) Although Ashley and her boyfriend knew a thing or two about coding, Nicole was a newbie. We didn't use Twitter. To be honest, we still barely know how to. In other words, we had a lot to learn. And although we've probably got the basics down by now, we still have a ways to go. 

But the most important thing we had to learn was what we wanted this blog to be for us. When we started blogging, our whole intent was just to share our thoughts on books. But the more we immersed ourselves in the community, the more we felt the pressure to keep up and do more, be more. We expected too much of ourselves too fast. But thanks to some well timed life events - Nicole started business school and Ashley started planning a wedding - our time became more precious and we were forced to take a step back. At that time we realized that we don't need to be the most successful blog out there. If we never even enter the competition, that is ok with us. We are happy with our little corner of the blogosphere. We have made some really great friends through blogging so we've already gotten more out of it than we ever could have imagined. So we will post whenever we want, however we want because what's important to us is conversing with all of you. That's it. 

Looking Forward

This past year has been a whirlwind of firsts for us and as exciting as that has been, it's also a relief to go into 2014 with some clue as to what we are doing. Having a year of experience behind us and having adopted a more relaxed attitude about blogging, makes us excited for what is still to come. Now that we are settled in, we can focus our energy on what is most important - having fun and talking book... and maybe finally investing some time into all those ideas floating around in our heads. 

We don't know what this blog will bring you in 2014. We are still evolving. We will always be evolving. But that being said, we are certain of one thing - we are exactly where we want to be and we aren't going anywhere.

Giveaway

We want to say thank you to everyone who has been a part of this journey with us. From the regular commenters to the one's who've stopped by just once, we thank you. We thank you for taking the time to come see what we have to say and sharing a little piece of yourselves in return. You guys are all amazing. And as a small token of our gratitude, we are giving away a $20 GC to either Amazon or TBD (your choice). 

a Rafflecopter giveaway