Celebrating 20 Years

20 years ago I woke up and had the thought, "You know what Wendy? You're not nearly narcissistic enough.  You should totally start a blog!"  It was February 2003. I had just had my 4th anniversary of being a professional librarian. Coincidentally I had also been reviewing at The Romance Reader for 4 years. There was a respectable handful of romance novel web sites (All About Romance and Mrs. Giggles are still standing!) and no social media. Laurie Gold (founder of AAR) and Rosario (a reader living in Uruguay at the time) had blogs. Now I had one. Three of us. When I started this blog Blogger hadn't been bought out by Google yet, there was no commenting feature and what are these tags you speak of? It was very rudimentary but it's what we had.  

We soldiered on, throwing our words out into the Interwebs Wilderness and then...2005 happened. Suddenly it was a riotous explosion of blogs. Not a day goes by where I don't miss all those quirky, fun individual blogs that sprouted up during that time. Group blogs arrived and I wrote for many of them. By my count I've helped kill off at least three (Romancing the Blog, Reader's Gab, and Heroes & Heartbreakers).

I have seen things. I've lived the life cycle of romance reviewers being mean girls, then bloggers being mean girls, to somehow having the tide turn enough that I got a big shiny Librarian of the Year award from Romance Writers of America. This was during a period when my work life was not fantastic for various reasons. It's a marvel I never did put that plaque on a big ol' rope chain and rock it around the office. 

I've seen all the Drama Llama, some of it 3-4 times (there's very few new kerfuffles y'all).  I've watched self-publishing go from Crazy Guy printing his manifesto in his garage, to viable career option for writers. I remember when eBooks weren't "real books." I remember when I thought y'all would pry print out of my cold dead hands (I can't remember the last book I read that wasn't in a digital format...).  I remember listening to audiobooks on cassette and all y'all thinking I was completely insane because "why would you want to listen to a book?!"

So much has changed.  And yet, so much hasn't. 

For one thing, I'm still naïve enough to think that if more people read genre fiction the world would be a better place. For another, Romancelandia is still a pretty rad place even with the squabbles that sometimes have my eyes rolling back in my head. And while I sit in my rocking chair, cradling my adult beverage and non-illustrated clinch book covers, I marvel at these young whippersnappers with their BookTok and BookTube and Bookstagram and podcasts and what-not. I've seen the diversity of the genre and the voices supporting it grow. 

I've been ignoring the blogs are dead talk for at least a decade, mainly because I'm stubborn and the older I get the more I find social media problematic for a lot of reasons. I've seen this blog start with a readership of my Mom, to a whole bunch of people, to now a small group of loyalists who still regularly turn up and leave me comments now and then. 

I was a 20-something, still very green librarian when I started this blog. Now I'm living on the other side of the country and oversee a division of roughly 60 people. I feel like I've lived 10 lifetimes in just the past 3 years - and that's just on the work front. There have been many, many days where I've thought about putting this blog in mothballs. I'm older, I'm tired pretty much all the time, and my work is demanding. But, not to put too fine a point on it, I love this blog. I can't begin to tell you all the good it's brought to my life. A community. Friends. Yes, even accolades. 

I love this blog. I love reading. I love all of you. Thank you for reading this blog - whether it's been for a month or the past 20 years. 

Little Miss Crabby Pants Talks About Weight Loss

I was a skinny kid and all the way up through my teen years.  I topped out at 5'9" by high school and probably weighed somewhere in the ballpark of 135 pounds.  I had no boobs, no hips and iron-deficiency anemia issues.  Then I went away to college, turned 19, hormones fully kicked in and viola! I somehow got hips overnight.  This was largely a good thing, since that iron-deficiency anemia was now a thing of the past.  But my weight has steadily crept up on me ever since, until last year I went to the doctor for a ridiculously overdue physical and got The Talk.

The talk essentially was "You're on the other side of 40, you have a family history of Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease and you're over 200 pounds.  Get your weight under 200 pounds."

5'9" does hide more sins but I had crept up to a size 18.  Plus, as much as I hated to admit it, my stupid doctor was right.  I started to get better with exercise right then and there....only to fall off the wagon around April.  And I laid in that ditch for a while until August, when I kicked my butt back into gear.  I have since lost 25 pounds.  Why am I blogging about this now?  Because it dawned on me recently that when it comes to the cold, hard truth about weight loss, the romance genre has a pretty crappy track record.  Case in point, the book I'm reading now where the Southern Fried Heroine is still eating fried chicken and potato salad while guzzling sweet tea and drinking Coke - but has somehow magically lost a dress size simply because she's remodeling a house.

Not that I'm bitter.

So here it is.  The Highly Unvarnished Truth of How Little Miss Crabby Pants Lost 25 Pounds and Still Finds Time to Whine.

Disclaimer: I'd be remiss to not mention that there are very real socioeconomic factors when it comes to health, diet and weight loss.  A box of Kraft macaroni and cheese is a heck of a lot less expensive than fresh vegetables and lean cuts of meat.  Don't believe me?  Pay attention at the grocery store sometime.  Anyway, this is to say that I have disposable income and while I budget, I don't have to make hard choices between "eating healthy" and paying the rent.  Other folks can't say the same.

Step One: Find Motivation That Works for You.  

This started for me at the Montreal Romance Novel Meetup back in August.  We walked. A lot. The last time the lower half of my body felt like that was after I spent eight days in London in 2014.  I realized I had to get serious again and I bought a Fitbit (I have the Charge 2 model).

Having an "electronic nagger" has been great motivation for me.  It also made it really easy for me to start keeping a food journal - which I had always heard works, but I'm not going to lie - it's a total drag.  I started out by counting calories.  Mind you, I was still eating junk - I was just eating less of it and trying to up my activity levels.  And it worked.  I lost 15 pounds within a few months.

Step Two: Face Reality When You Hit Your Plateau

I was at 17 pounds lost when Thanksgiving hit and was able to maintain.  However, I was stuck there for a while and even gained back a couple of pounds at Christmas.  Yep, time to face cold, hard reality.  Counting calories had gotten me this far, but I now had to make some changes in how and what I was eating.  And let me tell you, if I thought counting calories was a drag?  Yeah.

Say farewell to carbs and sugar.  OK, so it's not like I've fallen off a cliff and gone to the extreme.  However I have limited my intake considerably.  Given that I'm hopelessly addicted to sugar, I've been surprised how much easier that has been to give up than carbs in general.  Dear Lord, I miss bread.  Pasta not so much, but gods I miss bread.  I'm not proud.  I'd run over anyone reading this for a croissant right about now.

Step Three: Make Your Peace With Exercising

You know those people who say they "feel better" after exercise?  That they get a "runner's high?"  Yeah, those people are nuts.  I dislike exercising.  Always have, always will.  But the whole high blood pressure and heart disease history in my family means I really need to be serious about cardio.  The trick is finding something you can marginally tolerate.

I'm lucky in that I live in a warmer climate.  I'm not trying to exercise through two feet of snow and freezing temperatures.  My exercise of choice is mainly walking/hiking.  I also have my own elliptical machine at home, but I tend to only use it during the work week, if I use it at all.  Since I moved to a new Bat Cave in early November, my average has been around 20 miles a week.  This includes your basic day-to-day walking around and more brisk exercise walking.  I mostly walk at a nearby park, but sometimes I just walk around my neighborhood.

Step Four: Things I'm Still Trying To Figure Out

People ask me if I feel better.  Um, not really?  I'm not noticing a huge difference, although you think I would after losing 10% of my body weight!  I chalk this up to missing bread and hating exercise.  Also, I have the knees of a 70-year-old woman and they're a bit achy today after a long weekend of walking (12 miles - I hurt).

What has been great?  The clothes shopping.  I finally broke down and bought new work slacks because the old ones made me look like a circus clown.  I went from an 18 to a 14.  That being said, it's hard to gauge your progress through the vagaries of women's clothing sizes which are seriously messed up on a good day.  To give you some idea?  I bought some nice dresses recently.  One is a size 14 (OK) and the other is a size 12.  A 12.  There's no way on any logical plane of existence that I'm a 12 right now.  But there you have it.

Step Five: Figure Out Where You Want To End Up

My goal is to hit the weight I was when I graduated college.  I feel like this is realistic and doable.  And then I'll need to shift my focus on to maintaining my weight loss.

Step Six: Don't Feel Like a Freak

The main reason I wanted to write this blog post is to assure anyone currently struggling with fitness and weight loss that you are not a freak.  Little Miss Crabby Pants is here to keep it real.  Keeping a food diary?  It sucks.  Counting carbs and sugar?  It sucks.  Exercise?  It sucks.  None of this is fun for me.  It's not always easy.  Frankly it's a drag.  But what's the alternative?  Ignoring my family medical history, crossing my fingers and hoping for the best?  So yeah.  Here we are.  No, it's not easy.   And take a moment to celebrate your successes, even if they're small ones.  Find a way to maintain an upbeat attitude and your sense of humor.

14 Years of Awesome

Today this humble blog turns 14.  That's right kids, the Bat Cave has been in existence since 2003 and this wee little corner of cyberspace has seen a lot in the past 14 years.  I started it when I was still a relatively fresh-faced librarian, still working for the employer crazy enough to hire me out of library school.  It saw me through a cross country move, more job changes and promotions, the RWA Librarian of the Year Award in 2011 (no, I'm not done milking that and never will be - you were warned), multiple reviewing gigs, Romancelandia kerfuffles, various Little Miss Crabby Pants rants, countless Book Squees!, some excellent blog posts and some...well, not so excellent blog posts. 

All of that is par for the course.  This blog has had more ups than downs and brought a lot of really great experiences and people into my life - which is what keeps me going.  Because blogging is a marathon, not a sprint.  And when you're a lone blogger in a quirky little space like I have?  The trick is to find a way to keep it interesting for you otherwise you're screwed.  Hopefully other people find it interesting too and keep coming back.

So happy anniversary to the Bat Cave and thanks to all of you who have been stopping by here over the past 14 years.  Either as long time readers, or brand new baby ones.  In honor of this auspicious (::cough cough::) occasion I ask that if you enjoy blogs like this one, to support your quirky lone individual bloggers the best way you can - by reading, sharing and commenting.  After all this time I still get a charge when someone leaves a comment or shares a post.  And barring that?  Heck, pick up a category romance.  They're good for the soul.

Here, There, Everywhere

So, I think it's time we sat down and had The Talk.  The one where Wendy discloses why her blogging has been all over the frackin' place the past several weeks.  But first....

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I wanted to make sure to point any aspiring writers here at the Bat Cave towards Harlequin's online So You Think You Can Write conference.  If you're interested in writing for Harlequin (and, more importantly, keeping Wendy in category romance), this is a great opportunity to hob-nob with editors, get feedback and advice. 

The conference runs from November 7 - 11.  Be sure to check it out.


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I just got back from a trip home to Michigan.  I spent time with the folks, had a fabu dinner out with Big Sis, saw my niece and nephew....neither of whom are Lemon Drop, but still cute as the dickens all the same. 

This trip also explains why y'all got a bunch of reviews in the past week or so.  I hit a major slump in October, which means Wendy Got Back Logged.  Well, being held captive on an airplane where the film was Mr. Popper's Penguins (::shudder::) - pretty much meant Wendy did nothing but read.  I had two books finished before I even landed in Michigan, and finished a third while I was home.  3 books, in 5 days.  That's not a personal best for me, but pretty dang close. 

Still, I need to get some reviews to Sybil soon or she's going to take out my knee-caps.  My category romance back-log on the Sony Reader has hit Epic OMG! levels.

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So why the slump and why the spotty blogging?  Well, for those of you who have been following my work-related misadventures, the "reorg" is in full swing.  I was transferred to one of our larger branch libraries on October 22.  I worked three whole days and then took a week off for my Michigan trip.  Which means I'm still trying to find my groove.

I'm the type of person who pretty much kicks ass in a rut.  Oh, how I lurve me a rut.  Right now, my rut has been back-filled and I've been given a teaspoon to dig a New Rut. Which is a trick, because I still have my responsibilities from My Old Job (you know, the kick ass Wendy Helps Maintain Adult Fiction For 30-Some Libraries one) plus new responsibilities for The Modified Job (public service at the branch - which entails reference work, programming, collection management, the general business of running said branch etc.).

In a nutshell, I'm two people now. 

On the bright side, everybody has been really great - and patient with me while I flail about like a half-dead fish.  I'm at a library with a great staff, it's a community I'm familiar with, I just haven't quite figured out My New Normal yet.  I do need to get my stuff together though, because much more of this and I suspect people will begin to lose patience with me.

But it's tough for me, because I feel like I'm half-assing just about everything right now, which naturally spills over into my blogging and reading.  Sigh, I'll figure it out.  Eventually.  I mean, I always do.  In the meantime though, it's going to be bumpy around here....