Answering some questions....

So I had always thought I needed to keep my personal life and my bookish life separate, but it's becoming exhausting, and quite honestly, I can't do it anymore. So here's the good, bad, and ugly of my personal life and the health issues I'm battling.

I'm 45 (46 in July). I've been married to an infuriating man that I can't imagine spending a day without since 2004 (we've been together since 1997. Yes, I had only been 19 for a couple of months when we had our first date).

I'm aan animal lover and currently have two furry little overloards that I love more than I can express, Ozzie and Dexter (yes after the show but that's a story for another day). They make my life so much better and make the hard days worth it.

I have two sisters (I'm the oldest), a niece who I love more than I thought possible, a mom who's so much more than my mom, and, in general, a family that's equal parts amazing and klutzy, again a story for another day.

Now, on to the health part of this. Back in 2008, I had an ascending aortic dissection; a residual dissection was also discovered, and my body basically became a Pandora's box. my doctors open that box a lot, always finding something new.

After the dissections, well life has been crazy, I had mini-strokes, they found a hole in my heart and fixed it, and then they found out the hard way that I have clotting disorders, I had multiple bilateral pulmonary embolisms and multiple blood clots in my legs, from there I had a little fall and tore a meniscus which led the Doctors to go looking for an answer. They determined I had a connective tissue disorder (VEDS again another day) and since then there's been heart failure, vascular issues galore, lung issues, memory loss from the mini-strokes, clotting disorders, CTEPH (don't google it it's scary and I'm not a surgical candidate) COPD, being oxygen dependent and so much more I know I'm forgetting.

I spend more time in hospitals than a lot of doctors and that is honestly where my love of reading came in my adult years.

I was recovering from a procedure and picked up Stalking Jack the Ripper

and I was enthralled. I escaped the body I was in, the pain I was in, and the fear that had taken hold of my life.

Within the pages of that book, I had hours where I wasn't scared, where the things my body didn't do correctly weren't what was at the center of my day, and where I realized through reading I could be anywhere at any time I wanted to be just by opening a book.

Now, if you've made it this far, thank you, and here's where the fun part (I hope) comes in.

In the three years, I've been part of BookTok and Bookstagram and reviewing books, I've tried to stay out of the photos and the videos; I'm scared and usually bruised and have skin conditions that make me look well... let's just say I haven't had the confidence t put myself out there.

Then, in the last few weeks, I've seen friends taking the leap to do things to make themselves happy, and I said to hell with it, I'm going to go for it.

Now, I will not portray a character, what you see will be what you get, most likely my hair won't be done, I never wear makeup, I don't use filters on myself and I suck at editing so it will most likely be a lot of me rambling but I'll try and stay on topic.... notice I said try,.

While I'm excited about this change, I do have to say I don't have the energy most people do, and I don't have the stamina, but I'm going to go for it and hope I can find some people who share my love of books and reading.

And I'll be more transparent; when I'm in the hospital, I'll just say it; when I don't feel like posting, I won't, and I'll just hope that the powers that be will keep pushing my videos out there.

Thank you so much to all of the people who have given me the courage to make this change.,

And as always I hope your day is filled getting lost in the pages of fantastic books.

~~ Ann.

P.S. I'm also taking stress off myself with editing my posts, I'm going to say what I'm thinking and there will be spelling and grammar errors but I'm not going to stress about i