Life Update + Giveaway

Hey kittens, long time no see. This post has been a long time coming and I'm really sorry for the past year. Updates have been sporadic, I haven't been great at responding to comments, and I just haven't been able to make APR my priority. I have an explanation; I've mentioned parts of this on Twitter, but I've never put it all out there on the blog. So, to give you all the dirty bits I've tried to keep off the internet, let's go back, back, back. If you stick with me through all of this, I have a present at the end.

On June 14, 2008, aka my 21st birthday, I gave notice at my first big-girl job to go into business with my mom. She'd managed a heart surgery practice for many years and with the help of the retiring partner, set out to open her own boutique-style billing and coding service. The last ten years have been incredibly hard. We started with one doctor. Some days we would be so dead we'd spend hours just stamping return addresses on boxes of envelopes to say we accomplished something. But we grew. In 2013 we suffered a devastating blow. Our business partner, more grandfather to me than my actual bio relatives, passed away. We almost closed - his estate forcing us up for sale as the majority partner. After months of uncertainty, no offers were made and we soldiered on. In the last five years, we've hired significantly more staff, rented more office space. I went to trade school and earned two sets of credentials to better market myself. My baby company was growing up.

And it took control of our lives.

In the last year, my mother's health has declined with a rapidity that's terrifying to see. She's lost 75 pounds in eight months. We've been through every test imaginable, and some I hadn't heard of despite 10 years in the medical industry. The final diagnosis? Stress. Stress so severe it has caused her stomach lining to spasm and rip and, due to constant reflux, she's developed the early signs of throat cancer. In the last year, I've had my anxiety medication increased four times. I work 65 hours a week, sometimes in the office as late as 2 o'clock in the morning. Obviously, my blogging has suffered and though I've made a few "I think work's under control, I should be back on a schedule!" posts, I can't stick to them on top of my work hours.

As of today, I can announce we have sold our company. It's bittersweet. It's giving up our connection to Bob and his family, (though if he were alive to see what this has done to our health, I suspect he would have sold us back in 2013.) I am walking away with nothing tangible from the sale. In a lot of ways, it feels like the sacrifices of the last decade were wasted.

I'm also incredibly happy. I've taken a similar position with one doctor. My employment contract guarantees only 40 hours of work a week. I'm using my certifications; at the company, I was spending far more time on HR and client relations than actually coding. The position is (currently) work from home, which allows me greater freedom during the actual sunlight hours of the day. As some of you know, my husband manages a bar which has made it very difficult to see him when I was working 10a - 7p and he works 6p-2a.

So it's a good thing and a sad thing and a long overdue thing. But what does it mean for APR? Well, I can't speak for Jessie who has her own life issues going on, but as for me, I will be posting twice a week to start. One post will be a bookish meme, TTT or Waiting on Wednesday, and one will be a review or discussion. I'm also committing to replying more to comments and talking to y'all more on Twitter instead of just retweeting every meme I see.

So that takes us to the end of this post and what you've been waiting for: the giveaway! To thank you all for sticking with me and believing APR could come back, I'm not choosing one winner, I'm choosing FIVE. Giveaway is open internationally as long as TBD ships to your country. All you have to do to be entered? Tell me what one book of the last year you think I should have read.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Again guys, thank you so much for following me through all of this. My inability to balance work and life cost me my girlfriend, my health, and a lot of contacts in the book community. It means to world to know I've still got you on my side (or if you're new, that some people want to check me out anyway!) I love you all.