My 5 Favorite Things About Blogging

Continuing in the 3 year Blogoversary celebration, I'm using an idea I saw on Red House Books blog when they had their blogoversary last month.  Mine is a little different, I think hers was about her least favorite things about blogging.  And maybe I'll do something like that later this month.  But here are my 5 things.

1.  First, as I am still waiting to find someone to take a chance on me and hire me as a school librarian, I love that this is a way I get to share my love of books with others.  In some cases it is my fellow book bloggers and lovers.  But in other cases, it may just be family members or friends, who see a post show up on my Facebook timeline and want to check it out.
2.  In a way, it gives me one more excuse to spend extra time reading.  If I'm to keep my blog up to date and keep it going, I must keep reading books to have more to review, right?  :-)
3.  I've made a lot of new friends through blogging.  Some are more just Internet friends.  And some I got to actually meet in person at BEA this year.  I was disappointed that some I know and hoped to meet at BEA I didn't get the chance to meet up with them.  But that's okay, I got to meet others that I hadn't followed before, and now I have new awesome blogs to follow!
4.  Along with making new friends this way, I feel like I get to learn about books and authors I might not have heard of without following other people's blogs.  With all the drama about Independent authors lately, I have to say this is one way I have heard about them, whereas even with my part time job at the bookstore I might not have had a chance to hear of them.
5.  Finally, in a way, I feel like blogging has helped me meet or talk to authors online, in a way I might not have without it.  In fact, just the other day I emailed a link to my review of a book to the author, and he came and commented on my review!  So cool!  And then I feel like I get to talk to other authors on Twitter, or through their blogs, Facebook, etc.  And it even led to me meeting one of my favorite authors in New York City last November.  And then I feel like we got to be friends, as we hung out for several hours and had drinks and talked about all kinds of things!  And now I have my sister in NYC who has someone to know as well.  And I got to see her again when I was there for BEA.  You can see us all in the picture below, along with one of my new blogger friends!

Cara Lynn Shultz(author), Nancy DiGirolamo(blogger), me and my sis.

So, what do you think of my 5 reasons?  Are any of them things that are your favorites?  Or what do you enjoy?  I'd love to hear about it!  And again, stay tuned for my big giveaway which will start on Thursday, and I promise there will be some smaller ones coming up soon!