Loving the Language of Literacy: A Few Changes Around Here and Life in General: What's Been Going On? (1)

I know, I know. The title of this post is uncharacteristically vague for Sofia. This post is divided into 2 parts. Part One is the full explanation of what's been going on in my life, and an explanation as to why I went dark from social media and my blog from July 31 - August 5. Part Two is how these changes in my personal life will affect my blog and general activity in the interwebs. You can read one or the other, both of that's what tickles your fancy. I have just had all of you blog readers for almost 8 months (shocking) and want to let you know.

On Tuesday, July 29, 2014, my mom passed away after an almost two year long fight against esophageal cancer. I have only briefly talked about this once before in my book review of Me Since You by Laura Wiess when I was comparing my situation and the main character's in the story. My lack of posts this summer has been because of the level of care my mother had required. (Trust me, I had wanted a heck of a lot more drafted and scheduled) Truth be told, I had never thought I would hear the phrase "She's out of pain now and gone to a better place" or something like that EVER. I don't really want to divulge into the nitty gritty details of everything in this post, but what I will say is that her passing was extremely fast and unexpected.

When I could wrap my head around the entire situation, as well as try to evaluate how I was still going to blog at this time of my life, I knew that I wanted to somehow make a tribute to her on Loving the Language of Literacy, and I hope you don't mind. Instead of going on a very long tangent about how great of a mom she was, I have decided to post her obituary - written by yours truly- with personal information taken out for obvious privacy issues. On another note, the obituary is extremely non traditional, in the sense that I tried my best to make it interesting, and not a random list of facts nobody wants to read.

World Traveler. Huntington Gardens's Lover. Firm Believer of Living in the Moment. Turn of the Century Fanatic. Nutri-Bullet Endorser. Netflix Enthusiast.

Sandra passed away due to esophageal cancer on Tuesday, July 29, 2014. Sandy was born in Washington DC on October 2, 1952, aka "the olden days", to Angela Harwood and Walter Gabler. In her life, she had had a number of professions including English instructor in Europe, nanny, sugar cane cutter, an editor for Bon Appetit magazine, a TWA (Trans World Airline) worker, and of course, a teacher. Her biggest love was gallivanting around the world, and in her life, she had gone to six out of the seven continents (for some reason, she didn't want to march with the penguins), her favorite being Europe because of its rich history, culture, and (duh) food. She is survived by her daughter, Sofia, who had dragged her to art and history museums all around the world, made her drink more organic fruit and veggie smoothies than she could count, and instilled in her a love of reading. Whereever she is right now, she is somewhere with beautiful gardens, perhaps growing organic, non GMO food, having annoying songs stuck in her head such as "Radioactive," and "Let It Go," reading murder mysteries, and finally getting to see Season 5 of her favorite TV show White Collar (which hadn't been uploaded to Netflix yet).

In case you were wondering, I am still a minor. This brings on a whole other slew of issues because I have had to pack up and move to another city in order to live with the family friends who are in the process of becoming my legal guardians. There have also been a ton of other little things such as getting a library card from the library in my new city, getting released from the school district for my last year at my current school, grieving, and plain getting adjusted to everything. This is the reason for my sudden move (mentioned briefly on twitter) and the reason why I have gotten a new book case (something I am very excited about)

***What's Been Going On? Is a self-explanatory (hopefully not used very much) feature on Loving the Language of Literacy where I will explain what has happened in my blog absence, why the absence happened, and any changes because of it. Because of the events in recent months, with my mom's passing as well as all of the business that comes with school and student council, I think there will be times when I will need to use this feature. And I just want to be completely honest and open with all of you, so you know why I disappeared off the face of the earth.

There are quite a number of changes that are going to be made around here. As you may know, I'm pretty strict with myself when it comes to my hobbies, especially blogging because real people actually read what I write (that number of people is like four, but it still counts). I would like you to know that I am extremely dedicated to my blog and do everything in my power to put up new content as frequently as I can. With that said, I know there is no possible way I can keep up the habit of posting nearly every day. There has been so much going on in my life, and there are so many things that need to be done. If you look on my Goodreads, you will see how long it is taking me to finish books -because of lack of time for reading- let along blogging.