Monday Meanderings #38 #MerryChristmas!

Greetings, friends and family. This will be my last regular post for the year. I will be on a blogging break while I work on my Top Ten best reads for 2025 list and other things that I’ll be sharing with you.

Our author community is grieving for the loss of Joan Hall. She passed away suddenly on December 6th. I’m in shock, as we all are. My heart goes out to her family and I pray they find peace. She was a friend to all authors and gave selflessly. I never asked her for anything she didn’t immediately say yes to. She will be sorely missed. This is the last time I saw her, which was November of last year. She and her husband, John, met me at a Cracker Barrel on my way home from Arkansas. I’m still in shock. Please keep John and her family in your prayers.

Jan Sikes and Joan Hall – November 2024

This past week I worked a lot. We are doing store inventory and physically counting everything. It will be ongoing through the month, so I will be busier than usual, is that’s even possible.

I have mentioned getting the White Rune Series back up (and they are) BUT two of the books are not showing any categories. Has this ever happened to you? I have contacted KDP to ask why the categories are missing. Hopefully, I’ll get an answer. It’s always something, right?

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be editing and tweaking the short stories for the new collection I will release next year. I’m looking forward to sharing these.

I got to spend some time last Friday evening with my two youngest grandsons and it was such a joy. My sixteen-year-old plays Tuba in the high school band and the younger one is learning to play clarinet in middle school. They put on a concert for me! I should have taken pictures, but I was just enjoying the moment.

I pulled up some interesting stats as I looked back on the year. I am happy with what I found.

My blog jumped from 7.4k views in 2024 to 13.4k in 2025! I am doing a happy dance over that. I published 101 posts. I had 3.2k comments in 2025 compared to 1.8k in 2024. My most viewed and shared post was this one: https://jansikes.com/the-weight-of-snow-and-regret-blog-tour-inspiration-newrelease-lizgauffreau-bsky-social/ Congratulations to Liz!

I don’t know what I’ll do on this blog next year, but hopefully I can get inspired with something new and fun. I’d like to go back to blogging at least twice a week, if I can manage it. I have also joined Substack. Well, actually, I joined about a year ago and never did anything with it. I’m still learning what the platform has to offer. I don’t see that it will ever take the place of this blog, but it might replace my monthly newsletter. As I say, I’m still learning. If you’re on Substack, I’d appreciate a follow! https://substack.com/@jansikes145199?

I love this bit of inspiration, and hope you will, too.

I went to the Angel cards for our final card for this year. I just love it! What a great thought to carry into a new year. We all have knowledge on different aspects of what we do and by sharing, we all grow together.

I wish you good days ahead filled with love, laughter and joy. Please join me in sending up a prayer for all those suffering this holiday season.

I’ll be back with my Top Ten list when I get it created. It’s going to be so hard to choose. I had a stellar year in reading!!

Here’s a thought to carry with us into 2026: “Last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice.” –T.S. Eliot

Take care, tell your loved ones what they mean to you and keep creating!

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