Monday, January 6, 2014

Dear Blogging World

At the start of 2013, I took a year-long hiatus from blogging to focus on finishing my dissertation and graduating. It worked! I write to you now as Dr. Jones, with a year full of meaningful accomplishments behind me.



Because I turned 30 this year, I also renewed my driver's license this year for the first time in several years. That means that the year 2013 has been looming over me as an important year for a while, and setting 2013 as the goal year for my Phd graduation made the year seem even more special. As a result, this new year, 2014, feels newer than a lot of recent Januaries have. It's the first New Year of my thirties, my first New Year in a while when I have not been a student, and my first New Year as an official director of music ministry at Highland Baptist Church. It's also the first year I've been able to finally read Harry Potter. The year feels fresh and there are a lot of unknowns regarding my future employment and what to do with my time now that I'm no longer writing a dissertation. But one thing I do know is that I want to return to blogging. I've missed these simple posts, if only for the documentation of my cats and the lovely bits of life that have floated across this screen.

In an effort to focus more on blogging, I am moving my blog from christinehand.com to a new site, http://thebeautifulextras.blogspot.com/. I will still be using this space as my music website, where I will keep you updated on my concerts and other musical goings-on. But since I wanted to write about lots of different things without feeling like I was ignoring my music, I decided to move my main blog to a separate site. For my handful of followers, please start following me there.

There are many more things to update you on, including some words about the theme of my new site, but this is enough for today -- I still have a couple of Harry Potter books to read.

Happy New Year

--Christine