Celebratory + Apology Giveaway

Aloha, booknerds! I know, I know, I have been so MIA these past few weeks, er, months. Since January, my posts have been irregular. My last blog post was almost 3 weeks ago (gasp!) and I haven't visited other blogs as well. Much as I'd like to apologize, I know I shouldn't because as one blogger said before, "it's your life, it's your space, you can use it or not." Or something to that effect.

Life has been super crazy lately -- but good crazy. This April was spent traveling and planning trips. I joined a tour group (where I knew no one -- another feat for my introvert self!) and I had such a blast that I ended up signing up for more tour groups. I also visited Cebu recently. Traveling has been eating up some of my reading and blogging time. As much as I appreciate how reading allows me to explore different worlds, the actual act of going out and seeing the world is so much better. Of course, the ideal way of doing it is bringing books with you on your travels. And since I love traveling and plan to do more of it, I am setting up a new travel blog which I hope you'll also check out. :)

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="569"] Checking Banaue Rice Terraces off my bucket list :)[/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="555"] Awesome new friends[/caption]



[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="639"] Philippine Taoist Temple in Cebu[/caption]



[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="399"] Aguinid Falls was the best![/caption]

Speaking of Cebu... you know my friend, Laila, who's guested on this blog a few times last year? We finally met in Cebu (she was my tour guide hahaha) and we met up with Roseby of Blah Blah Notebook, who's also from Cebu. I went home with 3 books and lots of bookmarks courtesy of these ladies. Booknerds unite!

On the bookish front, I finally finished Clockwork Angel! Although I still think it was dragging, for the most part I liked it. I also finished reading The DUFF and this amazing dystopia I got from NetGalley, Material Girls.

I can't help but think that 2015 is looking really good. I've been going out more, meeting so many new people, learning new things, and gaining new bookish and non-bookish friends... and that's a reason to celebrate, right?

Aaaand, did you know that I also celebrated The Bookshelf Intruder's first blogoversary? Well, not entirely true. You see, I migrated from Tumblr to Wordpress in February last year. But I started getting active in June. So, is my blogoversary in February or June? I don't know and I don't really care that much -- I'm just really happy that I got this far because it sure wasn't easy work and that I met awesome people along the way. :)

In celebration of all these awesome, crazy things that's been happening in my life (and also as a form of apology for being MIA), I'm giving away a copy of Stephanie Perkins' Lola and the Boy Next Door to one lucky PH reader. For international peeps, you have a chance to win a book of your choice from Book Depository.

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Terms:

1. You must be at least 13 years old to join.
2. No cheating! Don’t pick up entries for something you haven’t done.
3. Please use a valid email address because I’ll be sending you an email if you win. If the winner doesn’t respond to my email within 48 hours, I will choose another winner.
4. I am not responsible for any items lost in the mail.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck and I hope you stick around as I slowly but surely come back to the book blogoverse. :)