B.....is for Books, Books....everywhere

.......and not enough time to read them all.

I have had a love affair with books my entire life. My mom told me that I used to sit on the floor when I was just a toddler and carefully look at magazines....not even wrinkling a single page. One day my grandmother saw me looking at a picture in a magazine that she thought was not age appropriate. Back then, it sure could not have been anything racy but, nevertheless, she bent down and ripped the page out of the magazine right before my terrified eyes. Mom said I was heart-broken! She related that I cried and cried for what seemed like hours. So my love of books, magazines and pictures has been around since before I can even remember.

I once had a sweatshirt that read "So many books, so little time" and it stated exactly how I felt. One year when I was in my teens, my mom had a birthday cake made for me. It looked like an open book, much like the picture in this post. On it she had written "Oh give me a good book to read and let the rest of the world go by". Yes, my mom sure did know me. But then, I inherited my love of books from her.

I probably own over 500 books....maybe more. All but a handful are hardcover. I have two stacks of books in my guest room that are each four feet tall. These are the books that are waiting patiently for me to take one in my hands and become friends with it and the joys it holds inside its covers. And, yes....it seems like there is "too little time". Every time I get the stacks reduced a bit, I add more to them because new books have come out that I just MUST read.

I love the feel of a book in my hands and the smell of a brand new book. I will often just open one up and bury my nose in it and inhale deeply. I know this all sounds crazy.....but this is just a little bit of my personality. However, I do own a Kindle. I like the convenience of throwing it in my purse and always being ready to start reading. It will never replace an actual book for me, but I've grown rather fond of the convenience. Good grief.....a Kindle can hold over 3,500 books....or so I'm told anyway. I have about 15 on mine right now. Its also quite common for me to have several books going at the same time. I think the most I've had going at once has been 3.

My son does not read books at all. He's missing so much. My daughter will read voraciously when she's in the mood. She devoured the entire set of Philippa Gregory's Boleyn series in just a few weeks. My grandson is a reader but doesn't read too often. Hopefully, my granddaughter will enjoy reading enough to do it often.

So I am very grateful to all the authors out there......for, without them, we would have no books to enjoy. With them you can escape anywhere in (or out of) the world. Anywhere your heart desires and never leave the comfort of your living room.

Right now I'm reading The Passage, which is can't-put-it-down terrific........ and on my Kindle, Torn the second part of the Trylle Trilogy. which is just a fun- easy reading fantasy story, but it does hold your attention.

Thank you to those of you who welcomed me to "The Challenge". I hope I can follow through. I, too, am looking forward to reading new blogs and meeting new people so I can add you to my list of awesome bloggers that I've come to know and love. Thank you again for your warm welcomes! Enjoy the weekend and find joy in the fact that Spring represents new life and that can also be interpreted to mean, "A new look on life". Keep smilin'.

Sleepy.......

so sleepy I can't stand it. I've been working a lot to fill in for vacations and that may be it or else its the weather change....but all I know is that I'm so sleepy lately I feel like I could fall asleep in the middle of a crowd. I've been going to bed earlier and earlier at night. I've even missed a few of my favorite TV programs that have started up this Fall because of my sleepiness. One good thing, I can watch them online through www.hulu.com if I miss them first time around. Last night I watched Medium and The New Adventures of Old Christine online since I missed the original showings. As usual, they were excellent.

On the home front, things have been quiet for the most part and that's a good thing. I'm trying to prepare for the upcoming winter in case its as bad as it was last year. The Farmer's Almanac states that its supposed to be BITTERLY cold in my area but not much snow. That does make me feel better....you don't have to shovel COLD. I'm buying frozen dinner type stuff a little at a time to put in the freezer downstairs. Frozen homemade bread dough (its really quite good) and also powdered milk....just in case the weather makes going to the store difficult.

I have to get my flu shot yet and also get my car winterized. I still don't know if I'm going to have a job next year or not. At first I heard that it wasn't going into the budget....then I heard it was. So I just have to wait and see what happens. It would be nice if I could work just one more year to get some bills paid off....but the thought of not having to get out in bitterly cold blizzards to go to work is also a nice dream. One good thing is that my work is only 6 miles one way from my house and the roads are usually well-maintained between here and there.

I've been reading The Help and its very good. Once again, fiction based on fact. My huge stack of books to be read is 29 books high as it is and then my daughter insisted I read a book she just finished by Philippa Gregory (who wrote The Other Boleyn Girl ) called The Wise Woman. Oh my Gawd.....it was a sit on the edge of your seat type book that was hard to put down. I read it in two nights. Not for the faint of heart.... there's lots of sexy passages, descriptions and acts, not to mention some witchcraft thrown in for good measure. Takes place in the 1500's, England.

So, I hope everyone is having a great start to Fall in your area. Here, the leaves are beginning to turn and that certain little nip is in the air. I do love this time of year.....just not what follows it!

Summer came in with a light show.....

Wow, summer certainly did come in with a bang. It was humid all day but then after 8 p.m. the thunder started up. I was so tired last night by 10 pm that I ended up going to bed with the constant noise of thunder outside my windows. The dog and I were comfy and I was thankful that I was dry as I heard the rain coming down in torrents. I fell asleep in no time and slept very well. There was a time that I was so frightened of storms that I could not sleep through them. Something has happened to change that....probably age. Now high winds are about the only thing that really does frighten me. We didn't seem to have anything like that last night so I guess thats why I slept so soundly.

Earlier in the evening when I went outside with my dog I heard something that sounded like a jet engine. I was thinking to myself that maybe one of my neighbors was getting some power washing done but I didn't see any activity around me. Then my attention was drawn to my AC. Hmmm, it seemed to be coming from that unit. I went inside and turned it off and sure enough, that's what it was. Fear gripped me.....oh boy, this is JUST what I need. Have my AC go out on FRIDAY night just before a weekend where they've promised hot and humid weather. I called my AC guy anyway....hoping that maybe he'd be available and he was! Thankfully he only lives about 2 miles away so he came right over. Come to find out, it needed a cleaning. We looked back on the records and I hadn't gotten it cleaned last spring (last year) not to mention I hadn't even done it this year yet.....I usually do that in May and it must have slipped my mind. So he cleaned it and now it sounds fine again. $65. Not too bad if you think about the comfort involved. *Sigh*......yes, I'm spoiled. ....but only in a very few small ways. *grin*

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and a wonderful long awaited for SUMMER. I've finally finished Pillars of the Earth and have started on the "sort of" sequel, World without End. It's really not a continuation, as this second book takes place about 200 years later but it does involve the descendants of characters from the first book. I'm not very far into it as yet but its starting out just as good as the other one. This book has a little over 1,000 pages. Keep smilin'~

Save me.....

If I could only take my eyes out, give them a nice warm bath, then a wonderful cooling massage with healing herbals, treat them to a long and restful nap and put them back in....I think it would feel sooooo good. I have been reading..... reading.... reading. I'm a reading fool. I turn into a snarling bitch when the phone rings or if somebody happens to come over because I want to get back to my BOOK. I am 500 pages into it (a little more than half way) and it draws me back to it as much as an opium den does an addict.

I've done a lot of reading in my time.....and most of them were really very good books. But this one....this one just grabs me. What a writer Ken Follett is. Kudos to him and his wonderful book, Pillars of the Earth. I need someone to come over here and do my laundry for me and also clean up around here as I can't bear to tear myself away long enough to do it myself. If the book wasn't so big, I'd even try and smuggle it into work. I wonder if an author has ever been sued by a reader's family for alienation of attention?