Reading, Writing...

I am in, what will probably be a short lived, reading kick.  I love to read, I always have.  As I have gotten older, I have started to enjoy reading non fiction as well as fiction.  I am in the middle of two or three books, a couple of magazines-all about parenting or raising children-but I wanted to read something fun.

Matt and I have several book shelves full of books in our house.  They are mostly my books.  I am a book hoarder.  I can't bring myself to get rid of any of the books I have ever had.  I love to buy books.  Even if they just sit on the shelf and look pretty, I do have the intent of reading every book I buy, even though it never works out that way.  Amazon.com is the devil for that very reason.

So night before last, I read a parenting magazine, a chapter in one of the parenting books I am in the middle of, but I still wanted to read something that wasn't so heavy and didn't require a lot of thought.  I occasionally think about books or stories I have read before, and I do like to re-read some of my favorites.  I had been telling Matt about a story I had read in college, but couldn't remember who wrote it or what the name of it was.  I was pretty sure it was in my Freshman year Literature book (that which I still have, of course) so I got it off the shelf and with a little digging found the story I had been agonizing over for sometime.  I was stoked it was in the book I had!  So as I was looking through the literature, there were plays ("Death of a Salesman" jumped out at me.  One of the worst reads I have read.  I plan to read it again, though, to see if I still don't like it), poetry (most of the ones that I loved and were forced to memorize in high school!  I wish I could still remember them!), and mainly short stories-Edgar Allen Poe, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty-names I had forgotten since that first semester of college.  My world had been open to so many new names and stories-I loved it!

I have decided to start reading that Freshman Literature book.  My mind needs a workout.  I need to expand beyond Raffi and Sesame Street again (although I love those things now).  I miss school, I realized after reading about 15 pages into that big book that I had to lug around in my book bag 3 days a week.  I miss stressing over tests, writing papers, going to the library for research and using a card catalog not a computer!  I am such a nerd!

The Lord saw fit to let me marry a nerd.  Hopefully we will pass on that nerdy-ness to our daughter...