Raise Your Hand if You Agree!

I shamelessly stole this, but only because I love it so much. I plan to follow this advice very soon. On October 11, to be exact.

About Pastimes

The kayaking post got me thinking about all the things I do, pretend to do, read about doing, or would like to do:

• reading
• sewing
• baking
• candymaking
• knitting
• woodworking
• gardening
• kayaking

These are activities that come to the top of my mind, though I know there are others I've thought about from time to time (I still want to learn to play the marimba). I don't have the time or money to do all of these things now, and I don't anticipate retiring early in life with lots of money to spare.

Sometimes I wonder if I would be better off dropping some things from the list of aspirations and spending my time on the few activities that are left. *sigh*

Math I Understand

Unlucky Arithmetic

Thirteen Ways to Raise a Nonreader

by Dean Schneider and Robin Smith

1 Never read where your children can see you.

2 Put a TV or computer in every room. Don’t neglect the bedrooms and kitchen.

3 Correct your child every time she mispronounces a word.

4 Schedule activities every day after school so your child will never be bored.

5 Once your child can read independently, throw out the picture books. They’re for babies.

6 Don’t play board games together. Too dull.

7 Give little rewards for reading. Stickers and plastic toys are nice. Money is even better.

8 Don’t expect your children to enjoy reading. Kids’ books are for teaching vocabulary, proper study habits, and good morals.

9 Buy only 40-watt bulbs for your lamps.

10 Under no circumstances read your child the same book over and over. She heard it once, she should remember it.

11 Never allow your child to listen to books on tape; that’s cheating.

12 Make sure your kids only read books that are “challenging.” Easy books are a complete waste of time. That goes double for comic books and Mad magazine.

13 Absolutely, positively no reading in bed.

http://archive.hbook.com/pdf/articles/13ways.pdf
Text © 2001 by Dean Schneider and Robin Smith. Reprinted from the March/April 2001
issue of The Horn Book Magazine. For ordering information about The Horn Book Magazine and The Horn Book Guide, visit www.hbook.com or call 1-800-325-1170.

In Mourning; or, Good, Better, Best

I'm grieving over the loss of my seemingly last bit of free time. I gave up most TV watching, even my beloved British period dramas and police shows from Netflix, a few months ago. That means I also gave up knitting, though I still have hopes of finishing Baby J's stocking before Christmas (it's doable, maybe with a Closer/Major Crimes/Downton Abbey marathon after finals?). So now it's down to the last comfort. Yes, recreational reading. It's basically gone.

I marvel at the many busy women (and men) who manage to read despite all the other things they accomplish, but I apparently need more sleep than they do. I'm sadly about to return the latest Laurie R. King to the library unread, and I've borrowed the latest Mma Ramotswe book three times without finishing it.

On the other hand, I've been more consistent in my scripture reading lately, and for several weeks I've been walking two to three miles a few times a week. I'd also like to say my house is a bit cleaner these days, but that may be my imagination. And, if I stick with the school thing, I'll have another degree one of these days and perhaps be in a position to better my employment.

So, I'm trying to be positive and think about the blessings that come when we choose better things over good things. Still, please be kind if you see me shed a tear or two.

While I Wasn't Looking

Disappointed today to find out that while I wasn't paying attention, my six-week old hold request for Broken Harbor expired. So now I've started back at the bottom of the list. Maybe I'll get a copy by December.

The Truth Will Set You Free

If you read this blog at Blogger rather than through a feed, you may have noticed my Goodreads "currently reading" shelf in the sidebar. See how leanly stocked it is these days? I'm listing only three books as being currently read, quite a reduction of the nine or ten titles that languished on that list for months, or even years in some cases.

No, I didn't suddenly finish all the books I started reading two years ago (that's how long Little Dorrit has been on that shelf). After agonizing for months about the sheer messiness of it all, the light bulb came on and I realized the solution was another shelf--"read most of it"--which allowed me to move titles like Stiff and The Book Thief, books I didn't read 100% of but I don't intend to go back to. I then quickly purged the "currently reading shelf," sending things to the new "read most of it" shelf or to the existing "may finish someday" shelf if I had read only a third of the book or less.

I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from my life and am glad my "currently reading shelf" now honestly reflects my book-reading activity (magazines, blogs, catalogs, knitting books, cookbooks and cereal boxes are another matter altogether).

As for Little Dorrit, I renewed my attentions to it about two weeks ago, and I'm nearly finished. Maybe this is a sign that I'm mature enough to tackle Bleak House and David Copperfield for real this time around.

Perfectly Lovely

I don't have enough time to indulge in all my pastimes all the time, so I have to choose. For a while, I was reading a book or two a week, but now I'm knitting, with a bit of time devoted to crosswords (I can do Thursday NYT puzzles if I put my mind to it and cheat a tiny bit!). Of course, I don't just sit and knit, I sit and knit and watch a DVD, either The X Files (just finished season five), or my current favorite British crime drama, Inspector Lewis.

After bemoaning all the recent evenings I've worked "late" or had to go somewhere after work, I had a perfectly lovely evening last night. I didn't get home until 6pm, but I still had time to watch a DVD, do some knitting, work on a crossword and finish off the evening reading in the Book of Mormon in bed, all before 11:45.

What's your idea of a perfectly lovely evening?

Something to Pique Your Interest?

I was unenthused by BookPage's September bestseller watch post, though I saw several gift ideas there. I'm more interested by their list of 25 most anticipated books for fall. Top of my list is Roger Ebert's Life Itself.

I've been in a reading funk lately. The only print book I'm actively reading* is The Hippopotamus Pool (Amelia Peabody) for the ?th time. But I'm hoping to break out of the doldrums with Before I Go to Sleep this weekend and I'm looking forward to Laurie R. King's Pirate King, out next week.

What's on your reading horizon?

*I'm also listening to Blue Blood in the car and loving it.

Moving On, or, Going Out with a Bang

I finally closed my Audible account. At $14.95 a month, I decided it was a luxury I should forgo for now. I used my remaining 4 credits to buy:

• A Christmas Carol (narrated by Jim Dale)
• Macbeth: A Novel (narrated by Alan Cumming)
• Our Mutual Friend (Charles Dickens)
• Around the World in 80 Days (narrated by Jim Dale)

I feel like I'm listening to a Harry Potter book whenever I listen to Jim Dale, but I still love him

I also purchased two sale books:

• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ($6, narrated by Elijah Wood)
• The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York (I think the narration and production are not top quality, but it was only $1.20)

These ought to keep my busy for a while, or at least they will once I run out of audiobooks to borrow from the library!

Leave Request

Dear Boss,

I have a lot of things to do at work this afternoon. However, I respectfully request permission to leave early in order to address a real emergency.

You see, I borrowed the new Charles Todd novel at the public library two weeks ago. I didn't start reading it, however, because real life intruded (and I was depressed and busy solving crosswords). Now, the book is due today and I can't renew it because two other patrons submitted holds.

I am sure you will recognize the gravity of my situation and allow me to go home and start reading.

Thank you,

Auntie K, dedicated reader, if not a dedicated employee

Speaking of Books

The local library's OverDrive site needs an advanced search option that lets users exclude erotic romance novels from the search results. I like to browse the lists of recently published e-books and audio books, but do not like scrolling through page after page of newly acquired titles like Her Texan Temptation or Cinderella & the Playboy. Ugh.

My latest book blog discovery is Chamber Four. Any site that claims "Dan Brown is a hack" is part of its constitution is A-OK!

Comfort Reading

We all know about comfort food (yum), but do any of you comfort read?

When I'm depressed, I often don't feel like reading (real bad for my library account), so I end up doing a lot of crossword puzzles instead (Four-letter word for "copycat" is APER).

There are, however, a few titles I can turn to that always appeal.

• Persuasion (read this last week)
• The New Testament (3 Peter and 1 John last night)
• Mary Poppins (haven't read this in a while)
  

You Know It's Bad When...

I've fallen into the disconcerting habit of being unable to leave the public library empty handed.

After wandering aimlessly for a few minutes and inspecting the same new books I inspected on my last visit, I walked out with PHP: The Good Parts. Nonfiction, so it would help even the balance of power on my reading list, but not exactly riveting reading. The only plus is that it's a brand new copy, so it doesn't smell like stale tobacco smoke and it doesn't have scary stains on the inside.

By the Numbers

I noticed the "50 Books in a Year" group on Goodreads, and it got me wondering how many books I've read this year. A quick Goodreads scan shows 77 to date, a far cry from the 44 I read in 2008.

Aha! So that's why I never get anything done.

Leisure Reading is Alive and Well!

I'm so pleased that a very nice young man stopped in at the reference desk this morning to ask how to use the library catalog. On this, the first day of class, he wasn't looking for a textbook or a course catalog. No, he wanted some Clive Cussler. Now that's a student who has his priorities in order.

Snap Out of It!

I've mentioned before how when my mother loses her sense of smell during a bout of sickness, she sometimes worries that it might be permanent.

Well, I'm in a REAL reading slump. I just realized that I have finished only one book this month, and the month is nearly over. I'm working my way through three audios in the car and at the track, but have nothing else on tap, and no real desire to read anything else, even though choices abound just inches from my fingertips.

What's wrong with me? What if it's permanent? If so, life would not be worth living.

Who Said That's a Bad Thing?

I get about 20 emails a day in my spam folder at work. Here was the subject line for one today:
"Now you don't have to spend your evenings alone reading books." You can guess about what the message went on to advertise.

Well, it happens that some of us happen to like spending our evenings alone reading books. So please keep your explicit emails to yourself!

How I Spent My Non-Vacation

I feel guilty that I haven't posted recently, especially since a reader told me that the first thing she does when she turns on the computer is check to see if I've posted anything new.

Problem is, it doesn't seem like there's much to tell these days, and I don't have children, pets, or a spouse to blog about, which makes it seem all the harder to come up with things to tell.

Anyway, enough blathering. Here's what I've been up to:

1) Absolutely LOVING not getting up to go to Seminary. I think about some of the students sometimes and I miss seeing them, but the break really is wonderful.

2) Catching up on some of my reading. Many evenings, I just come home and read until it's time to go to bed.

3) Feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the things I've said "yes" to at work. In fact, I'm writing this post right now on a "break" from some work-work.

4) Very much looking forward to a July trip, with my dear mother, to see my dear aunt. I'm already thinking I should have planned to stay longer than I'm going to, and I'm already thinking about how hard I will cry when I have to go home, but I also know it will be a wonderful trip.

5) Starting to be really disgusted by what a pigsty my apartment is, but as of yet, I haven't done much about it.

6) Trying valiantly to go to the track or use the home rowing machine when I can. I'm noticeably plumper than when I moved here last year, and I would like to change that. No visual progress so far.

7) Taking a few photos when I can. Really not much interesting, but here's one I took of myself over the weekend. Friday and Saturday I was at Montgomery Bell State Resort Park for a Tennessee Library Association Leadership Conference and Board Meeting (I'm the incoming chair of the nearly-dormant Instruction Roundtable). We stayed overnight and had workshops and meetings on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.

So, what have YOU been up to?


I call this "Self-Portrait with Flash." I've obviously never mastered the mirror self photograph trick.

46 to ?

You may remember that I told you I read 46 books last year. In my week of doing nothing, I managed to watch 4 episodes of Veronica Mars (and one L&O) on one weeknight, and I read a novel on another night (Michael Connelly's City of Bones).

I started the book soon after arriving home from work, probably at 5pm or so. I was done and ready to go to bed at midnight or so, a fairly acceptable bedtime if you discount my plans for the summer.

This got me thinking. I could potentially raise that 46 to about 260 if I did nothing but come home every weekday and read a book. Actually, if I threw in the audiobooks I listened to, the number would be even higher (btw, I'm in a bit of an audiobook funk right now. I can't find anything else at MTSU I want to listen to, and I've exhausted all the Jodi Picoult audios at the PL...).

46

Yes, my records show that I read 46 books in the past 12 months. No great record, but it is what it is. I suspect I won't be able to top it this year, but we'll see.