This is my current pile - my finished book on top with the others plus 5 more on hold at the library waiting to be picked up. I think I got a little worried about having a supply of good reading. I do have a book downloaded on Overdrive, but there's nothing like holding a book in my hands.
No one in my family really liked to read when I was growing up. The only reading materials in the house were newspapers, the Sears catalog, and cookbooks. Miz Hood next door had some ancient magazines - Life or Look, I guess - in a bookcase, and I would pore over them while my grandmother watched "Days of Our Lives" with her every afternoon. And while Debby and my brother were up to no good in her kitchen, peeking in her pots and pans and closets.
Then I discovered the library. If I went during the summers, I had to walk. It was about a 15-minute walk in the heat, but it was worth it. Sherry would visit every summer, and we made that trip at least once a week, bringing home as many books as we could carry and reading them outside under the china berry tree - probably cooler than the un-air-conditioned house.
I remember being sad when I had to start to college and realize I would have no spare time for reading and later what a thrill it was the first time Mike took me into that amazing library in Auburn. Every new town we moved to, finding the library was one of my first missions. Sometimes I had to drive to another town, but I always found them.
Mike shares this love of reading too, and we read to the children and stressed the importance of reading. After he retired, and even before, he was just a reading machine. There was always a pile of books stacked beside his chair, and our trips to the library were one of things we enjoyed most about living in Montgomery and Snoqualmie.
Elise now reads a lot and Emily as much as she has time for. We exchange ideas about books and discuss them, but I think I'm the only one of the three who is obsessed right now. I've had periods in my life where I didn't read so much, letting other things take precedence, mainly sewing, I guess, and the appearance of the computer.
I was reading to Graysen as soon as I got a chance to hold her, it seems, and she and Katherine very seldom turn down a story. It's hard to keep them from bringing home every book they pick up in the library. I'm so glad they love it, because some days that's about all I have the energy for. I love it when I clear a space on either side of me, and they snuggle in with their sweet-smelling hair and little warm bodies. Graysen is beginning to learn to read now, and Katherine is learning her letters too, so I guess they will be reading to me soon.
Since Emily and Ryan are moving, we have the impossible task of trying to sort through all the books we've collected. I did well with paring down my possessions when we moved out here, but Emily just cannot get rid of a book. And now it's time to part with some of Mike's books if we can - professional ones, college textbooks, even high school ones. (I'll never give up the Hamlet high school paperback where I discovered my name written inside the back cover!) It's heartbreaking to let go, and I'm not sure how much we can do.
Pictures are another thing I have to organize. I do have mine in some sort of order in boxes with labels, or once did, but all the ones from Mama and Eleanor have to be looked at and sorted too.
I took one stack this morning and just put them in 4 piles - and cried the whole time - so I'm not sure how effective this project is going to be. I want to scan a lot of them and organize them and label them for the girls.
It looks like an impossible task right now for all of us.
After I get the girls delivered to school this morning, I plan to come home and work on their quilts. Graysen reminded me yesterday that they would be sharing a room in the new house and when were their quilts going to be ready. On my. She's learning she has to light a first under me to get me to do anything.
I think it will rain all day and be cold, so it should be a good day for sewing - or reading!
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