The Deliciousness of A Good Book

When I was a little girl, I loved to read.  My nose was buried in a book any day, often all day.  If I was not buried in a book, on little pieces of orange notebook paper my uncle brought home to us in bulk, I would write out stories.

When my brother and I would play for hours at our creek or out in the neighbors hundreds of wooded acres across the road from us, I would make up amazing stories that we would be the hero and heroine of.  We lived many great adventures.

On days my mom and dad would have us helping with weeding, stacking wood, shoveling manure, helping with canning, etc I would make up stories in my head to make the time go faster.  Often I would tell made up stories to my siblings...especially my brother.

My brother has an incredible oral story telling ability.  He amazes me.  He can have me on the floor laughing or scared to death to get out of my vehicle at night...and I'm a grown woman!  I, on the other hand, am the writer of my days (pretty obvious, I know) but a speaker?  Not so much.  Public speaking scares me insanely much.

When my boys were being born and little, it occurred to me one day for some reason that I could not even remember the last book I had read.  When I dug around the house I found some book I had read...the year before.  Since then I have tried to be much more conscientious of reading.  Back when S2 was a baby, I had no computer (can you imagine!), no cell phone, no cable tv, no facebook, no twitter, no blogging (but journaling sporadically) and I was not reading.

Now my time is being pulled in every direction.  The boys are older and one would think that would make life easier and while, yes, I'm not changing diapers anymore, I am also busier.  The amount of food I make in a week is startling to me.  School keeps us hopping.  Work.  The farm.

My husband feels reading is about as thrilling as watching paint dry.  And me curled up with a good book can be annoying to him...if all he did was sharpen chainsaw chains when I wanted to spend time with him, I would be annoyed too.  (Chains for cutting wood...that sounded slightly odd, didn't it?) So we find some tv series we love to watch on Netflix and spend our time at night cuddled on the couch watching tv.  We love it.  Who doesn't love to cuddle with the love of their life?

Alicia introduced me to Goodreads and while I am not very good at keeping it up to date, I do find it helps immensely.  You can make a reading goal for the year and this year I decided to be brave and say I would read 26 books this year.  Considering I had a hard time reading ONE book a month last year this was a huge commitment to me.

Alicia?  She thinks she can read 75 books this year.  She's a reading machine.  I love this about her.

Last night, Jake had to go plow.  I was not happy about this because we had a night planned - nothing  big but still.  I mopped floors, cleaned the kitchen, blogged...I know, I am thrilling...and when I crawled into bed I thought, "Gasp! I could read for a bit."

I snuggled into bed, pulling my special Strawberry Shortcake blanket around me and propping pillows. It was eleven.  I'd been tired all evening, I'd suffered a severe headache on the right side of my head that had set my eye brow to twitching and while I was feeling fine now (and in large part because I refused to look up my symptoms on the internet, it would have me dead by morning, I was sure) I knew I shouldn't read too late.

I had read the first chapter a week or so before and thought it so so.

About four chapters in I was hooked.

I couldn't put it down.  I had to know what happened.  I heard a vehicle rumble and thought Jake was back from plowing perhapes...but it wasn't him. No, it was my neighbor.  Leaving. For. Work.

That's right...it was nearly five in the morning.

I had no idea, and I was *this* close to finishing.

At five thirty, I finished.  I closed the book and rubbed the cover.  It was a delicious evening this book and I had had.  I sent a text to Alicia, who I knew was just waking up.  She was the one who told me to read The Hunger Games series, I shouldn't have doubted that she would know I would like this book that normally I wouldn't even bother to look at twice.

After a few hours of sleep and a *few* cups of coffee, I am still thinking over this book.  That's the fun about the books - even when you are done reading you aren't done living the story.

I was thrilled and pained to see there is a second book coming out in May.  

This post - rambling long as it is - isn't to tell you read this book (although I would recommend it in a heartbeat), it's just to remind you to read.  A book.  Not just your computer or a magazine but a book where you live with the characters.  

It's a delicious thing, a good book.