Where Everybody Knows My Name

There was a time when that meant a bar. Or a men's room. This time I mean the library. Shocking, I know. When we walk in, they call our names in greeting. Lately, I have really been in the mood to read. I rarely buy books. I would spend way too much money if I did. They take up too much room, and the library is the perfect place to keep them. They have all those shelves after all. I don't want a Kindle or Nook or whatever. I like to feel the warmth of a book, not the coolness of an electronic gadget. I do have the Kindle app on my iPod, but that is for desperate measures. You know, like when there isn't a library or store within miles and I have to read something right away.

I have found this button on the library website called "knowledge portal." Do you know what that is? It's a list of the new books and DVDs the library has added in the last few months. I get in so much trouble with that stupid thing. I sat last night on the computer and requested and requested. I started at the back this time. I started at page 1 last time and only got through about the first 10 pages. There are over 50 pages. By the time I got done last night, I had requested 20+ books. Some of them have huge waiting lists and I will probably not see my turn because of the move. But those I can request from our new library. Hopefully.

I have added 30 minute reading blocks to our school day so I can read. I scratch out a few minutes here and a few minutes there. I have read some really good books. I have started some really good books. Here are a few that have really stuck with me. Or at least made some kind of impression on me.

I have made no secret of the fact that I am having "church" issues. I don't agree with some of the decisions, hubby and I  have stepped off all the committees we were on and have been ostracized for it by some, we are paying people to help us become a church. Really? Sounds like your everyday family to me. We even stopped going for awhile. We needed to regroup so to speak. All of this plus the holiday wonkies really gave my faith a pummeling. I needed ro regroup. To do that, I read, or tried to read, a couple of different books. I read Jesus Freaks by DC Talk. Amazing to read about the power of God's love and the love that people have for Jesus. How can you not be touched? Some of the stories were a little hard to read. Cruelty is never easy to read about. But the depth of their faith was just astounding to me. It helped me retrace my path and firm up my desire to have a better, closer relationship with Jesus.

The other book I tried to read to help me was So You Don't Want to Go to Church? I started it but I couldn't get into it. That just means that right now is not the time. It is still on my list. I still want to read it. I'm just not ready yet. I'll get there one day.

Another book I read for book club is called The Help by Kathryn Sockett. It is about colored help in 1950's Jackson, Mississippi. That was a good book. It makes me leary of chocolate pie. The dynamics of the characters, the dynamics of the time and place all came together nicely. One of our book club members was raised like the book described. I missed book club and would have liked to hear her speak about it. It was funny, scary, and thrilling. It was a great book.

I just got done with Salting Roses. It was about a woman who finds out on her 25th birthday that she was kidnapped as a baby and is the heiress to a $650 million estate. Can you imagine? I can't. To make it worse, she finds out that the people that raised her are hiding secrets of their own. She was mad. I'd be mad, too. And the book that I am really waiting on is Still Missing by Chevy Stevens. It's about a real estate agent that is kidnapped from an open house and held captive for a year in an isolated cabin in the woods. It's told through her therapy sessions. It's fiction. I am working my way to some non-fiction. I just need to find something that interests me that's non-fictiony.

We're still schooling, and packing, and cleaning. But sometimes you just need to take a break and go far, far away. Speaking of which, there is a budding romance between a horse trainer and the sister of a blind man I need to attend to. It's also a great day to work on my tan. I think I'll combine them and read while I work on my tan.