• Am Reading,  Best Thing Ever,  Family Fun,  Food,  I've Got Mad Skillz,  Reflections on Parenting,  Tradition

    My GoodReads Reading Challenge Goal was Thwarted by…a Book.

    Last year I decided to spend more time doing something I had let fall by the wayside since I was a kid: read books. I got active on GoodReads and made a fairly ambitious (for me) reading challenge goal for 2018: 26 books. I fell short, reading “only” 22 books but was proud just the same. I probably hadn’t read 22 books in the ten years before that, all put together. It’s not that I don’t enjoy reading; I just used my free time for other creative pursuits. I decided to keep the same goal for 2019 and was projecting to achieve it easily when I took at look at…

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    Am Reading,  Favorite Things

    My 7 Books, or Just One More Way I’m Breaking the Rules

    If you’re an active Facebook user, you’ve surely seen recent posts by your friends about “7 Books I Love,” in which people are sharing one book each day and tagging a friend to do the same in order to promote literacy. The catch? You’re not supposed to provide any explanations about why you love the books; posting the covers with no other caption except the copy and paste of what you’re doing is the standard. The other day I was tagged on Facebook by my friend Karen Meg. I was happy to share the books I love but it occurred to me that I really didn’t want to tag people…

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    My Year of GoodReads

    I used to be a voracious reader when I was much (much!) younger. It wasn’t unusual for me to have five or six books going at the same time. I’m a fast reader, too; always have been. Somewhere along the way–I think it was when I finished college–I stopped reading books almost entirely. Instead I favored by-hand creative pursuits like cross stitch, sewing, and other miscellaneous craft projects. I had time to read; it’s just that I didn’t choose to do it. When my kids came along I got into scrapbooking, and I wrote. And even later I worked, a lot. In any given year I read only one book,…