A Blessing and a Curse.

It happened.  I didn't mean to do it, but I just couldn't resist.  And I only thought I'd do it once, just to try it out.  But then, the very next day, it happened again.

I reserved books from the library. (Dum dum duuuummmmm.)

I have had a library card for my local library for a couple of years now, and have taken advantage of it rather modestly.  I've definitely gone through phases.  Until now.  I hadn't previously realized that I could request books to be sent from a hundred other places to my preferred location from the comfort of my own home until this weekend.  And not just books.  DVDs, too.  (And maybe even microfiche??)  So there I was, on a blustery Friday evening, thankful for two things: leftovers and blankets.  And, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but entire collections of books that were eager to be plucked from shelves all across the county and sent my way.  And so, on Friday evening, I requested 8 books and 1 DVD from the library.  On Saturday, I requested 6 more books...AND I got to go pick up the first book that had arrived from Friday's order.

So, I have 13 more books (and the 1 DVD, but I was about the bajillionth person to request it, so I'll be waiting for awhile for that one) to retrieve from the library, and they are all likely to arrive there sometime this week.

This is all well and good, except that, at last count, I had more than FORTY books here at home who were waiting to be opened and read by Yours Truly.  If you read my first entry on this blog, then you know that my goal is to read at least one book every two weeks.  However, between the fourteen books I've requested from the library and the forty books I have on hand, I will need to read more than a book per week to finish them all by the end of the year, and I'm already behind.  In fairness, though, a couple of the books from the library were things from which I want to extract some decorating ideas, etc., so they're not really "Sit-down-and-read" types of books, but really count more as reference materials.  So, they don't count at all in my tally of books.  Even still, that leaves me needing to complete approximately 53 books this year if I want to get to them all.  And, by the way, the first one that I picked up from the library?  Columbine by David Cullen.  I requested it because it was on Publisher's Weekly Best Books of 2009 list.  In fact, that's why I requested a number of the books that I did.  But still, could I have had an any more depressing start?  (Plus, I was right in the middle of reading about turkey mating in the other books, and about Noah in the Bible, so the juxtapositions have been weird, to say the least).

Here are some of the other books on my "must-read" list for 2010:

White Oleander: A Novel by Janet Fitch (loved the movie, must read the book)
Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story by Chuck Klosterman
Tinkers by Paul Harding
Chronic by D.A. Powell (a book of his modern poetry, which is a bit of a branch-out for me)
Land of the Lost Souls by Cadillac Man
Await Your Reply: A Novel by Dan Chaon
The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer (a book about a Malawian boy who changed the entire course of his family's life...and, since I've been to Malawi, I expect that this will touch my heart in a special way).
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder
Simple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle by David Wann
Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp
Unchristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons
Food, Inc. Ed. by Karl Weber

And now, for the most exciting reads of them all (I'm certain):

Effective Church Finances and Giving and Stewardship in an Effective Church, both by Kennon L. Callahan

Phew...I have a lot of reading to do.

And now, to close, 5 reasons to be happy:

1. Chuck . (Season 3 has begun!)
2. I'm going to have a new baby nephew soon!!
3. Being caught up on laundry.
4. Getting back into touch with long-lost friends. (Say what you will, Facebook has done this in a way that no other outlet has thus far).
5. Scented candles.  I especially love the Leaves candle from Bath and Bodyworks. Yum.