Thursday, January 27, 2011

Week 2

Hello, my name is Bobbi and I am an addict.  Well, addict might be a bit too strong, but I have a serious thing for books, namely book series.  I have a couple series that I have read over and over, to the point that some of the paperback versions are missing covers, or have sadly creased bindings.  The problem with my reading is that it consumes me, to the exclusion of almost everything else.   I don't often read a singular book, thus my dependence on series - one book is not enough of the story for me.

So after Christmas, having no homework to do for a while, I grabbed my shiny new Borders gift card (thank you hubby) and decided replenish a few missing books from the first series that I read long, long ago.  I don't know where they went, but somehow they escaped in one of the many moves that I have made since leaving my parents house after high school.  My daughter went with me, and so we went to the children's area first.  She darted from row to row, looking for glimpses of Hannah Montana or the Jonas Brothers.  I steered her toward the childrens series section, thinking that we could get one and let her start on her own literary journey.   She resisted and settled in a small chair with something with teen Disney stars on the cover, but at least is was more words than pictures.  I pointed to the section across the way where I would be and told her that she should stay put or come to where I was.  I know, kidnappers and child molesters are around every corner, but I was within hearing distance of her and she has some serious screaming capabilities.

I wandered over to the stack and began doing the alphabet shuffle, down the row F, G, Gl..., back ot the next row, Go, Gw, Ha... ah He!  I found my author, and smiled at the familiar titles that greeted me.  I slid out the two titles that I was missing, excited that I would be able to read the whole series for the first time in quite a while.  But than I noticed that there were new titles, hmm.  I peeked around the end of the stack to see that my daughter was amazingly still reading her book, and went back.  New titles were along the same names of the ones that I was reading, so I wondered if they were new books in the series.  Flipping open one of the covers, I looked inside to the page where previous works are listed, where they have the handy-dandy listing of the Series and all of the books that fall in it.  Well most do, this one didn't so I have to resort to the back cover where there was a synopsis of the story.  I hate doing that, it spoils the story to know what happens, but I had no choice.  The same character names were involved, and I was excited to see that there were three, Three!, new titles.  I had gotten the first of the three so decided to add it to my two of the original series.  Mission complete.

Walking toward the children section, I saw my daughter, now sitting with a couple of other young girls, discussing which Jonas brother was cuter, her book lay forgotten on the table next to her.  As I collected her and put the book back, I asked if she wanted to get a book to read while we were there.  She declined, but asked if she could get a snack for the ride home.  I declined and we headed through the registers and back out to the parking lot.

Reaching home, we hurried inside to escape the gusting wind.  The boys half heartedly greeted us, absorbed in their own activities.  Hubby was in the kitchen.  He called out asking where we ended up going, and if we had fun.  I mentioned briefly that we went to Borders and he got a funny look on his face as he noticed the bulging bag I was carrying.  I mentioned the gift card, and the books I was missing, and by-the-way there were three new books in the series, but I only got one of them this time.  He smiled, saying he was glad we had fun, and asked what I wanted for dinner.  Unprepared for that question, I wondered what brought on this surge of domesticity.  The question must have shown on my face, because he smiled again and asked if I really was going to let those brand new books sit in that bag without starting one before dinner?  He knew me too well, one page of those books would turn into three chapters with dinner time long past.  I sighed, torn between the "I want to" and the "I need to." 

He shooed me out of the kitchen and started puttering around in the pantry, yelling out questions about ingredients needed for different dinner ideas.  I steered him in the direction of the taco shells and headed to my favorite chair, new books one hand and my coffee in the other.  It was going to be a long night of exploring new, but familiar worlds.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Thinking forward!!

Just a perfect title to what I will be doing this semester, thinking forward.  :D