Sunday, May 30, 2010

~~~~ When i was in high school every year i would play in the Memorial Day parade with the marching band. Believe it or not even though it was usually sweltering hot i loved doing it. It always meant a lot to me. With so many of my family that have been in the Armed Services now including my brother who was a Marine. i tried to join the Navy right out of high school but i did not make it due to injury. (Long story.)

~~~~ But i do greatly respect and honor all those that choose to serve our country. Many of my classmates are among them and i thank them all. i am thinking about contacting my local book store, Paige Turner Books, to talk to the owner about crocheting handmade blankets form some of our wounded or even non-wounded heroes that might want them. The family that owns the book store does a lot of work with groups that support our troops and they should know how i can go about doing this.

~~~~ Yes, i give away most of what i make to others as gifts for Christmas, baby showers, or donations to hospitals and such. It is the best i can do for others, to give them something that they can cherish and use that was made with love. my mom buys me tons of mill ends one pound bags of yarn form a craft store called Pat Catan's that is very near where she works. She knows i love to crochet and am leaning to knit and that it helps with my stress so she helps me with that. Through that i can help others one of the best ways that i can right now.

~~~~ Ohh yeah and i have been writing this blog for a year now. i really enjoy doing it and i know at least one person reads it but i am not sure of how many others that do and that really does not matter. It gives me a place to express myself.

Monday, May 17, 2010

~~~~ Okay i admit i have a problem. i am a bookaholic. i even tried to create a 12 step program to help cure me but it turned out like this instead.......
12-Step Program for Bookaholics

Hello, my name is _________ and I am a bookaholic!

Step 1: Buy a book.

Step 2: Read it.

Step 3: Touch the book, smell the book, feel it, and turn the pages.

Step 4: Languish lovingly over each perfectly typed letter. Let each word stroke your imagination. Let each sentence fill you. Each paragraph make your heart beat with anticipation for the next onslaught of pleasurable phrases. Each chapter make you gasp for breath. As it leaves you wanting more while the excitement builds.

Step 5: get to end of book, fall into deep depression, cry, throw the book (THE BOOK ENDED), pick book up off of bed, caress binding lovingly, place book on bookshelf.

Step 6: run to library or bookstore and get 10 more books to cure depression. Take books home, and finger each one trying to figure out which to read next. SCREAM and CUSS because you have picked up books 2 and 3 of a series but not book 1. Choose from the other 8 which book to read while HUNTING sleeplessly for missing book 1.

STEP 7: Pick fourth choice book (#1-3 being the 1st book in the series missing and the 2 you are dieing to read) read inferior book (to the missing book that you are still searching for) and think of how grand life would be if only you had the one book to start you onto the books you truly wish to read. search bookstores/libraries/online as you carry list in pocket or purse everywhere with ISBN #, title of book, and Authors name becoming faded. Find book one online 1st edition signed and wish you had $20,000. continue with book you are reading, it is just so hard to get into, you should be enjoying it (is it not printed just like every other book?)

STEP8: find missing book one in used bookstore slightly disheveled but readable. Toss inferior replacement book in corner and immediately start to devour the the books in the series. Finding after the third book the are 9 more books in the series and it has taken you 3 months to get through the books, for they where not as good as was promised to you by your mind. Pick up book from the corner where it has laid waiting for you. Reread from the beginning for you have forgot what it said. Finish book in one night unable to sleep nor put it down. repeat step 5

Step 9: start book from the books lying around you have yet to read ...payday comes and you see that times are hard you think "food or book" with the little money left over from paying bills. decide to go to Aldi or get together with your group of book lovers and shop at Sams (or other discount food place or mega food center with products made for restaurant business) splitting the cost and dividing to groceries between everyone in the parking lot. drive in caravan to bookstore and buy the book you want or which ever one strikes your eye. feel elated cause you not only provided for sustenance but also injected another book fulfilling the craving for your habit.

Step 10: Lone out a book that you have read to a friend and then go nuts because that is the book that you are craving to read again and you have not gotten it back yet. So you seriously think about buying another copy of the book and letting your friend keep that one. Alas as we have said money is tight so you do not buy another copy of a book you already own you just wait for your friend to finish it and when you can take it no longer you ask your friend if they are done with it and they tell you they just started it yesterday. Mumbling to yourself how you have wanted to read this books for weeks you smile and say "Oh it is great you will love it. Tell what you think of it when you finish it." Then you slink off to read a second choice book because you have to read something after all.

Step 11: You find that your second choice book is so good that housework goes undone and sleep is put off until the book is finished. Then you look around the house and say, "Shit i did it again and i said i would stop doing this." Then spend the next few days catching up on all the neglected house work.
~~~ This can be very bad when you work from home too because it is so much easier to put off going to work that way. ~~~

Step 12: When asked what you want for Christmas / Birthday / Anniversary by family and friends your answer is gift cards to book stores because you do not want to have to wait for that special day to get the book you want to read when you want to read it. Only to find out they got you something else instead. And, when asked what you want for Christmas besides gift cards to bookstores you REALLY have to think about it and can not come up with anything

*****START OVER AT STEP ONE*****

~~~~ Then i came up with wedding vows for bookaholics.....

Bookaholics Wedding Vows Version one:

"I, _______, take you, ________, for my lawful wedded wife/husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, I will love and honor your books all the days of my life, never making you sell them nor telling you, you have to many, until death or books do us part."

~~~~ Okay so all of this is to say that i am addicted to books. i have them everywhere in the house and still need more. i have gone to my local bookstore the last few days and left very upset because they did not have in any of the books i ordered so i only walked out of there buying one book for me. Well today Roommate and i went to Half Price Books and got some more books there. Now i have to add all my new books to my Shelfari page as well.

~~~~ i take at least one book with me everywhere that i go and am always looking for time to read it. If i am sitting somewhere waiting for something i will have my nose in a book. And as i said i have books everywhere. Two full size bookcases in my room, my head board and foot board full, a small 2 shelf bookcase in my office, my night table, on the side of all the stairs, on the coffee table, in boxes in my closet, in boxes in my storage area, and in my tote bag as well. A friend of mine once told me she had a dream about my home where she went into my kitchen cabinets for food and found books, looked under my bathroom sink for toilet paper and found more books, and went into all the closets and found even more books. i laughed and thanked her for the storage ideas for more of my books.

~~~~ Roommate and i have been talking about building a library for all of our books because he has at least as many as i do of his own. He can always been found reading as well and also takes at least two books with him everywhere that he goes. i just wish that i could get Son to love reading just like we do. Maybe in time he will.


Saturday, May 1, 2010

~~~~ Last night Roommate and i were running some errands after Son was picked up by his father for the weekend. We went to the local book store Paige Turner Books. Then we stopped at Dunkin Doughnuts and got some treats for ourselves and headed off to Walmart. It was a really nice and warm day so i was wearing my nice white blousy neck tank top and left my jacket in the car. So i run into Walmart and Roommate stays in the car. i spend a while in there getting what we need and looking for a few things that they did not have. Then waiting in the check out line for the cashier to ring out the family in front of me because he forgot all their coupons. So 20minutes later i am leaving the store and am half to the car when the skies open up and start pouring rain on my nice white (now see through) top. Roommate of course is laughing at me as i run to the car and put the bags into the backseat before jumping into the front passenger seat.

~~~~ Then it happens the first strike of lightning and then another. i am now trying to hide my eyes and stay calm. Roommate is no longer laughing at me and is talking to me calmly trying to keep my calm. We get the grocery store and he was going to stay in the car but decides to walk in with me so that i am not walking through the parking lot alone with the lightning. While we are getting what we need there rain and lightning stop of course.

~~~~ However they start back up as soon as we get out of the store and the storm gets worse. By the time we drove home. Maybe 3 minutes away the storm is really bad and i am really close to an anxiety attack. I HATE LIGHTNING. i am completely TERRIFIED of it. So we get home and get all the stuff inside and the groceries put away. i then have my anxiety attack and hide for about an hour and a half while i jump ahead on the FLYlady steps looking for something to do to keep me busy and not thinking about the storm outside so i made my control journal. (Pictures will be posted on my FLYing blog when i get to that step.)

~~~~ After an hour and a half the storm has passed and Roommate and i go out to dinner at a restaurant that we really like in Kenosha. We had a good time talking to some of the other regulars there and reading for a while. Then it was home and off to bed. i was getting a headache that was threatening to become and migraine after my anxiety attack. However this is about 2am and i did not fall asleep until about 5am. i even got up and changed the hose on the hand held shower head. (One of the things bought at Walmart) Roommate said he was going to do it today but i did it last night because i could not sleep and it was on my mind.

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