Have books will travel...

We've been busy running errands and getting ready to leave. We finally went to the book store yesterday - and now I'm all stocked up and I can go! I need a minimum of a paperback a day to survive!

I am a reader! A big reader. As in, I go NO WHERE without a book. I've been known to read at the horse races, car races, or just waiting for a train to pass - anywhere and everywhere I go. I read the backs of the cereal boxes while I eat my breakfast, and will pretty much read anything.

T has his tv - and oh boy, does he have varied interests! He watches tractor shows, auctions, car shows, medical shows, law shows, does math on the math channel, watches everything on the history and discovery channels and PBS - and sometimes, all at the same time! He's a 'flipper'. And I read. Good thing...since it wouldn't do to get too into a show that will be 'flipped' off to another channel in minutes!

Before my mother got very ill, I remember her reading all the time, too. I think she passed the gene along to us. Sisters Quilly and Caryl have always read. And our older sister, Jean....oh, my god, she is the queen of reading! Nearly every wall in her house, floor to ceiling, is bookcases! I've always read, (Gram said I read aloud to the girls, things like True Confessions, long before we could ever understand the stories!), and I guess I passed that gene on to my kids. They all read - a lot. And their kids (the grandbabies) read now, too.

Especially Cindra's "teengirl', my Sugarplum. (It's okay, she says no matter how old she gets, she'll always still be my Sugarplum). She is definitely a reader. This last winter when we were going through some little town in Arizona, there was a book sale of outdated, old, worn library books. I picked some up, and didn't get at some of them until I got home this spring. I started reading one of the hard backs and discovered it was about a teenager. When the focus stayed on this girl, I read the inside and back of the book, and discovered it was for "young adults". Well if there ever was a young adult - that would be me! - so I decided to read it. And it was GOOD. There was a racial message, a look at faith, and an awareness of what some of our moral obligations should be. It made me think of Sugarplum - who in the situation, would have acted the same as the girl in the book, as she's the same kind of girl...loving, caring, and full of compassion.

When Cindra and her family were here last month, I told Sugarplum that she'd probably enjoy this book I read, and I gave it to her. When they left for Oregon, they stopped two nights along the way. And by the time they got home, Sugarplum had finished the book. She said she couldn't wait to find out what happened at the end. It gave me such a warm fuzzy feeling to have been able to enjoy the same book with her. I'd say she was growing up fast, but the truth is, she's always been an old soul.

I can never wait to find out what's going to happen at the end of a book, either. The difference being - I don't wait. I read the first and second chapters, usually, and then the last one. I know. I know. Not the way to do it. But it works for me. It's the way I've done it for years and I've never NOT read a book because I knew the ending. And I so don't have the patience to wait.

T wasn't quite sure what to do about my reading the first time we went south. Where do you put all these books? How do you pack enough books for 4 months? But he's good! He'll stop anywhere and take me to a used book store to exchange my books, or stop at any book sales I see, but meanwhile, all the bags of books floating around waiting to be traded in, and the other piles of books I had not read yet - were driving him crazy. So he built me an oak bookcase with sliding doors, in the motorhome. I am good to go!

Now - if I could just make myself read something that would enrich my mind! I think sometimes about how intellegent I might be if I read something besides murder mysteries, true crime, horror and grisly serial killer books. And I don't even want to think about what my reading choices say about me!