::: and the winner... :::

...of the book Find Your Strongest Life by Marcus Buckingham goes to...

GRACE!

The Baby was involved in an emotional breakdown when it was time to draw names, so Bo did the honors.

Congratulations, Grace. I really believe this book will serve you well. E-mail me with the address you want me to send it to!

:: love without inquiry :::

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.
That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business.
What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy if anything can.

~Thomas Merton (1915 - 1968)

I have a stack of Thomas Merton books that I have yet to read, but this quote that I found at one of my favorite daily reads, Quiet Life, has me inching my way closer to them. I do have quite a collection of to-be-reads on my nightstand. And in my purse. And on my shelves. And on the kitchen counter. 

Buying books is one of my many weaknesses. When I'm in a thrift store, used book store or yard sale, they call to me. I usually find at least one that is going to either complete or change my life, and into the shopping cart or bag or basket or under the arm it goes. Sometimes I know right off the bat that I'm not going to read it, that I just like the look or feel or smell of it. Sometimes I get very excited and I read the first three chapters before I misplace it or lose interest or another book comes along. And sometimes I do get all the way through. But if I don't even turn the first page, I don't feel badly about buying a book. First of all, I look at it this way: it's kind of like rescuing an orphaned cat; I know that I can give it a good home, adore it, parcel off a comfy place for it to rest, and that will give us both a warm feeling. Secondly, I consider books a very inexpensive decorating tool. What looks more interesting than a wall of books, a stack of books, a book in your hand? What empty shabby chic bird cage or glass urn full of white Christmas lights could I buy that would ooze with as much potential? Because, while I love antique furniture, and ironstone dishes, and porcelain tubs, and blue glass, and old lamps, and just about anything made of real wood, vintage books are fashioned of stuff which actually tells you their story, sometimes in more ways than the story itself.

For instance, when my children and nieces and nephews turn six, I try to make sure they get a copy of Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne. When Sweetheart was a turning six, I happened upon two copies of this book, one in a mediocre antique store (you can find bookish surprises everywhere, so I never assume there's nothing!). In the inside cover was lettered the inscription, "Happy Birthday, Jack! Now you are six! With love from Mother and Daddy" and it was dated 1936. So I know now that this book was purchased for Jack on his 6th birthday in 1936. Fun thing is, my nephew's name is Jack, so while he was yet a toddler, I tucked this book onto my writing desk shelf and, miracle of miracles, remembered to pull it out, add my own, "Happy Birthday, Jack!" inscription, and send it to him for his sixth birthday!

I recently became a blogger reviewer for Thomas Nelson Publishers, which is great because I get advanced copies of excellent books, but it's also a challenge because I have a deadline, and that can pose a problem for a highly distracted, slow reader like this gal. It kinda makes me break out in a sweat, but I think I can handle it.

What really makes me break out in a sweat, though, is when someone loans me a book! I gave up on borrowing books from the library long ago, because I'm pretty bad about returning things I've borrowed (remember that when you consider lending me your last copy of...well, just of anything), so when someone loans me a book, I enter into this kind of tug of war with myself. Accept the book and then just give it back a week later, unread? Accept the book and put it on my nightstand where it becomes lost in a pile of other hopeful thinking? Accept the book and lose it forever?

If I had learned anything from my nature, I would simply tell the lender kindly, "No, thank you. Being given a book to borrow is kind of like an arranged marriage for me. My heart's simply not in it, and I'm afraid it won't get the attention it deserves. It will all end in tears, to be sure."

That's why I don't post a list of what I'm currently reading. It would be a huge list, and it would rarely change. As a matter of fact, I have a friend who talked me into joining GoodReads, and I'm ashamed every time I see her name pop into my inbox with a new update. She reads circles around me! Book after book after book, fiction, non-fiction. One or two a week! And as much as I'd like to say that I have a good excuse, I have children and a husband and a busy life, even when I've been virtually childless for three weeks, I've not managed to reduce my reading pile.

Perhaps I should work harder on applying my love without inquiry to people as I do to books. It's what I've been commanded to do, right? Even those difficult people who chew me out, make me feel like poo, then drop out of my life or pretend like nothing ever happened? How hard would it be to tuck those relationships under my arm and bring them home, give them a nice, sturdy shelf on which to rest, and revisit them as I'm able, as I'm called to them? Maybe I need to crack some of the older ones, the neglected ones, open, see what kind of history they have, what stories and lessons are there to be shown to me, to marvel at their illustrations and dog-ear their pages with my attention, to make notes in their margins. Not to borrow those friendships to be returned another day, to be penalized for their loss, but to accept them for keeps, to treasure them and look at them as my life's best adornments, digesting every word, even if the endings are not how I would like them to be.

Perhaps then I would be rendered worthy.

::: abraham lincoln's world :::

One of the books we're using for Sweetheart's Ambleside lessons this year is Abraham Lincoln's World by Genevieve Foster. I hadn't been familiar with it, and, let me tell you, so far I *love* this book. I love how the author puts so much humanity into the historical figures, and how she weaves their lives together so that we have a context of who was doing what during which time in history. And the illustrations, also created by Genevieve Foster, are alive with personality. The author's passion for all things historical is apparent, and can be attested by her philosophy of learning history:

History is drama, with men and nations as the actors. Why not present it with all the players who belong together on the stage at once, rather than only one character on the stage at a time?

Her philosophy works for this book. I look forward to delving further in and, along with my daughter, watching history come alive.

::: beautiful books :::

I spent a good portion of my time yesterday preparing for the upcoming school year for Sweetheart (10) and The Baby (6). Since I now have one adult child in college, one adult child leaving for voluntary service next month, and one teenage son attending a brick-and-mortar high school for the first time, I have only two daughters to do homelearning with. We'll be using Ambleside Online again, a free online curriculum that uses the philosophies of Charlotte Mason, an early 20th century educator who taught that education is an atmosphere, a discipline and a life, not just a means to getting a job or getting into college, but the formation of character. She produced a series of lectures to help parents understand how children best learn. Ambleside Online uses Mason's philosophies to guide the selection of materials.

Here's what I like about using Ambleside:

• The use of living history books as opposed to textbooks;
• The use of quality pieces of literature;
• The large amount of support and resources available;
• The focus on short lessons;
• The focus on nature study;
• The focus on art and music;
• The fact that the curriculum is free-of-charge, created by mothers who believe in the philosophies of Charlotte Mason;
• The gentle, flexible nature of Mason's approach;
  
• The belief that children are capable of understanding quality literature and beautiful language, that books don't have to be dumbed-down for children to be able to enjoy and learn from them;
• The focus on formation of character;
• The physical beauty of the books themselves.

Over the last few years since we started using Ambleside, I've been on a treasure hunt to find the books suggested in their curriculum, and I've been blessed to find so many of the books we needed for our learning journey. Fortunately for me, a book addict and lover of things vintage, many of the books in the Ambleside curriculum are physically beautiful. I've acquired them by scouring thrift stores, used-book stores, PaperBackSwap, and online booksellers. Many of them I've found for very reasonable prices, while others still elude me because of their limited availability or prohibitive prices.

This year will be the first year that we will have all of the physical books we need for the whole year. In the past, I used what I had found, borrowed some from the library, or used some of the many online books available. Because I've been collecting these books since Sweetheart was in Year One (she's in Year Five this year), and because my friend Kathy, who first introduced me to Ambleside and has always been a source of inspiration to me regarding both parenting specifically and life in general, sent me some essentials a few years ago (hers was the first package I received when we moved from the city to the thicket), and because my friend Marcella gave me the entire Charlotte Mason set, I'm fortunate to own the majority of what I need. Yesterday, I bit the bullet and used my Amazon card to purchase the last few books I didn't have, as well as Teaching Textbooks for Sweetheart. Considering that the registration fee for Monet's school year was more than the cost of all of the books PLUS the math curriculum, I feel pretty good about this year's preparations.

Because we have the majority of the books already, I made our twelve-week schedule (a customized version of one that can be found on one of the many Ambleside Yahoo groups) and we began our readings last night. The girls were attentive and excited. They both love to read, love good literature, and I know they'll be as excited as I'll be to see those books come pouring in through the mail. I'm especially excited for the arrival of Holy Experience blogger Ann Voskamp's A Child's Geography.

And I'll be excited to snuggle up on the bed, reading my old leather-bound copy of Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare and leafing through my olive-green hardbound Botsford's Handbook of Nature Studies, or seeing the girls curled up with the cat and copy of Aesop's Fables or A Child's Garden of Verses.

Here and here are the rest of the books we'll be using.

::: i hope you don't mind that i put down in words :::

When Bard was just a youngster, about six years old, she went to visit a friend of hers who shared with her a book called The Seven-Year-Old Wonder Book. She came home and told me about it. The book, written by Isabel Wyatt in 1958, inscribed "for anyone who has ever been seven years old, or is, or soon will be," follows the sixth year of young Sylvia who lives in a white cottage at the edge of a dark woods. Each entry talks about something that Sylvia experienced that day, and is followed by a story told to her at bedtime which relates to her experiences. These stories celebrate the seasons and holidays of the passing year. Each night, Sylvia pulls her Wonder-Book from under her pillow and turns it to a new page, setting it out for the Rhyme-Elves to write poetry in big, beautiful letters and painting beautiful pictures to go along with the poetry.

Since Bard was living her sixth year, and since I love journaling, she and I decided to create a Wonder-Book for her, though it would be known that I was the elf, and it would contain not only rhymes and pictures, but stories (both real and fictional) and questions and anything else I could stuff into it. Bard, too, would participate, answering the questions and drawing pictures in response to my entries. The cover was decorated with a collage of things that Bard loved and coated with Mod Podge.

The Wonder-Book sometimes went for months without any attention. As Bard got older and we both created blogs, the Wonder-Book was neglected for years. When she packed up most of her things and moved into her first college dorm, I sought out the Wonder-Book in my melancholy nostalgia, watching those years fly by with each turn of the page.

Sweetheart found me there, wandering through that sea of memories, and I realized that I'd not created a Wonder-Book for her nor The Baby. That was soon remedied, and now all of the kids have Wonder-Books of their own.

The Wonder-Book isn't a scrapbook or a photo album (there are no photographs at all, actually), but an ongoing conversation about life, happenings, seasons, emotions, dreams, disagreements, encouragments and poetry, both ours and those we admire. It's a book for a child to set on her bedside or yours, and to awake to, kind of like a coin from the tooth fairy. It's a place where a mom can share her thoughts and appreciations and apologies and a child can vent her frustration and admiration. Sometimes it's just a simple letter written in ball-point pen, sometimes a smattering of ideas dotted with stickers, and sometimes it's a full-blown art project, complete with scrapbooking markers and creative drawings.

Here are a few sample pages from the different Wonder-Books through the years.

The Swaziland Book Project

We are blessed to have "Rejoice," a young man from Swaziland, living in our home through the end of June. Rejoice has shared with us that access to print media, especially books, is very limited. It's very difficult for a person to get a library card, and libraries are hot, crowded and inadequately supplied. He would like to build a personal library to share with others in his village. We would like to help him by gathering these books and shipping them to his home in Swaziland.

Below, you'll find a list of specific books that Rejoice would like to own as well as a few suggestions from me.

If you would like to help Rejoice build a library, there are several ways you can help:

• You can send any extra copies of these or other appropriate books that you might have;
• You can locate any of these books through Amazon or some other book dealer and have them sent to Rejoice here at our home so that we can compile batches and send them to Swaziland;
• You can donate money to help others locate and purchase these books for Rejoice as well as postage to ship the books;
• You can donate or suggest other books that you feel would be of interest to Rejoice. If there are books that you feel are important for a person to have in their personal library and you have additional copies of those books, donations of those would also be appreciated.
• Once monetary donations have been made, you can help locate copies of the books Rejoice has requested.

If you would like to help in any of these ways, please contact me at books4thoksATgmailDOTcom (replacing the words with the appropriate symbols). If you would like to donate specific titles, please send me those titles so they're not duplicated by others.

Thank you for helping with this project, and I welcome you to spread the word to others you think might be able to help.

My suggestions:

Anything by C.S. Lewis
Pilgrim's Progress
Hind's Feet on High Places
A Wrinkle in Time
Anything by George McDonald
Anything by Max Lucado

Rejoice's List, according to his priorities:

1. Christian books

• Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life - Donald S. Whitney
• Spiritual Leadership - Oswald J. Sanders
• Spiritual Discipleship - Oswald Sanders
• A Biblical Theology of the Holy Spirit
• Planting and Growing Churches for the 21st Century- Aubrey Malphurs
• What everyone Should Know about Leadership and Church Structure- Denis Moses
• The Power of Prayer and Fasting
• The Spiritual Keys to Spiritual Growth
• Launch: Starting a New Church from Scratch

2. Business related.

• The Bankable business plan
• Start your own business 4th edition
• Bankable business plans for entrepreneurial ventures
• Everything start your own business
• small business start up kit
• excel for dummies 2007 or 08
• marketing for dummies
• public relations for dummies
• marketing tool kit
• competitive strategy- Michael E. porter
• strategic marketing management - Richard M.S. Wilson
• Financial accounting
• book keeping basics- Debra Rueqq
• starting and building a non profit- peri Pakroo
• cash flow for non profits - Murray Propkin
• quick books

3. Miscellaneous

• The 25 best time management tools and techniques- Pamela and Doug Sunhedem
• any book about writing resumes e.g. Expert resumes for managers and executives
• Job searching
• career guidance
• Beef and dairy cattle - Heather Smith Thomas
• Raising milk goats
• raising poultry

Note from Rejoice: "Please be informed that I would like to have any other suggested book that you think could be helpful in developing young adults and some teens into matured people who are well established in their faith in Christ Jesus. May God bless you as you are working on this book hunting process."

Farenheit 451

Of course I read fabulous classics when I was younger. My literature teachers were my favorite teachers of all. Mrs. Wise read A Wrinkle in Time aloud to the class and I was forever smitten. Mrs. Berry was in love with Natty Bumpo, so I was, too. Mrs. Hunt introduced me to Chaucer and Beowulf. My American Humor professor showed me Dorothy Parker, Langston Hughes, James Thurber and Ring Lardner. As an English major and wannabe writer, I immersed myself in a Vonnegut phase, passing that same obsession on to my daughter, who is now an English major herself. As an adult, I've read Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, E.M. Forster and C.S. Lewis.

Even so, I've missed a lot of great books and am just now beginning to discover writers I should have discovered years ago. Where has Thomas Hardy been all my life? Why didn't I know about Wordsworth? And for the love of Pete, why am I just now discovering Ray Bradbury?!?

I picked up a copy of The Illustrated Man at my favorite thrift store and read it nonstop with increasing fascination. The Veldt was eerily creepy and too terribly close to the truth. The Man was about how we miss Jesus even when we're really looking for him. The Rocket was heartbreaking and touching. Bradbury's irony and spot-on assessment of the direction in which we're heading is eye-opening. Why did it take me so long to read this stuff?

I've just finished Farenheit 451, a book written in the 50's but set in the 90's, telling the tale of an America where books are illegal and firemen start fires instead of putting them out. I found myself nodding and even agreeing aloud as I listened to the passages about Montag's wife's disconnect from personal relationships which had been replaced by her seashells (think earbuds), and her family (think plasma televisions on all the walls of your living room and reality t.v. that can interact with you). Only two people that Montag meets seems to understand what real experiences are; Clarisse, a young girl who describes herself as "seventeen and crazy," and Professor Faber. In one passage, Professor Faber tells why certain books, in this case The Bible which Montag, a fireman, has stolen from a house he was about to help burn, are so irreplaceable.

"Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me, it means texture. This book has pores. It has features. This book can go under the microscope. You'd find life under the glass, streaming past in infinite profusion. The more pores, the more truthfully recorded details of life per square inch you can get on a sheet of paper, the more 'literary' you are. That's my definition anyway. Telling detail. Fresh detail. The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.

"So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the faces of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless. We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam. Even fireworks, for all their prettiness, come from the chemistry of the earth. Yet somehow we think we can grow, feeding on flowers, and fireworks, without completing the cycle back to reality."

If you haven't read anything by Ray Bradbury, now is the time. Our country is beginning to make choices about how our children communicate with the world, what has real meaning, and it seems that we're heading down the wrong path. We're in danger of losing quality, of replacing real experiences with very sorry placebos in the forms of mediocre television shows, meaningless or, worse, harmful, violent video games, chatspeak and text messaging, movies that speak pseudo-wisdom in hushed, reverent tones. With our cell phones and blackberries and iPods and laptops, we're always available, yet always wanting to be somewhere else, talking to someone else, listening to something else. And even though we're entertained every day, almost the whole day long, we're still not satisfied. As Montag says to Faber, "We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's missing." What's missing? God created us to have fellowship with him and with his people, and we're trying to replace that desire with any quick fix we can find.

It's time to get back to quality, don't you think? To real experiences. To real relationships. To actual communication, conversation, faith, art, music, literature.

To the pores in the faces of life.

::: i didn't shake his hand: on meeting author and prophet a.j. jacobs :::

When I met A.J. Jacobs this evening, author of The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically and fellow blogger, the first thing I did was reach out to shake his hand. This staggers the imagination. It falls in line with doing stupid things like reminding yourself fourteen hundred times to pick up your phone on your way out of the house, or make the deposit at the bank before going home, or buy a bag of ice when you get to the cashier. You tell yourself over and over and over again, but you forget anyway. (By the way, when you get to the car after grocery shopping and realize you've forgotten milk, why does it seem easier to come back later and live for a week without milk than to walk from the parking lot into the grocery store and buy the stuff? Or is this just me?)

I first heard about Jacobs' book, The Year of Living Biblically, on NPR a year ago. I was enthralled and intrigued (which is kind of redundant, but I really was) since I was at a point in my life when I was beginning to take Biblical teaching--specifically the words of Jesus--very seriously, so I stopped immediately at my local bookstore to see if it was available. It was, but not at a price I could afford at the time, so I decided to come back for it later, but not before reading a few words here and there. Right away, several themes of the book struck me; first, Jacobs' willingness to learn and appreciate something new, and second, his desire to stick to something whole-heartedly for an entire year. I think I could commit to, oh, maybe eating and breathing for a year, but I'm not sure I'm all that great at committing to anything else for any extended period. I'm not even good at commiting to buying a book that I purposefully drove to the bookstore to purchase.

But I was able to pick up Jacobs' book The Know-It-All, about his determination to read through the Encyclopaedia Brittanica from A to Z (or, more precisely, from a-ak to zywiec), which smacked of the kind of wacky, immersive thing I would do but just hadn't thought of or had the guts to try and pull off. Reading what he had to say about his experience was like reading the book I would have written if I'd had half of his gumption and fortitude. Better yet, it was like reading what I would have found interesting and told people about without having to actually wade through all forty-four million words of the thing. It was like I outsourced my encyclopaedia reading to A.J. Jacobs.

And some of the things I gleaned from the book didn't really have anything to do with the encyclopaedia. Some of the most fascinating tidbits came from Jacobs' honesty about his own hangups. The transparency he allowed made me feel like I knew him, that I could really hang with him, that we could understand each other.

Insert creepy stalker music here.

But seriously, I thought that we'd have a lot of things to talk about if I ever met this guy in a conversational situation. We could discuss similar interests in historical quirkiness, or I could tell him how much I appreciated his chapter on school and the teacher's discussion of war. And one thing I absolutely knew, without a shadow of a beard, was that if we ever met, I would not, under any circumstances, shake his hand.

It's not because of any strange hand-habit that Jacobs wrote about in his book which turned me off from touching him. It had more to do with the fact that Jacobs describes himself as a hypochondriac and germaphobe, and I wanted to honor his hangups by not exposing him to my germs.

So, when the opportunity arose for me to actually meet this author, who would be within two-hours' drive time discussing his book The Year of Living Bibically, I ordered the tome from Amazon, read as much as I could digest (not in the Jeremiah eating-a-scroll sense, of course) in three weeks, which was to page 120 (what? It took the man a year to live it. I figure taking a year to read it is okay, too), and bought my tickets. As I dragged my dear husband along to be my driver, cameraman and general roadie, I instructed him firmly, "If you meet him, you must NOT shake his hand. He's a germaphobe." My husband nodded solemnly.

As soon as we entered the building, I saw Jacobs standing near the doorway. To my credit, I didn't rush him, although I did suggest to my husband that he could follow him into the men's room and introduce himself there. Jacobs couldn't soon forget that moment.

Insert the second movement of the creepy stalker music.

The presentation was decent, though it seemed to me that .9 of the audience hadn't read the book, because they laughed at all of the verbatim parts he quoted as if they'd never heard them before. I waited until the end of the question and answer session, mostly because I found it annoying that people kept shooting their hands up before he was finished answering the previous question. "I'll wait until they're all questioned-out," I reasoned. Unfortunately, the time was up before that happened. I figured I'd ask him my question, which pertained to what decisions he had made regarding the upbringing of his son (a topic he discusses in Living Biblically) when I would meet him at the book-signing table. And not shake his hand.

And, sure enough, he was at the said book-signing table. Since the last shall be first and the first shall be last, I was fairly close to the beginning of the line; I had been at the very back of the auditorium, right near the doorway where he was seated.

I knew I was going to have a few things to say, so I did, in all fairness, offer my space to the woman behind me who made a comment that she was in a bit of a hurry. She only had two books to sign. I had four. She declined, but at least I tried. It was in keeping with the whole golden rule theme. Having said that, I actually do try to live out the golden rule on a regular basis. It's as close as I can come to Living Biblically.

I saddled my husband with the camera and my other junk, instructing him to take several pictures. "And take them from slightly above, please. A modified myspace profile pic, except you're taking it and not me. I don't want a picture of all of my chins."

I was so busy giving photography lessons that I was actually caught off-guard when it came my turn to meet Jacobs. Instinctively, I stuck out my hand, and he reached for it. Almost as instinctively, I yanked my hand back before he had a chance to touch it. Unbelievable. After all of the reminders I had given myself and my husband, I had actually attempted to shake A.J. Jacobs' hand. But all was redeemed. I apologized, assured him that I wasn't actually going to touch his hand, because I know...I know...what? How he feels about germs? I don't know what I actually said, but I think he got the point, and I think he was grateful.

But here's the thing. I'm so accustomed to doing things a certain way, to meeting someone and performing the obligatory handshake, that I was taken aback. I had no idea what to do or say. Speechless, I stammered, "I'm a little lost, now. I don't know what to do if I don't shake your hand...."

At that point, he noticed my camera-wielding husband. Jacobs stood, and muttered that he was allowed to put his hand on my back, possibly as a consolation for not shaking my hand, and Bo took the shot.


Another brief exchange ensued while he signed my books in which he seemed genuinely interested, mostly, I'm sure, because I was one of the first people in line and not the 56th, though stamina and endurance do seem to be two of Jacobs' traits. Still, he really did seem interested. Here he is hanging on my every word. Ignore, please, the multiple chins. On me, that is. Mr. Jacobs' chins are just fine.


See the stamina? See the endurance? See the genuine interest? See the eye contact (Jacobs actually says that he has to work on *not* maintaining eye contact so that people don't think he's a psycho who keeps a cup of noses in his freezer)? Aren't these great traits? As are charm, compassion, humor and honesty, which Jacobs' also seems to possess, from my limited stalk...er, reading. Through his books and the answers to the questions presented by tonight's audience, I came to realize something about Jacobs that he may not recognize in himself, something that, in fact, he disclaimed. A.J. Jacobs is a prophet in his own right. What I took away from my evening listening to him was that he is a seeker of truth, a seeker of wisdom. He's not interested in retribution, ridicule, or setting people straight. "There are enough books out there that take the other side to task. I went into this wanting to understand." And what he learns, he shares. A speaker of truth, of wisdom, of understanding. A prophet.

Once I had left the building and climbed into my car, I opened my copy of Living Biblically to read a passage about Ecclesiastes (Jacobs' favorite book of the Bible) to my husband, flipping past the inscription. I'd almost forgotten it was there, so I flipped back and read it.



If he'd have known, he'd also have written, "And thanks for not accosting me in the men's room."

Insert final movement of creepy stalker music.

::: a new friend :::

The Baby, Sweetheart and The Bookstore Lady.

How People Affect Me, Part Three

I had only been wandering around the bead shop for a half-hour or so when I heard a siren sounding, the kind of wail that emits from an ambulance and causes every mother to stop dead in her tracks. I tried to ignore it, but my mother-heart kept hurling itself into terrible fits of imagination. It had me convinced that my four-year-old was dead in the middle of town square, that she'd slipped from her older brother's clutches and had darted out into traffic.

Or that the eleven-year-old had been too exuberant with his new Heelies and ended up on the sidewalk in some unnatural position, his head cracked open, calling my name with his last few breaths.

I tried to fight these thoughts. I tried to tell myself that I was being ridiculous. I tried to concentrate on the beads before me, to focus on the beautiful hummingbird earrings I was attempting to create. But I couldn't do it. All of the "what-ifs" piled on top of my head and I just had to find out if my children were okay.

Setting my tin full of beads aside, I nonchalantly announced, "I have to go check on my children. I'll be right back." And then I stepped out the door onto the sidewalk and strolled ever-so-quickly towards the bookstore. Bard told me later how priceless was the expression of the bead shoppe woman.

I didn't see a crowd gathered along the sides of the road, so I felt a bit reassured, but then my mother-heart was nagging me with other, more probable scenarios. The bookstore was being torn apart, shelf-by-shelf, but my littlest darling while the boys fought over a comic book. Or the uptight bookstore clerk was timing my absense, prepared to call children's services any moment. Or the children hadn't gone into the bookstore at all. They were instead doing a standup routine on the corner with their hats out for tips. My busking boys.

I couldn't believe how long of a walk it was to the bookstore. It hadn't seemed that long before, and now I was questioning my sanity at letting my children walk so far away from me. Anything could happen in the time it takes a person to walk two blocks!

And then I was at the door of the bookstore, holding the handle in my hand, swinging it open, casting my eyes about the intimate bookshelf-lined room. I heard no shrieking. I saw no glaring employee. This was almost more eerie than my nightmarish thoughts.

When I rounded the corner, I found fifteen-year-old Houdin curled up on a chair with a big, thick book. A few feet away, The Baby was cuddled up on a couch next to a neatly-dressed woman who couldn't have looked more like the kind of lady who would work in a bookstore. Beside them stood a stack of books, and it was clear that had read or were intending to read every one of them. Dramatically.

The Baby barely noticed my entrance, and I'm not sure the bookstore lady gave much pause, either. They just read merrily along so that I almost wondered if I were having an Ebeneezer Scrooge moment.

But when the book was finished and the covers snapped shut, I was acknowledged ever-so-slightly. And then another book was begun.

A second bookstore lady stood in a little island in the middle of the store, near the register, and called to me that they'd been happily enjoying the children's company, and I knew then that I was in love. At that moment, I would have handed them my entire life's savings, I was so grateful. I took my time browsing the books until a nagging feeling overcame me. My beads were waiting. I had to return to finish my bead transactions.

So I let The Baby choose her favorite book from the pile they'd read, laughed as she and the bookstore ladies fought noisily over The Baby's purple shearling coat, and made a mental promise that I'd be back soon.

Those ladies were a balm to my soul. I want to be like them. I want to take life like they do, happily drinking it up and being right where they are, loving what they do. What could be more important than being kind to little girls and teenaged boys and tired mamas?

We finished our bead transaction and returned to the bookstore, where the second bookstore lady plopped herself right back down on the couch and read more books to The Baby and Sweetheart. Not lightweight books, either. These were long, wordy, time-consuming books. And the girls listened to every drop.

And I shopped.

As a thank-you for being such wonderful people, I made a large purchase at the bookstore. Large for me, that is.

Considering the service, I think it was the best deal I ever got.

::: a book :::

He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!

~Emily Dickinson

Wednesday Evening Inventory

I borrowed this from Bella Dia and then adapted it for myself.

On my bedside table:
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Reckless Faith by Jo Kadlecek
Reflections for Ragamuffins by Brennan Manning
Live More with Less
A New Way to Be Human by Charlie Peacock-Ashworth
Reason for Hope, A Spiritual Journey by Jane Goodall (who I had the pleasure of meeting a couple of years ago. I see she has one called Harvest for Hope, A Guide for Mindful Eating. I've put it on my PaperBackSwap Wishlist.)
At the Crossroads by Charlie Peacock-Ashworth
Several Christmas decorating books

Most of these came from PaperBackSwap. Some came from the thrift store. I got Reason for Hope, hardcover, at the thrift store for .50!

Latest interests:
Christmas decorating
Thrift store shopping (this really is an ongoing addiction...er, I mean interest)
Walking
Possibly changing eating habits

On my mind:
Christmas preparations
Money
A new blog look
A relationship issue

Learning:
The art of thrifting
Frugal cooking
Sewing? Someday?

Making:
Cookies
Hard tack candy
Hopefully, some knitted stuff

Avoiding:
Cleaning my room
Money issues
Doing laundry

Looking forward to:
Busy-ness being over with
A restful holiday
Cleaning my room...tomorrow!
Caroling on Friday
Christmas

Enjoying:
Several Christmas trees in various stages of decoration--I've been so blessed!
My "new" white Christmas tree from the thrift store. It turns around AND it plays "O, Christmas Tree." I have it assembled in my bedroom, but not decorated yet.
My husband and friends playing music downstairs. They'll be playing in church on Sunday!

::: books: the best bad investment? :::

Used bookstores. I've known them intimately since I was a child. Imagine the excitement I felt finding this measure of financial freedom, discovering a way to sell something I no longer wanted to own something I really did want. On a regular basis, I would gather all of the books with which I could bear to part, wait for a family trip to the plaza where the used book store was waiting just for me, and sell my wares. I could sell a boring Nancy Drew and find an exciting Black Stallion, sell a ho-hum Hardy Boys Mystery and stumble upon The Black Stallion Returns. I could meet new books, consume them, build a relationship with them, and determine whether I wanted to continue that relationship, or if I just wanted to use it to acquire a new one.

Some would say that a used book store is just a paperback library. I suppose there's some validity to that. But there's something--something not-quite-explainable--that's different. The mystery of the hunt, the thrill of the find. And, too, the pressure is gone. I can take a book home, find that the relationship is too precious, and choose to keep that book! Mine! As a child, I would read each book carefully, never bending the cover, breaking the spine or dog-earing the pages, because the trade-in value would go down with every bend, break and dog-ear.

Library books...well, it just wasn't the same.

I hadn't been to a good used bookstore nearby since my childhood. There's an antique store with a fairly good selection, but it's not a used bookstore. There had been a pretty decent used bookstore downtown here, but from what the owners say, they were "chased out" by the conservative members of this community and simply couldn't make a living. Apparently the "conservative" contingent didn't like the Tarot, Gender Studies and Astrological selections. I don't know. I'm from the "conservative" contingent, I suppose, but I shopped there often and knew the owners by name. Ah, well.

Recently, I discovered another used bookstore while taking my kids into the "bigger" city (still small town) for the rehearsals for their roles in a musical there. Being a small town, everything closes by 5:00. But Books In Stock is open until 9:00, so I found it by necessity, the necessity of not spending another minute at Wal*Mart or McDonald's.

One step inside, and I was hooked. Hooked! It smells like my childhood! Like Black Stallion, Black Stallion Returns, The Secret in Miranda's Closet, The Red Badge of Courage, A Wrinkle in Time! Deep brown, worn-soft shelves are packed with paperbacks, hardbacks, books on CD and on cassette, categories indicated by hand-written signs suspended above each of the aisles. The bookcase ends hold photos of people traveling all over the world representing the store by sporting a shop t-shirt. "Books in Stock is known is Holland!" or "Books in Stock is known in Portugal!"

I wander from shelf to shelf, looking for old friends, new friends, maybe even avoiding a few enemies. It's a stroll through time. Look! There's Richard Bach! Oh, and the treasure of seeing Steven Cosgrove and Robin James in the children's section. Peace Like a River beckons from the fiction section, and I argue with myself--I should own it, even though I read and re-read the library copy. Yes! A bunch of Magic Treehouse books for Monet who has been devouring them like candy!  And Bruce Coville and Diana Wynne-Jones books for Bard. There are loads of Dorling-Kindersley books, most for under $5. All of the paperbacks are half-priced or the prices are marked with pencil on the inside.

Still, I'm able to accumulate quite a bill, though not as high as any I've had at Border's or the local independent bookstore. Here I am again, I think, buying books when I have no money. Books or food? Well, beans and rice are pretty tasty.

Just out of curiosity, I grab a trade-in form at the counter. I've come to a place in my life that I really don't want to part with any of the books I own, though we have way, way, way too many books (Can one have "too many" books? Isn't that like having "too many" flowers or "too many" children?) Most of the storage facility we used while we were living in the cabin was filled with books, in addition to the ones that overflowed from the shelves at the cabin. Most of my storage problems now are from not having enough bookshelves. I use books as bookshelves. We have books stacked in bedrooms, the Creative Room, the fruit cellar, the laundry room, the kitchen. I like them. I adore almost every one of them. And if I don't like them, other people probably wouldn't either, so why get rid of them?

But Bard gets hold of the trade-in rules, and now she's going through her books, weeding out duplicates (She informs me that we have 65 copies of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe) and counting the benefits and costs of trading in books she hasn't read in years. I see myself sitting there on her bedroom floor, evaluating each book, weighing its worth, dreaming of its value in trade, deciding in advance what books she'll be seeking.

In the end, I sort through some of mine, too. I toss in a book about the evils of Hallowe'en and its foundation in witchcraft and druidism, a book someone gave me on how to love my husband, and a Spanish copy of Your Fertility Signals, given to me by the author (a great book! I just don't know anyone who speaks Spanish and I have three copies of the English version already).

I let Bard handle the transaction. She writes her name and indicates that we'd like any unwanted books back. If we're staying for a while, the clerk informs us, she'll have our trade credit amount ready for us before we leave.

Of course we're staying for a while!

I find the I Hate Mathematics and Math for Smarty Pants books, the Book of Facts and Comparisons, Talk So Your Kids Will Listen and Listen So Your Kids Will Talk, several books in the Something Queer series (books I used to read while waiting in the doc's office as a kid, and whose star, Fletcher, could be our basset/beagle, Snoopy), a book of must-know magic tricks for Edison, and a few more Magic Treehouse books for Monet. Bard found a stack of her own.

I figured we'd been there long enough when I nursed The Baby to sleep, we'd borrowed the bathroom key four times, and Sweetheart had finished looking at every Golden Book on the rack. I had already tallied our total...over $50.00. But our trade-ins would take a big hunk out of that. Oh, the wonder of a used book store!

At the counter, after three of us have wrestled our stack onto the countertop, the clerk pushes my trade credit slip towards me. She points to the "fiction" total. $2.49! And for the nonfiction, a whopping $4.49. What??? I look towards the door where they have placed my bag of unwanted books. It's almost full, including The Davinci Code given to me by my brother-in-law and Making Your Children Mind without Losing Yours, which I bought there last week and disliked within the first chapter! I was banking on that one! I looked at my huge stack of potential purchases and told the clerk, in a mournful tone, that I'd like a few minutes alone. Bard and I took ten minutes to sort, to set aside the poor souls that couldn't come home with us, to think and rethink our choices, and, finally, to call the clerk back over.

My final total came to $35.64. I picked up the bag of books Iwe had brought for trade, the rejects that weren't wanted by the bookstore, and I felt depressed. How much had I paid for these books new? And now they weren't even worth a dollar at the used bookstore? Some of them I'd never even read! Excellent condition! I read the sign posted above the counter, the sign that read my mind. "Why Didn't We Want Your Books?" with several reasons listed. I deduced that "my" reason was "deemed not saleable." The clerk offered to dispose of the books for me. No, I thought. I'll take them home and give them a proper burial. Deep on a back of a bookshelf.

I'll probably try again next week.  If I can afford it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go reheat my beans and rice.