Just One More for the Bookshelf
At least a couple Saturday mornings a month, I take my sons to the farmer's market in the town near where we live.
They hold the market at the train station, which is an old B&O station built in the late 1800s. The local commuter train stops there on weekdays, and the CSX and Amtrak drive by regularly.
My oldest son and I usually get a few empanadas and sit at the train station while he waits for the CSX to come through and my youngest son watches the people.
To get there, we drive and park at the town hall. Then we walk the few blocks to the market.
Our path always takes us by a little free library that sits outside a few stores. My oldest son always stops and looks to see if anything interests him.
This library rarely has books that interest him. It's usually filled with books for adults - an interesting mix of pop fiction and reference books.
This morning we approached the library and notice that someone had filled it recently. It was packed with books. One stood out to me - a Kurt Vonnegut book I had not read.
So I grabbed it, excited for my unexpected find, and we continued on our walk to the market.
Later when we got home, I put it on my shelf in my office that has become my overflow book shelf. It holds only five books right now, but it's five books that don't fit on our regular books shelves.
Because I have more books on my selves that I haven't read then those that I have read, I made a decision that this year I was not going to buy any more books (with the exception of my birthday).
And yet, I've made very little progress on reading the books on my selves because I still check out books from the library and find them in places for free.
I'm not a fast reader. With a full-time family and a full-time job, reading is, at best, a third priority in my life.
I was hoping this year to read a book about every three weeks. But what do they say about best laid plans?
I'm also at the stage of my life where I can start to do the math and realistically understand that I'll never get to read all the books I want or visit the places I want or see the movies I want.
But it doesn't bother me. There's actually some relief in knowing that I don't have to get it all done.
Just take it one book at a time.
And don't be afraid to add more to the book shelf.