Once upon a time, a long time ago my grandmother gifted me with my first chapter book, the rest is history.I fell in love and became a veracious reader. . . I always had a book in my possession. As I grew older I had one in my purse, one or two beside my bed and one in the car in case I had to wait for the kids somewhere. There was nothing more satisfying that getting lost between the pages! I am not sure exactly when that waned but after some tragic life events I began to find it hard to concentrate on the page in front of me. The characters no longer called me as strongly as they once had, my eyes began to fail making reading much less pleasurable and slowly the books took longer to read and began to stay on the shelf.
Though I did not read as much as I once had I still garnered great pleasure finding what books where on the best read list or in a trip to a book store and my collection continued to grow...I am of the mind that you can never have too many books so my collection did not dwindle. Unfortunately the books started to pile and I knew it was time for me to take action!
I have a special book shelf for unread books and realized recently (much to my horror) that it is now two special book shelves. Obviously this problem needed to be resolved as quickly as possible! I am not sure how most people would approach such a dilemma but I hit it head on. . . first I rearranged my shelves to accommodate all the unread material (starting with the ones I want to read the most of course), I then assessed how many new book shelves would be required to house the books that would be staying ( I do actually cull them once a year and send many back to the used book store) and then I started adding reading to my daily schedule again. How delightful it was to become lost in a far away land or empathize for someone who had lived through wartime tragedies. . . my passion was being reignited one page at a time!
When my last baby left home I formulated a plan to turn switch up the bedrooms and turn the larger master into a new library. . . I have ALWAYS wanted a library and it seemed to be the right time to make this a reality. Oh, it would not be the grand library of my childhood day dreams, there would be no murals on the ceilings, no rolling ladders to reach the top shelves, it would not be filled with ancient treasures and hand painted globes but it would be my refuge.
Who knew that 'According to Jennings', a book about a young boy going to preparatory school in England would instill such a love of literature, it would be where my daydreams began and continued to grow, it would be the start of wanting to create a library of my very own. Now, many years later I shall make it a reality. . . I look forward to having a place where wonder and imagination rule.
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