Updates, Changes, Etc.

Hi friends. It's been such a long time since I've written, which on the one hand is because I haven't had too much to write about, and because on the other hand I just haven't really felt like it. We've been slow on the projects and house updates so far this year, which is actually a really good thing since it probably means nothing it too terribly broken or in need of immediate repair. I have still been reading books, but I was starting to feel like every time I finished a book I had this immediate chore/burden of writing a review, and I am not such a fan of that. I think I'm past my blogging apathy, though, and am ready to come back. The result is that I'm going to be writing one post soon that has all of the books I've read recently, but with extremely short reviews. I might stick to that style moving forward for my own sanity's sake. We will see.

With new life seasons and life priorities, though, usually comes a good, solid spring cleaning or two. Mine came in the form of my bookshelves today. I took Charlotte to the Green Valley Book Fair for the first time this morning and when it was time to put the new books I'd purchased on the shelves, I realized that so many of those 94 books that I had left to read were of no interest to me. That's why they still hadn't been read. I might have wanted to read them at some point or I might have heard something good about them from someone I trusted or whatever, but if I don't at this current time have any desire at all to read them, it probably wouldn't hurt to do some donating to Goodwill. So I took down a pile of books, reevaluated my list of remaining books on the ever huge 94 books, and decided that there just didn't even need to be such a list any more. My "to read" list on Goodreads is quite modest and doable now, and I plan to just keep whittling away at it. That list includes all the books left on my shelf to read and it includes the ones I bought today and it includes the ones on my wishlist at the library and on Amazon. Manageable lists are much more tackle-able and I like that. So I guess I've come full circle, and the 94 book list concept was a good one that taught me a ton about how to shop (for books, for decorations, for clothes) within the piles of stuff you already own, and for that I am so thankful. But I think I can safely move on and trust myself at this point to not spend money on new books without abandon and without ever actually reading them (which is pretty much what I had been doing). Yay for reading, yay for lessons learned, and yay for getting lists accomplished and defeated and minimized. All those things are so, so good.

As far as what I'm planning on reading now or reading next, either follow me on Goodreads or just wait till my next post :)