Reading Room

That's it. I am not going to the bookstore.  Never mind that I have a quiet (read "kid-free") afternoon and evening.  Ignore the educator discount sale, granting K-12 educators 25% off all books.  Resist the lure of all those ideas and information bound up and collected in a place with coffee. I'm staying put.

I'm an absolute book junkie.  New, used, borrowed, I love them all. Paperback Swap, my local libraries, any bookstore.   But my shelves are full -- double-stacked in places, and I need nothing.  I have dozens of books still unread, books I really want to read.  My children's shelves aren't lacking either, so I can't use their need to read as an excuse just to be in a place with all those books.

Several of my most recent acquisitions are books about writing.  Though stacked neatly next to my favorite reading chair, they've had no effect on my writing. I'm not blogging more often. I have yet to compose a query for articles that remain half-baked in my brain.  I haven't even finished my holiday thank-you notes.  There the books remain, most bindings uncreased and pages largely unread.  Hmm.

The stack of guides for spiritual seekers of all kinds take similar rest on my nightstand.  Several sport bookmarks a quarter to halfway in.  Despite the number that I've begun (and, to my credit, the number I've finished), I've yet to commit to regular spiritual practice.  My meditation cushion is downright lonely.  Huh.

I've sought solutions in the written word for as long as I can remember.  Curious about a subject?  Bring home that section from the library.  Considering a new course of study?  Collect texts and tomes.  Concerned about self/children/marriage/the world?  Read more books. 

I'm not advocating an end to reading, and I'm not vowing to stop purchasing, borrowing, and swapping books, but I'm raising my own awareness of the obvious fact that reading alone isn't equivalent to taking action.  It fails to fix problems and develop new habits.  It can encourage and inspire, inform and distress, entertain and perplex, but it doesn't write the essay, conquor the clutter, or care for the children. 

So I'm staying home.  I'm sure I'll read from my burgeoning shelves tonight, but first, I'll finish that thank-you note, and that's a start.

The Best Laid (Lesson) Plans

I'm definitely conflicted this time of year. Despite 16 years having passed since fall meant a return to school, fall means a fresh start. New notebooks, paper, and binders. Anticipation, both enthused and anxious about new classes. And, notably, unlike the rest of life, a beginning with a definite ending in sight.

About this time every year, I find myself surrounded by scrawled lists of curriculum plans and piles of books. I've planned in notebooks, on calenders, on computer-generated planner pages, and in my head, all with moderate initial success that diminished come October or so, where recording what we actually did took the place of planning what we would do. That's fine for my younger guy, since he generally takes us further than I would have planned, but with my older at age 12 (7th grade age), it's really not enough for either of us. I need to know that a course will get finished in the span of our school year. He needs a path to follow with signposts telling him how far he's been and how far there is to go. He needs me to make a plan.

So here I am, surrounded by the papers and the books, slowly scheduling out Geometry, Latin, Biology, and more. I'm trying out some scheduling software this time around, Homeschool Tracker Plus, and (as I was warned) the learning curve has been fairly steep. It allows homeschoolers to share lesson plans with others, which can be quite the time saver, but I'm not sure that time savings will be evident this year, given the amount of work I've put in learning how to make the program work best for me and my family. I'm not one to schedule down to the hour, and that seems to be one of the program's strengths. Right now, my favorite feature is the library function. With a swipe of my neutered Cue Cat (bar code reader turned ISBN reader), I can catalogue my books. Using the resource function, I can sort these by course as well. Hooray! It's too soon to tell if this software will meet my needs, but the latent librarian in me is deeply satisfied.

Books Abound

This last week has been a feast for my bibliophile self! Thursday found the boys and I setting up the library book sale and, of course, preshopping. I'm on my own for the return for clean-up this afternoon, and I'm looking forward to some end-of-sale shopping prior to my shift. I'm surprised there's anything left by the end of the sale, but there are still goodies to be found, all discounted greatly.

As a family, we took a record four trips in six days to the same library, returning what we finished and picking up holds, always with "just a peek" for "one or two things." Our peak volume out was 70 titles, although we're down after another round of returns. My older son spends a good amount of time requesting whatever his current obsession is -- Bone comics and Peanuts cartoon books are current favorites. They don't take long to read, and I suspect he spends more time requesting those stacks of book than reading some of the volumes. I wonder where he acquired the habit of requesting-as-hobby? Hmm.

To top it off, my first order as a Scholastic Book Club homeschooling teacher arrived this week. As a child, I loved those newsprint mini catalogues, and that adoration hasn't abated. I'm glad to have homeschooling friends with whom to share this resource, and it does make for more books that pass my eyes.

All this makes for a fairly precarious situation on my bedside table and a bookcase in every room.