Accomplishments

I just posted my most recent review on Goodreads and noticed that I now have 401 books in my "read" folder!  Depending on how much you like to read (or how much time you have for reading), this number is either amazing or embarrassing.  But it makes me happy, which is all I'm concerned about.  I've been on Goodreads since around 2006 or so, but it took me a while before I seriously began writing reviews of the books I read.  (Mostly because we didn't have reliable internet for several of those first few years, so reviewing books wasn't a high priority.  My biggest priority at that point was emailing baby pictures of Bentley to my Mom!)  Now, I feel as though I haven't truly "finished" a book until I've posted my review of it.  I like that it forces me to think about what I read and why I did or didn't like it.

I also enjoy seeing other's thoughts on those same books-- it's like having a quick book club session, except I didn't have to clean my house first.  And if someone is boring, I can just skim their comments. 

From reading other people's reviews, I've learned that it will NEVER be possible to write a book that everyone loves.  I'm constantly amazed at the books that I hate (and often couldn't even finish!) that people give five stars to, and the books that I thought were wonderful that other people couldn't stand.  You just can't ever make everyone happy.

Remind me of that fact some day when I write a book, okay?

Just because I'm already bragging anyway, I'm also going to point out that I don't bother recording on Goodreads books that I start but don't finish.  It was a truly liberating moment when I realized that I was no longer in college and therefore no longer obligated to read anything that I didn't want to read.  Since then, if a book isn't holding my interest (as evidenced by an increase in time wasted reading failblog and other such crap because I'd rather do that than read a boring book), I eventually put it down, return it to the library, and find something else to read.  Life is too short and there are just too many books out there to waste time on the boring ones!  But somehow the idea of marking these lame-o books as such on Goodreads seemed a little too spiteful or something.  Although I sort of wish I had a record of them all, now...

Anyway, but the point of this post (if a blog post ever has a point) is that with four kids, I still manage to be a reader.  And that makes me extremely happy.  I sometimes worry that I could get a long more done if I read less.  But then I realize that there just isn't much out there that I find more worthwhile than a good book, so why change what's working? 

And as my friend Laresa used to quote in her tagline at the end of her emails, "People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading."

If we're not friends on Goodreads yet, are we even friends at all???