One More Week!

I have been so bogged down lately that I have been having  a hard time making time to post anything on my blog.  One of the things on my plate is my job as a preschool teacher.  There is only one more week of the current school year, which is hard for me to believe.  Every year it feels like it goes so slowly at the beginning and then end is so far off, and then all of a sudden the days are in the single digits and there is so much I still want to have the time to do.  This year is no different, but as of a week from right now I will be done for the summer.  I can hear the song in my head, "Schools out for summer...".  It is a nice feeling.  There are a lot of things at home that are in need of attention, so until my older children get done with school I plan on devoting some much needed attention to organization and cleaning and such.  I have such high hopes every summer, but you have to start somewhere.  Hopefully between the organizing and cleaning, running and reading, and filling the days for the kids with the right mix of free time, structured time and learning time, I will make my way back to posting.  I've been reading all along, so I have a nice long list of books I can review when I make the time!

E Readers

I have been toying with buying a Kindle or another e-reader since last spring.  In August I put one in my online cart and left it there for a week, before moving it into my save for later cart.  I just couldn't make the purchase.  It seemed like too much, there were so many choices and I couldn't see spending that much on myself, especially since my house is full of books that I am still planning on reading.  Then today when I as on Facebook I saw a post about the $79 Kindle and I put it in my cart.  I deliberated for a half hour and then went for it.  My birthday is coming up and, while it feels like an impulse, I've been wanting to get one for at least six months, maybe longer.  I have some small pangs of buyers remorse, but for the most part I'm just kind of excited.  I can't wait to give it a try and I am excited about the possibility of borrowing books from the library on it!

How do you get ready for a storm?- Saturday Snapshot

So yesterday when we were getting ready for to be stuck indoors for Hurricane Irene we of course took a trip to the library.  Yes, we went to the store and stocked up on water and made sure the flashlights were working and there was food to eat and all that, but of almost equal importance was having some good books to read if we were without power.  Can't count on TV to fill all those hours even if we do have power!

I thought about it later that that one trip went pretty far to show exactly how important books and reading are to my family.  When we go on vacation we wouldn't dream of going with out books and of course an audio book for the car.  When we bought our car we didn't even think to consider getting a minivan with a DVD player, I never even thought of it.  I am sure if we had one we would enjoy it, but audio books have been such a part of our trips that I just never even thought about movies.  Just thinking back on the books we've listened to in the car brings back to me where we were going when we listened to it.  Like being stuck in a traffic jam after going to the zoo while listening to Harry Potter or going to the beach last summer and listening to Amber Brown is Not a Crayon.  Books are the background noise of my life.  The first time we spent a whole week at the beach my older two children still napped and I was pregnant with my third child, I took along seven books and read 6 1/2 of them mostly during naps and after they went to bed.  It was such a nice relaxing way to end the day.

Who else has some wild plans to read during this time?

Upcoming reviews

Lately I have been doing a lot of reading, but plan to start posting my reviews again on Monday. I find that when I focus on one thing I don't have as much time for others. For a while it felt like I was spending a lot of time on my blog and reading other blogs and not as much time on reading as I wanted so I gave myself permission to devote some time to just reading, which is why I started the blog in the first place. Now that I have three books read and another almost done since my last review I am just about ready to jump back into writing reviews. I guess finding balance anywhere is tough! The books I plan to review next week are:

1. Veracity
2. Knit, Purl, Die
3. Alice I Have Been
4. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe