Reading...ever hated that a book ended because you have come to love the characters?

I really am addicted to reading. I can no more not read than I can not breathe. If someone wanted to punish me for a crime, all they would have to do is take away every book I have on my shelves and not allow me to read anything for a month...I would be dead, extremely well punished, and probably "mad as a hatter" after those 30 days. 

I found these photos - see below (which I know are really ads). They seemed to picture how real the characters can become to me. Some of the characters in books I have loved have felt so real to me that when the book ended, a best friend had died and I cried at a happy ending for the sheer joy and pain of having known the character. 

What am I reading now...just finished I Think I Love You by Allison Pearson. Great writing, and then hearing it on audiobooks (while I drive to and from work 5 days a week) was brilliant with the Welsh, British and American accents. It is the story of a group of girls who "adored" David Cassidy, the teen idol in 1970-1974 or so. How they contrived to go to his concert in White City, outside of London, England, where a girl in the crowd was crushed to death. How they entered a contest to meet their idol...and then 30 years later find out that they actually won the contest, and how it changes their lives....again. Brilliant story. 

On to The Tin Horse by Janice Steinburg in the car....sounds promising. Waiting for me on my bedside table is the hard copy of the latest Henning Mankell mystery, A Treacherous Paradise. Mankell is famous for his Kurt Wallander series, a Swedish detective whose angst continues brilliantly through a series of 10 mysteries (police procedure, not gore). If you are into mysteries, read the Wallander series in succession. You will not be disappointed.

 

Until next time, curl up on these rainy days with a cup of tea, a warm dog at your side, and a new friend in pages that will take you away.....

Bucket Lists...I just love checking off things done!

Spain 2013

The movie, The Bucket List, was interesting, a little silly, and rather funny. It seems to have given the whole world the idea that they need to have a bucket list - a list of things you want to do before you kick the bucket (or die, for my non-English-idiom-user friends).

I love making lists. The iphone apps I have for lists are not nearly as satisfying as actually putting a nice pen on a new legal pad and writing out a list of things to do. And then checking them off as they are done - heaven! I have always been that way. Put me in a stationary store and I drool or spend money - it's hard to drag me out of there - ask my daughter, she knows. I was always the kid in school that loved starting a new notebook. I wrote with an ink nib and cartridge pen in high school just because I liked the way it looked when I wrote in those notebooks of mine. What a nerd I am!

Buckets lists can help us decide what is important to us. I started an on-going bucket list back in 1990. I already always have the following lists going: Things to fix in the house List, Things to do in the yard List, Groceries I need to buy List, Books I want to read List, Movies I want to watch List, People to call List, is this getting tedious or is it just me?.... So, I thought, why not add a Bucket List?

The Top 10 Items on Reno's Bucket List 1990:
Things to do Before I kick My Bucket 
1. Travel with my family for a year by motorcycle around Canada, USA, and Mexico.
Check - did that 1992-1993 - All 10 provinces, 48 states, and 8 Mexican provinces. 

2. Start a girls high school in Malawi.
Check - did that from 1994-2002. School is still thriving under local leadership. 

3. Travel with my husband by motorcycle around South Africa, Brazil and Morocco.
Check - did that 1999, 2012,  and 2013.

4. Become an International Relief Manager and feed 60,000 people in Zambia.
Check - did that 2002-2003. Challenging and wonderful year. 

5. Publish a book. Have written many many magazine articles, but have not published a book. Want to see my name as author on a book cover and someone reading it! (I actually have written the first draft of a novel, but have not read it for a year or two. I will go back and read it in a few months, and see if it is redeemable. I am thinking of starting a memoir instead.)

6. Start a blog and write regularly. 
Check  - started 2013. Now the goal is to keep writing.  

7.  Travel with my grandkids. I would love to take some of my African grandchildren back to where they were born, and see if there are any African relatives left to introduce to them. I would love to take my non-African grandchildren to someplace exotic and wonderful and meaningful. Right now I have to travel 3 days in the car to see any of my grandchildren - all 7 live in the great white north. 

8. Have my bathrooms and studio re-done. This might sound silly for a bucket list, but it is really up there. I would love to have someone come in, listen to my ideas, and design a new studio and bathrooms for my 50+ year old house. I want new windows, ceramic tiles, a rain shower, glue removed from hardwood floor in studio and of course, this would have to be done for free. Dream on.....but still something I want to see before I kick the old bucket. 

9. Have time to create more paintings...I love to paint with oil, and have procrastinated, due to studio not being completed - see #8.  I have 4 of my own paintings in my home.....have sold the rest, but often feel an overwhelming desire to create. There is really is no excuse for this except procrastination. 

10. Have a vacation with my husband on a warm sunny beach......where we walk out the front door of a cottage onto the beach, with comfortable lounge chairs, good books, cool drinks waiting for us, and we hold hands as we look at the horizon, smell the salty air and feel the sun caress us. 

#10 will probably be the hardest. Because: 1. My man would rather be on his motorcycle than almost anywhere. 2. His idea of a vacation is so much different than mine, and 3. Living so far from family we feel guilty going anywhere else if we do have the time for a vacation.  Don't get me wrong....we do want to spend time with family, and in my imaginary beach if the children and their spouses were on lounges beside us, or if they were playing beach volleyball or building sandcastles with the grandchildren, that would be perfect. Then we could all go back to the house for an evening BBQ where I have made my great potato salad, and my daughter her seven-layer salad, etc. etc. Dream on....

Still, continually revising my bucket list gets me thinking of the top ten things that I want to do. Notice how so many of mine involve travel? Tell me your top three. Maybe I will be inspired to put them on my list. My legal pad and pen are ready.