Casual Fridays

Christmas Eve ~ 2016

Hello there and a happy 2017 to you! I can hardly believe we've made it into another new year, but as my dad always says, I'll be blinking and then getting out all my Christmas decor again. The old saying is true: the days are long, but the years are short. The longer I live, the shorter the years seem to get. Why is that? 

Anyway, enough introspection, if you're new around here: welcome! That's me with my smokin' hot husband. I blog about books. I decided a couple years ago that it was time to stop collecting all the classics with the intention of reading them "someday" and actually dive in and start reading. Blogging has become a fun hobby for me and a great way to catalogue what I've thought about the books I've read and to save some of the more poignant quotes I've come across as I've read them. 

If you're interested in keeping up with this little blog, there's a box over to your right (if you're viewing on your phone, you'll have to scroll all the way down and hit "Web View" in order to see it) where you can enter your e-mail address to have my posts come directly to your Inbox. 

Moving on, let me tell you something: we have had a veritable windfall of books around here lately. And since (as I just mentioned) that's what this blog is all about, I'm about to inundate you with the details of all our new treasures whether you like it or not. 

Look at all the pretty, pretty books. It's like Christmas! No, actually, it just was Christmas. Hence, the windfall. Let's work our way from left to right, shall we? 

First of all, if you'll take a second to recall this post and this post, you'll find that my husband already went above and beyond with the bookish goodness on my birthday. I decided not to include them in this photo because 1) I've already talked about them on the blog and let's not be repetitive, and 2) I don't know if I could have fit them in the picture anyway. 

Ok, so all the way to the left on the bottom of the first little stack we have The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. This book has been on my Life List for some time, and my awesome mommy-in-law got it for me for my birthday. I did not even think twice about putting it on my book list for this year. On top of The Hiding Place, we have 1984 and Animal Farm both by George Orwell sitting next to Every Thing On It by Shel Silverstein. We picked up these three books in a funky little used book shop we found while wandering the streets of Key West the weekend after my birthday. Next to Shel, we've got some Dr. Seuss books: The Butter Battle Book and Daisy-Head Mayzie. Cody always gets me Dr. Seuss books for Christmas. He's the best. After Dr. Seuss, there's a Debbie Macomber book called Angels at the Table that my Gramma gave me for Christmas. I read my first Debbie Macomber book a couple weeks ago, and the plot was original and interesting so I'm looking forward to seeing what else she has to offer. The next stack are books that Cody and I got for each other for Christmas: Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck, Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (this one made it on my 2017 book list!), and The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper. I'm definitely looking forward to reading The Deerslayer after I enjoyed The Last of the Mohicans so much. 

For Christmas, my parents gave us each gift cards to Barnes & Noble, and--surprise, surprise--they didn't even last us a week. We hightailed it to a Barnes & Noble and picked up another year's worth of reading material. A gorgeous collectible edition of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, Daniel Deronda and Middlemarch both by George Eliot, and Never Go Back and Personal both by Lee Child. Cody's pretty into the Jack Reacher series right now. To top it off, we ordered a beautiful collector's edition of The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer and a Louisa May Alcott box set of Little Women, Little Men, and Jo's Boys which have not yet arrived. I am extremely disappointed to inform you that neither I nor my husband has been able to find a single copy of Jo's Boys (or Little Men, for that matter) in any bookstore we've been in lately. Which I think is outrageous. But never fear: we have the internet. 

As if all this wasn't way more than enough, I walked into church Wednesday night and there was a table of random odds and ends up for grabs and sitting right on one corner was a stack of four Sisterchicks novels by Robin Jones Gunn. Can you even believe it?! The Sisterchicks series are some of the only books by Robin Jones Gunn that I don't already own and haven't read. I mean, honestly. I don't even know what to do with myself right now. 

Is anyone still with me? Have I gone way overboard? Are you completely blown away that among all these new jewels, only a few made it onto my 2017 book list? I'm pathetic, right? I think it's safe to say that I officially own more books that I haven't read than books I have and ohmygosh I just realized I forgot some. Let's change the subject. 

Link Love

- What Healing Looks Like : Excellent quote from Francis A. Schaeffer.

- Living in a Library : Um, only my dream come true!

- The Grinch, Puppy Dogs, & Thoughts About the Heart : Love these thoughts from Switchfoot's Tim Foreman.

- Punctuality : Yes, yes, yes. Thankful for a dad who not only taught me the importance of being on time, but has always modeled it so well.

- Baby Stella : If there was one of those live feed things on this baby elephant, I would waste waaaaay too much time watching it. So cute!!

And speaking of cute, I can not even handle this adorable photo of my niece. I'll end with this in hopes that you'll forgive me for my endless monologue about all the books.

Have you read any of the books I mentioned? Do you have a collection or hobby that other people get sick of hearing about? This is a safe space. I promise I won't judge. Do the years seem short to you or do they drag?

P.S. Because I just can't help not telling you the books I left out: my dad got me John Adams by David McCullough for my birthday--it's on my book list. We also bought The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald from Barnes & Noble. There. I think that's everything. The end.