Baby Steps

Baby steps. That's my new mantra.

For the past few days, I have been considering starting a blog about all the books I read. I love to get lost in a good book. I buy them at a used bookstore, (so I don't go broke),then recommend it to a friend. One of my favorite things is to find a good book someone else has already loved. To see where they dog eared it, or the coffee stains. It makes me feel like we are connected by something.

The down side is reading a book then seeing it after a period of time in a book store, and feeling like I can't quite remember it. That's the part that makes me sad, feeling like I have lost that connection.

I work the front desk at my office, and there can be quite a lot of downtime. This is where I get a lot of my reading done. For Christmas, one of the departments generously gave me a gift card to my favorite used book store. Right away I started making a list of all the book I wanted to read. As the list grew longer, I wondered how I would remember them all. Then I started thinking about how I'd like to re-read some of my old favorites.

That's when it hit me.

A book blog.

As always, that pesky little thing known as "doubt" set in. I thought, "I've never even read a blog! I don't know if I am supposed to 'talk' to myself or an audience. How do I set a blog up? Who would even read it? Am I too busy for to keep one up?"
Today I realized what that little voice was. Fear and Doubt. I will be damned if I let fear and doubt live my life for me.

But for now, it's baby steps while I work toward my goal. I am currently writing in a journal. I realize that by the time anyone reads this, it will be on the internet. Don't be confused. I am starting this blog in my journal to get a foundation going. Something to build on when I take the big leap to actually put my thoughts out there. I plan to copy these journal entries word for word. In the meantime, I still get to work toward my goals, while gathering information and building a foundation.

I read mostly Chick-Lit, because I like a good laugh. I generally don't like books that are too heavy. That being said, I will try almost anything that someone recommends.

I am currently reading Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner. It's about two women Val and Addie, who grew up best friends. They have a falling out in high school. Years later, Val shows up at Addie's doorstep saying she's in a lot of trouble, and only Addie can help her.

This is definitely not one of my favorite books, I will be honest. The book jumps from Val's viewpoint, to Addie's and also from present to past. Both the girl's had hard, sad childhoods. So you go from the fun, interesting story of the present, to flash backs of the sad things, seen through the innocence of a child. I am about halfway through and not really loving this one. We will see how it goes.

Anyhow, I left that book at the office thinking I would be way too busy this weekend to get anywhere with it. Yet here I am with some downtime, so I figure I'll just start on another book in the meantime.

This one is called The Chocolate Lovers' Club by Carole Matthews. I have read this one before, in fact it's one of my favorites. I recommended this one to a book club. What better excuse to re-read a great book!? This book is about four women, Chantal, Lucy, Nadia, and Autumn. Their love of chocolate brings them together and creates a tight bond between them.