Day one of revisions. I have so many post it notes everywhere I can barely see my desk. I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I feel like the hard part is over. Time to make this book come alive!

One of my favorite memories growing up was the family [...]]]>

Day one of revisions. I have so many post it notes everywhere I can barely see my desk. I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I feel like the hard part is over. Time to make this book come alive!

One of my favorite memories growing up was the family trip to the library. Every other Sunday, we would pile up in our blue Delta ‘78 and head to the world of books. I loved every minute of it. From the way my father parallel parked—watching the steering wheel whip around as he let it slid through his fingers, the way my mother grabbed the back of my neck like a mother lion does her young cubs as we crossed the street, to the way the books smelled as I sniffed them—pure heaven.

For me, books are a precious commodity. I have a Patti LaBelle cookbook my sister gave me, encouraging me to cook as a new wife. That book is priceless to me now that she has passed away. I don’t have anything fancy in my bookshelf, no first editions or rarities, but each book tells a story. If I pick up, oh say my copy of Jennifer Weiner’s Little Earthquakes, it will take me to the time of my life when I was struggling in the complexities of new motherhood. Susan Lori Park’s, Getting Mother’s Body, I first read when I moved back home after a year of being on my own, (Okay, I lived with my three sisters. But I had my own room and I was out of my parent’s house, so there. On my own.) and I thought I would never be married or out on my own again. Yes, my books tell a story and I wouldn’t part with any of them.

Being such a book lover I absolutely, positively, HATE, when someone dog-ears a book. HATE IT! I feel as if someone has just ripped a page out, it is the ultimate disrespect to any book. I am the bookmark queen. Yes, my daughter has snatched many a bookmark out of my books. And yes, it takes me awhile to put it back where I found it, but I rather that than the turned down corner of a page. I like to read my books over and over again and I hate seeing raggedy corners, a constant reminder of where I had to stop reading. You can use ANYTHING as a bookmark, a torn subscription card out of a magazine, (my personal favorite), a paperclip, (my father’s favorite), or you can get fancy as my mother does and use a ribbon adorned with glass beads on the end. Use anything, but please people we have got to stop folding the pages of books. I’m sure librarians everywhere will thank you.