As always a new year of books to read and a new challenge to meet makes for what could be a dull year of mostly work far more interesting. For the year of 2018 the goal is to read at least sixty books. For me that feels ambitious, but doable even having to work six days a week. While I sure would love to have more time than that to truly just sit down and read with a nice cup of coffee (or two or three) on my day off time sometimes just doesn’t actually allow for that to happen. Due to this fact I expect my challenge to take longer than in some years to meet. Don’t get me wrong here I won’t complain about getting extra hours at work considering that I do need them as often as I can get them – especially this time of year when retail sales are slower.

I know that this first post of the year is coming a month late, so I may as well just lay it out all at once. This year I plan to work things a little differently than I have in the past simply because there is a general need to on my part due to the time factor. There may be a small lag time between when books are actually finished and when posts for them show up here with my thoughts about them and so on. Something I have thought about and have sort of shied away from in the past was to write more about life and just kept it about books here. The reality is that books are part of life for me and so this year I hope to bring a more personal feel to the posts and perhaps even write about things outside of books, but still related to them. With this in mind this blog may have a different feel to it than the last couple of years which I hope is for the better and for more frequent posts.

Alright, with the boring business dealt with I may as well get to the true reason for even making this post. This morning I woke up with some ideas swirling around in my head, but as you may know thinking while still only semi-conscious and very much in need of a coffee infusion comes at a premium. Most mornings I just engage the autopilot switch and go about my morning routine which I must admit is, well, boring as hell. Just a means of making it to work on time while still half asleep trying to decide if I want to leave a little early for time to get a cup of joe (a barely tolerable one mind you) before my shift in the break room. Truly, boring if I do say so my self. Why is today different? I don’t have to be at work on Sundays. That of course feels pretty nice so I went on a short, but nice walk to the nearby Starbuck and got my usual drink five hours earlier than on a typical day. On my way back home with my coffee refill a very random thought struck me and I just couldn’t resist thinking it over for the rest of my walk home. Something like this hasn’t happened in a while which is why it not only struck me as something majorly important to why I love to read and why you are actually getting to read about this.

I don’t know about you, but one of the reasons I love reading is that it can transport us from out of out daily lives and give us an adventure that we so dearly desire and many cases could never in a million year ever go on outside of our imaginations. In some ways getting off the couch and going on a walk even if just for a short on can simply accomplish this same desire in a very limited sense. People are made to go and do, to move, to interact with the world around us, and most importantly to experience things beyond the realm of written words on a page. Stepping outside our door is akin to going on a mini adventure where with every step we are interacting with the world around us in a natural sense. The small experiences gained from doing so can so very richly shape who we are outside of the work arena. Those experiences tell us that we are alive. Here is the point of all of this on my way home two little boys rounded either side of the large red SUV parked in their dive way. One didn’t see me, but the other had a big smile and totally out of the blue told me he was going to go see his friend today. I could see the joy and excitement in his face. Something so simple, but so very rich, that I couldn’t help but smile and wave back wondering as I climbed up the short hill home what kind of adventures those boys would dream up and what worlds they would create as they played. It stuck me that reading is how I accomplished this same excitement and joy now as an adult. I can’t get away with pretending to be a space pirate like I did as a kid, but I can still get a similar experience simply reading a book about them and their adventures.