I do get to read before bed every night. But I cannot tell you when the last time I actually got through a whole chapter without falling asleep. Typically, I get through one paragraph (if I'm lucky enough), and my eyes start to close. And then I wake up, and read that same paragraph over again. And I'm pretty sure that I would've read the paragraph 3 or 4 times before I finally drop the book and fall asleep (and sometimes my sweet Jared will take the book from me, take my glasses off, and turn off my light).
We love reading so much that when we would go on vacation (and this was before kids!), the first thing we'd do is find a local coffee shop where we could go to read. And sometimes we'd feel like we've hit the jackpot if it's a coffee shop and bookstore all-in-one (like "The Bridge" in Door County)! When we first got married and lived on campus at Trinity, we would spend long summer afternoons sitting in (the then) Borders on Waukegan Road reading. When we were on our honeymoon, we'd read by the pool, on the beach, etc. I always joked that there were 3 of us on our honeymoon - Jared, me, and Aragon (I was rereading the LOTR trilogy). Our "go to" mini vacation place is Lake Geneva, and we love the library there, especially in the winter time, because there's a reading area that overlooks the frozen lake, and we've spent hours reading and enjoying the view of people ice-fishing or having fun on the frozen lake. In between our "reading sessions", we'd walk over to Caribou for coffee.
Anyway, I could go on and on about all our favorite reading spots. Now that we have kids, I want to create a new favorite reading spot - our home! Why not? It's cozy, and we've got the Keurig machine! And what a better way to instill the love for reading in our kids than to set the example ourselves. So, now that Joshua has a reading log from school that he needs to fill in every day, it just all came together for me, and I thought it would be fun to have Family Reading Nights! We're obviously not doing this every night, but Friday nights seem to be working best for us. A great way to cap off the week!
Last Christmas, I had "subscription to Real Simple magazine" on my Christmas list, which I was very happy to receive. Recently, my new favorite magazine is the National Geographic Traveler. I saw a Groupon for it, and immediately purchased it. It helps fuel my love for traveling, and I always love reading about different places, their history, etc. I enjoy reminescing about the places that I've already been to, and dream about the places that I still want to go. So, for those few minutes as I'm reading, I get to escape and let my mind wander off to Italy or India.
Florence, Italy
Ah, the Tuscan countryside!
The Ganges River in India
Even though it's only for a few minutes, these moments of time carved out for reading has been enriching, fulfilling, and a blessed time of rest. I pray that my children will be inspired and become life-long readers as they see the value of how literature, both fiction, non-fiction, historical, current events, etc. will expand their lives and make them more knowledgable and well-rounded.
And I won't judge what some people are reading... (as long as they're reading, right!?)
