Off the Wagon...

Bookstores are for me what a liquor store is for an alcoholic.

I am addicted to the printed word.

Books will cause me to neglect my children--allowing them instead to watch brain-cell destroying amounts of television. I have been known to lose entire weekends to a well-written series AND--gasp--I must confess to having perfected the art of reading while driving, although thanks to audiobooks available via iTunes and the decent selection of them at the public library--I don't do this anymore. I don't go through people's medicine cabinets in their bathrooms, but I will shamelessly peruse their bookshelves.

And since I will read myself into a sleepless drunken stupor if I get started, I have to be very purposeful to stay away from books when I cannot safely get lost in one.

This is a really bad condition to have when one is a teacher, by the way, as books are kind of part of the whole educational experience.

So...since school has started and life is extremely busy right now, I have avoided any reading material that isn't absolutely necessary for me to do my job. And of course, this also means avoiding places where books can be purchased. I have stayed off of Amazon.com. I purposely let the battery on my Kindle run down and I put it away in a drawer. And I absolutely do NOT step foot into a bookstore.

I fell off of the wagon today.

It happened while my youngest was at dance class. I was driving aimlessly around town when I found myself in the bookstore parking lot.

"I'll just go in for a minute." I told myself. "I won't buy anything. I just want to see the titles. I just want to smell the paper and the ink. I won't be any longer than ten minutes. I swear. I don't have time to read."

But there were bins of books for $2.99 outside the front door. And it was a beautiful fall afternoon--perfect for perusing titles in search of a fabulous find.

Anyway...much, MUCH more than ten minutes later I emerged. And now, sitting in a stack on the counter in my office is the evidence of my moment of weakness:

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less--by Terry Ryan (I've already READ this--but I don't own a copy and I couldn't pass it up for only $2.99!)

Essentials of Evidence-Based Academic Interventions--by Barbara J. Wendling and Nancy Mather

A Home in the Heart of a City: A Woman's Search for Community--by Kathleen Hirsch

She Got Up Off the Couch And Other Heroic Acts from Moreland, Indiana--by Haven Kimmel (Not ONLY have I already READ this one, but I OWN a digital copy on my Kindle! Good Grief!)

Failing America's Faithful: How Today's Churches Are Mixing God with Politics and Losing Their Way--by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend

Teaching Literary Elements with Favorite Chapter Books--by Immacula A Rhodes

The Holy Bible New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha (And it's not like we don't have Bibles around here. But I didn't have an RSV with the Apocrypha. Seriously.)


And this, Dear Reader, is why I work full-time. To finance my book habit.

Is there a 12-step program for a reading addiction?