1000th Post - I'm Chatty

I went to put up the Re-read Challenge icon on my sidebar when I noticed that I had 999 published posts.

Blows my mind it does.
If you had asked me when I started this blog if I would ever have 1000 posts I would have laughed. Heck, I am laughing. I think this is evidence that I can start something and keep at it.

Interesting.

Let's make this post about reading.

After thinking for a while about the changes I wanted to make in 2010 (exercise, food, prescriptions) I realized I hadn't set any goals about reading. My main fear is how I can set myself up for failure and failure is not a good head space for me.

Then I realized I have been on the treadmill for 2 months before this, I have made decisions and were sticking with them so I should get a reward!

Since candy and chocolate and pop and restaurants are not really an option anymore, why not more reading? I deserve it!

I remember when I used to barely get dinner on the table because I didn't put my book down when the dinger on the stove went off. I remember laundry sitting in a pile while I read every page of the book I was currently reading. Okay, I remember summers where I laid on my bed with a book propped up in my hand for hours on end.

I know other things have taken up my time but I can always make time for reading. And after a month like December, when you come out muddied in the brain and have no creative juices flowing in your toes let alone your brain, you need that pick me up of visiting another place, time, people.

Okay, I'm going to come out here.

Do you find that your imagination takes a nose dive when you aren't reading?

I have a vivid imagination. As a kid, it was way too vivid - imagined all sorts of evils that didn't exist and such. I learned as I got older that seeing a movie or real life show through to the end kept my brain from running amok with the odd its and bits it had.

(side note: I think I need to know more about this Ralph Waldo Emerson dude)

There are only really two ways for me to decide on something. Either none at all (will probably never watch Saving Private Ryan because I have heard about the first 20 minutes of the movie and the reality is probably worse than my imagination so I'll leave that to imagination and not knowing enough about the facts) or two, all in. There aren't any half measures for me because of the vivid imagination.

That said, my imagination dulls when it has no fuel. I have noticed this with TV shows also. If a TV show catches my brain it can play with it for months. Let's not get into how messed up my brain gets with movies that have ambiguous endings. Ugh.

So another way of looking at this is that I have to feed my brain something to play with and reading has always made my brain happy.

I'm going to join Nath's re-read challenge because it allows me to pick up books I have wanted to re-read for years without guilt. Why guilt is ever involved in reading books is beyond me but hey, it's there for some strange reason. And since I don't really have too many auto-buy authors I can read almost exclusively from my TBR pile.

Course, I did get some serious gift cards for books!

1000 posts and I'm excited to get going.

Who knew?