It is so lovely to be getting lost in books again! It feels like I’ve never left, like I haven’t spent the last few years being too exhausted to read. I wasn’t too exhausted. Somehow, I got stuck in thinking I was, being a new mom. We always have read great children’s stories, but once I got the kids into bed at the end of the day, I would plop down in front of the Television with my husband for our down time. Nothing could be further from the truth than thinking television is down time.

As the new year turned this year, and we were excited by the fact that I’m working for a company where Vacation time comes into play… we actually have vacations to plan this year. This got us thinking about what we love, and how we want to use this time, which helped us realize we haven’t been using our time very well in the last few years. I love to read, and write and immerse myself in the beauty of words. So, this year, I started picking up pleasure reading books again, and I’ve been reading poems every day, and writing. I am up to here in inspiration and creativity right now!

It was possibly the best New Years decision I’ve ever made.

This weekend, my kids and I read some new library books. One was by Mo Willems, who is one of our favorites. It was one we’d never seen before, and my kids were having laugh attacks over this silliness. We had to read it 3 times right in a row, because they could not stop laughing!

Over the weekend, I read some Billy Collins poetry. He is by far my favorite poet. His poetry always inspires me to put pen to paper and see what happens next. Then I went to the Library and picked up some other books of poetry – I read a Mary Oliver, Sharon Olds and the preface for another book was a Langston Hughes. Now my mind is full of beauty and richness, some self-deprecating humor from Billy, gorgeous images and feelings of love and calm, that only good sleep after much love, and a few good lines of poetry can inspire. Ahhh, I’m ready to start my week.

photo from here.