I Even Fell For That Stupid Love Song
No books at the table. It is one of the only rules we have in our house, along with no yelling unless there is a fire, and no throwing things unless they are babies wrapped in blankets.... ok, those last two were just jokes we had to cool down any fights that might start; with seven kids there was bound to be a little trouble now and then. But our big rule was no reading at the table. This seems odd in a society that does not really believe in reading, only instagraming their life and hoping enough hashtags will make them win the jackpot... or what ever the big prize is for having the most number of hashtags on a post... But I digress. This blog is not about the obnoxious amount of instagram photos that appear on my Facebook page, or the lack of intelligence in hashtags such as #yolo, or #haha, or a personal favorite #firstworldproblems. I will allow my friends to continue thinking that life revolves around the number of photos they take and the amount of likes they get on their semi-intelligent posts. (I'm sorry. I really hate twitter and instagram.)
Ok. back to my real message. No reading at the table. My parents had to remind us that we had to leave our books behind while we ate dinner together every night. It is kind of an obsession of ours, reading. My parents are avid readers, and along with singing us to sleep every night as children, they would read a book to us. Some of my favorites were "Where the Wild Things Are," "Caps for Sale," and "Bears in the Night." Our love for reading continued on when we got older and could read ourselves to sleep... only, some nights we wouldn't go to sleep. We would just read... and read... and read... My parents would come around and check on us at about 10, and they would tell us to turn the lights off... and when we were younger, this was a little bit easier. We would try to finish the chapter and then turn off the lights. It was always the hardest part of the night, having to stop reading and wait until the next day to find out the fate of the main character. I was the kid who would get a flashlight and secretly read under my blanket. Yep.
My mom was a school teacher, so she would always get extra books sent with the book orders that students took home to order books with. Do you remember those? Gosh, I always wanted all the books, but I knew I would have to settle on just one, if that. A lot of the books went to her classroom, but she always manged to bring some home for us to read, which is why our house if overflowing with books, most of which I've read. Book fairs? Call them heaven. Oh gosh, how I loved the days we had the library visit scheduled during class. I wished we could go all the time. The many books I grew to love because a teacher would read to us for a while every day.... *sigh*... For example, my fourth grade teacher started reading Harry Potter, the first one, to us, and I introduced it to my family. Yep. I take credit for why my family reads the Harry Potter books. I think this is why it was so easy to go into history- I already loved reading. Seriously. With every pay check I head to Barnes and Noble, or Amazon.com to look for my next treasured purchase. I own too many books to fit into the two book shelves I already own. Goodness. I need to stop buying books, but I just can't! I love reading! I love it!
When we were growing up my parents always took us to the library in the summer. Every week. They had to limit us on how many books we were allowed to check out, because they literally couldn't get us to do anything else once we had those books in our hands. With the warm weather here I have started having the urge to go to the library. I finally went today. It's so funny; I somehow think that the library is only open during the summer, and so the rest of the year I go buy all my books, and now that it's summer I am able to go the library again... which is really weird thinking... but, anyways, so I've been reading a lot lately, and pulling a lot of late nights, which added on to the stressful work environment has definitely not been the best combination. But alas, it is the truth.
I really want to have a giant library in my future home. I honestly don't really have the rest of the house pictured, but I know I want a nice, comfy, beautiful library. Kind of like the one from Beauty and the Beast:
Or the one from My Fair Lady:
I just love it.
I was in the library today and I noticed that there did not seem to be a lot of good books there, just a lot of trash. The messages that were implied from the titles of the books just appalled me. Were they this bad when we were kids? I think not. That scares me. Why is our society so dedicated to making sure that all our morals are flushed down the drain? Do we really not care about any of the consequences that will occur by taking common virtues such as chastity, respect, and integrity out of our lives? I was on the bus the other day and there were these little boys who were maybe 15 who were talking about women in the most demeaning and degrading ways. How are we ok with society doing this? Tearing apart families, and making a mockery of all that is sacred, and saying it is ok! What? Is that what we want to teach our children? That we can do whatever we want, as long as we feel good about ourselves? Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die? That is a very selfish view of life, and one that has been known to destroy empires. As an historian, I am very concerned with the direction this country is going. I am reminded of another country that has a similar history.... and how this part was their downfall. Dear Country: Do not follow in Rome's footsteps. Please.
Ok. back to my real message. No reading at the table. My parents had to remind us that we had to leave our books behind while we ate dinner together every night. It is kind of an obsession of ours, reading. My parents are avid readers, and along with singing us to sleep every night as children, they would read a book to us. Some of my favorites were "Where the Wild Things Are," "Caps for Sale," and "Bears in the Night." Our love for reading continued on when we got older and could read ourselves to sleep... only, some nights we wouldn't go to sleep. We would just read... and read... and read... My parents would come around and check on us at about 10, and they would tell us to turn the lights off... and when we were younger, this was a little bit easier. We would try to finish the chapter and then turn off the lights. It was always the hardest part of the night, having to stop reading and wait until the next day to find out the fate of the main character. I was the kid who would get a flashlight and secretly read under my blanket. Yep.
My mom was a school teacher, so she would always get extra books sent with the book orders that students took home to order books with. Do you remember those? Gosh, I always wanted all the books, but I knew I would have to settle on just one, if that. A lot of the books went to her classroom, but she always manged to bring some home for us to read, which is why our house if overflowing with books, most of which I've read. Book fairs? Call them heaven. Oh gosh, how I loved the days we had the library visit scheduled during class. I wished we could go all the time. The many books I grew to love because a teacher would read to us for a while every day.... *sigh*... For example, my fourth grade teacher started reading Harry Potter, the first one, to us, and I introduced it to my family. Yep. I take credit for why my family reads the Harry Potter books. I think this is why it was so easy to go into history- I already loved reading. Seriously. With every pay check I head to Barnes and Noble, or Amazon.com to look for my next treasured purchase. I own too many books to fit into the two book shelves I already own. Goodness. I need to stop buying books, but I just can't! I love reading! I love it!
When we were growing up my parents always took us to the library in the summer. Every week. They had to limit us on how many books we were allowed to check out, because they literally couldn't get us to do anything else once we had those books in our hands. With the warm weather here I have started having the urge to go to the library. I finally went today. It's so funny; I somehow think that the library is only open during the summer, and so the rest of the year I go buy all my books, and now that it's summer I am able to go the library again... which is really weird thinking... but, anyways, so I've been reading a lot lately, and pulling a lot of late nights, which added on to the stressful work environment has definitely not been the best combination. But alas, it is the truth.
I really want to have a giant library in my future home. I honestly don't really have the rest of the house pictured, but I know I want a nice, comfy, beautiful library. Kind of like the one from Beauty and the Beast:
Or the one from My Fair Lady:
I just love it.
I was in the library today and I noticed that there did not seem to be a lot of good books there, just a lot of trash. The messages that were implied from the titles of the books just appalled me. Were they this bad when we were kids? I think not. That scares me. Why is our society so dedicated to making sure that all our morals are flushed down the drain? Do we really not care about any of the consequences that will occur by taking common virtues such as chastity, respect, and integrity out of our lives? I was on the bus the other day and there were these little boys who were maybe 15 who were talking about women in the most demeaning and degrading ways. How are we ok with society doing this? Tearing apart families, and making a mockery of all that is sacred, and saying it is ok! What? Is that what we want to teach our children? That we can do whatever we want, as long as we feel good about ourselves? Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die? That is a very selfish view of life, and one that has been known to destroy empires. As an historian, I am very concerned with the direction this country is going. I am reminded of another country that has a similar history.... and how this part was their downfall. Dear Country: Do not follow in Rome's footsteps. Please.
You hit a little too close to home, Cassie. Lately I've been reading so much that I feel bad about not doing anything else... It's my addiction lately. I love the post. Also, great use of 'Alas'. :)
ReplyDeleteOh gosh.... you can't call me Cassie, Phil! Rude....
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