coffee, greek gods, better homes & gardens

It's safe to say that CJ and I both love the library. We make at least one trip to the library every week, if not more. If we didn't go, we'd easily have a $100+ line item in our budget just for books. CJ goes because he loves to read and he likes discovering new music artists. I go for two reasons. One, I have a horrible habit of buying a book, reading half of it, starting another one, and then forgetting about the first (even though it may be an excellent book). Mostly though, I see it as free shopping.

My last read was How Starbucks Saved My Life. The deal is, this guy has a successful career in PR, loses his job, has such low self-esteem about his career that he goes off and has an affair, gets said mistress pregnant, doesn't have health insurance, can't provide for his youngest son, finds out he has a small brain tumor, and is so desperate for some sort of income that he gets a job at Starbucks. I was initially intrigued, and then annoyed, and then just flat-out bored. There were some interesting truths about humans in general -- our need to be loved, accepted, successful, all that. What annoyed me was that the guy name-dropped all the time. I suppose it was an illustration of what his life used to be and how it was supposed to make his book better, but really, I don't care about his encounters with Jackie O. or Ernest Hemingway. Yes, interesting individuals, but not really in his context. It wasn't the worst book I've ever read, but I wouldn't recommend anyone else pick it up though, either.

At my friend Betsy's suggestion, I picked up Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief as well. It's a series, very Harry Potter-esque. Basically the kid is a hero, the son of a Greek god, and he's sent on this mission to retrieve Zeus' stolen lightning bolt. It was different, and I can't help but think the author was very inspired by Harry Potter, but I guess it held my interest enough that I've picked up the second book in the series.

Cookbooks are my favorite books to check out, though. I don't cook too often, but I love browsing through cookbooks, writing down the recipes that sound good, and returning them. I don't like having a lot of cookbooks around the kitchen, as I prefer to use a recipe card. But, I did check out a Taste of Home recipe book last week and saw so many recipes I liked that I had to go out and buy the cookbook itself.

And now that spring is even closer, I've checked out some gardening books. I always hated gardening when I was younger. (MOM, it's because you would bang on my window at 7 am on a Saturday morning so I could pick green beans. If you would have let me pick them at like noon, I wouldn't have hated it so much.) It's a little different when you're an adult and can do whatever you want, I suppose. So, we intend to plant a garden (maybe splitting it in two, since we don't have a flat yard), and I'll pick my own green beans whenever I darn well please. I'm sure gardening isn't rocket science, but I guess I don't know if you should start growing some plants inside and then plant them outside later, or what. And, we got a pressure cooker/canner for the wedding, so I need to figure out what can be canned or not. I'm definitely becoming more domesticated.

I made a trip to the library today and have a bag full of books and a few DVDs to watch, so I should close out here for now...