Bookworm and proud....

It's all up there waiting for me.....clean sheets on the bed (600 thread count), favorite nightgown freshly laundered, the good winter blanket tucked in with hospital corners, and perhaps, most importantly....my book. The book du jour is The Order of the Phoenix.(I tend to read the whole Harry Potter series during times of high stress....I can't tell you how many times I have read them) After I'm done with the set, I have 2 or 3 other books waiting in the wings. Books have been my constant companion, and they inhabit my earliest memories...so today, and every day, I am Thankful for books - Thankful that I love to read. I have been transported to lands that I am quite certain I will never see, but I feel as though I have lived there.....I have been Queens, indentured servants, Doctors, Nurses, Presidents, an angst filled teenager yearning to become a vampire...I have been a college professor whose specialty is religious symolism, an adolescent wizard, a Princess Bride, a persecuted jew in hiding, a maiden in distress. Books have been my caretaker when I was sick, my friend when I was lonely, they have satisfied my yearning for adventure, they have broadened my mind and nurtured my soul. They ensure I never have to eat alone, and that I always have something to occupy my time. They have helped me pass countless hours with my children - hours filled with delight and wonder - on snow days, sick days, bedtime and anytime. They have been a bonding agent with my teenagers, as we discovered commonalities in books we read in tandem - they have allowed us to share the same language at a time when dialogue can be sparse between parent and child. They have provided a lexicon of family jokes (mostly at Johns expense, when he read that Omnivores Dilemma...and it turned him into a corn hating, meat bashing grump!) They have helped me raise my children, providing me with answers to my questions on every subject from weaning to symptom guides and charts, before the advent of Web M.D. In most of the rooms in my house, you will find a Bible and a Dictionary....my two favorite books.What better vacation for mind, body and soul than that which begins "Once upon a time...."? It doesn't have to end with "Happily Ever After", buts it's nice when it does......even if only in books......I had an elementary teacher that used to deride students for being a bookworm....would say scathingly, "You better get your nose out of that book, or it will get stuck there....".....To my way of thinking, no matter where you are - if you have a good book, you are never stuck! And now, off to the clean sheets, the favorite nightgown.... Hogwarts awaits! (Now where DID I put my glasses....?)