82. December 19

A couple things on my mind tonight.

First of all, I posed the question, what book has had the greatest influence on your life, scriptural text set aside, to my coworkers today. Debby mentioned childhood favorites--The Boxcar Children, A Wrinkle in Time, The Westing Game, Anne of Green Gables, and Winnie the Pooh. Marcie chose Eagles Don't Eat Worms and the Angels Don't Knock series. My mother commented yesterday that her choice would be AJ Cronin's Keys of the Kingdom. Amy chose The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. Danni mentioned Lance Richardson's The Message. This question fascinates me. I want to ask it of the world! I guess because first, it tells a lot about the person, and second, it gives me a great list of books I hope to some day read.

So I ask again; what book has had the greatest influence on your life, scriptural text set aside?

Second of all, whenever I come home from college all I want to do is eat and sleep. I have this vague desire to be reading all these great books I keep hearing about, but then I pass through the kitchen and all thoughts are lost. I am in awe of a refrigerator full of food that I can eat, with nothing off limits. It's truly incredible. There are shelves and shelves of food in the cupboard. I can snack! I can have toast any time of the day! And an oven! How cool is that? Most of all, I have an amazing mother who cooks me homemade food--real homemade food. And thank goodness for Christmastime, because there seems to a plethora of sweet delights all around me. Oh, I do love this eating business. Too bad I can't seem to get more of the sleeping business. Or this reading business. Or this getting things done that need to get done business...

Well, here is the beauty of the refrigerator.

And so I give you two quotes: one for the book lover and one for the food lover in me.

Some quotes are particularly dear to me and this is one such quote:

"I have sometimes dreamt [...] that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards--their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble--the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when He sees us coming with our books under our arms, "Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.""

~ Virginia Woolfe, The Second Common Reader

And because Little Women can pretty much narrate my life, I think I'll let it do so tonight:

 "...and everyone settled themselves to a hearty meal, for youth is seldom dyspeptic..."

~ Louisa May Alcott, Little Women