Stuck in the Pages of My Love

Today is Valentine's Day! I don't mind that it's a highly commercial day- so what if Hallmark makes a few dollars? It's a day to celebrate love- in all its forms.

So today- I'm going to dedicate this shout-out to my library, whom I love very dearly. I designed and built my wall of shelves to help with the stacks of books that were growing on every surface of my bedroom. My consumer priorities have always been books then food, then everything else - so I have acquired a decent-sized collection over the years. With these new shelves, I thought I'd have a place to put them and have more room to keep growing. Well unfortunately, it was completely filled as soon as they were done and the stacks around my room are growing again.

Sometimes at night, I like to lay back and look at all of them and think of all the people who I read them with and the places they've been with me. I've sprinkled a few treasures from my adventures and travels in there as well- a buffalo horn from Colorado, an old WWII flask from a trip with my Grandfather, a birdhouse I built with my dad when I was 10, my Outstanding English Student award from High School, a painting from one of my best and oldest friends, 3 of my favorite beers (a Scottish pine ale, my favorite pumpkin beer, and an Alaskan ale), a deer jaw bone from a hike through the Michigan dunes, etc. It's my monument to everything I hold dear.

Valentine's day is about loving people- those we see every day, those who are far away, and even those that are stuck in the pages of novels. I hope you all know how dear you are to me!

Happy, happy love day!
Hope it's as sweet and sugary and wonderful as it should be.

Your Valentine,
MK