Off the Shizelf

I. Love. Stories.

Which means, many of my dearest treasures are books.

However, when you have two bookshelves that are wedged so tightly with novels that not one more H author can be squeezed in--and you've started putting the T-Z section in your armoire instead of the sweaters you originally thought to put there--you start to feel a bit gluttonous.

And a little sorry for Warren, Wingate, and Wallace, who, through no fault of their own, have ended up behind the winter clothes.

This is why, today, I'm thankful for the newly assembled bookshelf #3. I now have room to line all my books up, spine out, side by side, as they were meant to sit.

I fully own that this may verge on pathetic, but understand that these stories represent more than just cute imaginings to pass the time. They are how I've studied the craft. They are places I've been in life.
They are memories.

Kristin Billerbeck always makes me think of Chicago because it was in a Borders in Chi-Town that her novel, She's Out Of Control, opened my eyes to the world of Christian fiction. Siri Mitchell's Kissing Adrien reminds me of being home on Christmas break. Kristen Heitzmann's Diamond of the Rockies series reminds me of Palm Beach, oddly enough. Twilight makes me love vampires....ahem...and Jan Karon's Mitford series will from now on recall to me the sense of being home, even in a new place like Little Rock.

So, when I look at the masses of volumes that decorate my library/bedroom, I see stories written by others, yes. But I also see the stories I've lived.

Thank you, God, for stories scrawled on pages, for the designers who make their bindings so eye-catching, for the shiny espresso shelves in my new bookcase, and for Donna and her help putting it together. All my love.