When Will You Finish Those Books?

My precious and his books

Being a mother obviously turned my world upside-down. My spare time for books has reduced to an amount of reading 1 to 3 books in a year. I've tried to read more and set a target of finishing one book a month, but that was just still too ambitious.

By not having too much time to indulge my self on a journey of finishing a book, I thought that I might embrace the bright side of this situation: cutting the budget on books. So I will have more budget for other purposes - whatever it would be. Decorating the house, perhaps. Or traveling?

But, no.

The amount of books you read in a year does not always in consistent with the amout of books that you bought in a year. The motherhood may confiscate my precious time with books, but it did not stop the habit of buying books.

I still tempted to go to the bookstore and buy some books. I always bought like a dozen of book each time I went to this dusty-cheap-book-warehouse near my house (it will be closing down soon!). I still linger at every book bazaar the have at the mall, and then found some nice books to be bought. I even crossed the line and asked my friend to help me bought some books from this famous book exhibit that was held way too far from my hometown. All in the spirit of keeping my reading mood alive.

Yet, the books always end up stacking in the corner of my child's room. Not good at all.

Looking back to the books that I have bought since motherhood takeover my life, I realized that I'm not that easily attracted to buy a novel anymore. Tempted, yes - but I rarely bought it. I spent more on children books: fairy tales, bedtime stories, adventure stories and those cute-collectable books. Amazingly, how I deal with these books was the opposite of my random-shopping books. The books were organized in a shelf, special for all my son's books. And, I always find time to read them to him, no matter how busy I am.

I guess, the decreasing list of my finished book is not because my reading habit has faded, but my priority has changed. Spending time with books, enriching my mind, is not the priority for now. When I still can find spare time between the juggling of motherhood, jobs and projects, then I will certainly read a book. Therefore, I still carry my ebook reader everywhere, in case I find some time to read a book or two. But, often the battery ran out because I forgot to recharge it.

I will still try to meet my target: one book in a month. Or one book every two months. Or at least, I will try to finish reading "The Zen of Fish", a 372 pages book which I have been trying to finish since a few months ago. Then, re-set my reading target.