What's on your bedside table?...

Do you like to read?  Our family is big on reading.

  My daughter can read from the beginning of the day until the end of the day, only stopping to potty and get a snack.  Last summer she was supposed to read 100 hours over the summer.  She completed that before the first month was over.  She didn't walk until she was 15 months old!  The pediatrician said that she might have a leg disorder that would cause us to have to break and reset her legs if she didn't walk before 15 months. She walked the day before she turned 15 months old.

But the problem wasn't that she didn't want to. She would crawl over to her basket of board books, dump them out and set there in the middle of them, looking at the pictures, saying words, and then picking up another.  When I told the pediatrician that, she said, "Well, hide the books, and I bet she'll walk."  She was right.  I put up the books and she walked within the week.

Austin just got his report card.  He did well in everything -- getting "Satisfactory" in all subjects but two.  Those two were, reading his sight words, and reading his memory verses.  Another reader in training.

My husband....well, Lovey is a horse of a different color.  He only reads non-fiction.  His idea of good vacation reading is, "The history of civil war artillery."  Even the books he reads for leisure are learning experiences for the normal man...

Me?  Well, being a mom, I have very few minutes to myself to read.  But I do love to read.  In fact, my degree is in English Literature.  Love it!  Can anyone say Jane Austin?

Well, when we moved into our house, we had four bedrooms, but only three people?  What is a family to do?  My husband said he wanted to turn it into a library.  Well, okay, then!

He set about building floor to ceiling bookshelves.  Just as well.  That "bedroom" would have only held a twin bed and maybe a chest.  No room for anything else....

However, the final room, is quite a sight to see.  Wanna see it?  Join along...

Here is the room as a whole.  It is small, but it is very cozy to read in there.  

Here's where Mr. Lovey sits to read or play chess... It's a very comfy recliner.  Who knew?  

The bookshelves are pretty big, but we need all that space for all that non-fiction!

For Christmas (2009) my brothers in law bought Mr. Lovey a civil war sword.  (I think that's right.)  I'm sure it's a replica, but it is his pride and joy (right after our kiddos.)

Remember me telling about John's artist Aunt?  Well, several years ago, Mr. Lovey took a business trip to Maine.  While there he went out to this lighthouse, took a photo, and then Mr. Lovey's aunt painted this (very large) oil painting for us.  It is beautiful.  And the blue and red go so well in this library.

If you wanna visit her sight it is www.carolreesor.com.

This Christmas, Mr. Lovey's parents bought him this spectacular chess set.  Looks like someone didn't put the pieces back when they were done... 

but I don't play chess... maybe this is what it's supposed to look like. :)

Some of Lovey's treasures are:

This is real - a pastor friend of ours brought these dolls back from a Russian mission trip.

Mr. Lovey loved this iron cross (and he picked out the little horsey, too.)

This is a "thingy" that measures humidity, time and temperature in a room.

But one of the most precious treasures in the library is this:

"Ben Hur," you say? This isn't any copy of Ben Hur.  When Mr. Lovey was in high school, one of his teachers was cleaning out a closet and said to Mr. Lovey that he could have this book.  Mr. Lovey has had it every since I've known him.  What's so special about it?

That news paper article is about the author and about the book.

But the best part is underneath the newspaper clipping.

"Love only has immortality - to Him first, and our neighbor afterwards."

Zerelda G. Wallace, step-mother of the author since he was nine years of age whose [pen patriarch] is given herein as his mother.  M.S.G"

Isn't that precious!  We love this book!  I'm sure when we're old and gray and our children are cleaning out our house so we can move to assisted living, they will sell it in a yard sale for a quarter... but nonetheless, someone else will have a treasure...and the joy will continue on and on.

So where do you read?  What do you love to read most?  Let me know?  I'm interested to find out...

Only By His Grace,

Billie