All about me

I have always been an avid reader.  My mom took me to the library multiple times a week and had to limit me to the amount of books I could carry - because I wanted to take home everything!  I would read them all before the next trip and be ready for more.  I was fortunate that from an early age the love of reading was impressed upon me.  We read together as a family daily, I loved nothing more than curling up with a book and a willing adult to be read to.  To this day I still associate certain books or series with the adults that so lovingly read them to me.  My mom shared Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates and Jane Eyre with me.  My dad read me the Lord of the Rings books, complete with the voices.  Mum-Mum (my mom's mom) read me all of the Anne of Green Gables books, to this day when ever I see one of them I think of her.  Grandma Dot (my dad's mom) read me all of the Little House on the Prairie books, which made me want to explore!

When I met my husband I knew it was forever when we started talking books.  His passion for reading rivaled mine - but I read faster.  4 years and a couple hundred books later we are still discovering new books together.  We immediately started swapping books and when we combined our "libraries" we saw some duplicates and a whole lot of new pages to be read.  We were relocated down to Southern California for a couple years and we were very spoiled by the amazing Santa Monica Public Library.  They always had new releases and everything we could want in terms of older books. 

We have since moved back up to Northern California and we were sold on our house when we saw that it came with a room full of bookshelves - that I have managed to not only fill, but overflow as well.  I haven't found a library up here to rival the one in Santa Monica, but I have discovered a couple of fabulous book stores.  We have to limit our visits to Bay Book Company because we can always find way more books than we should!  Their staff is very knowledgeable and they have an amazing selection of Sci-Fi and Fantasy books.  One of my new favorites is Coastside Books in Half Moon Bay, the owner and blogger Nancy is the mom of one of my students and she always has a great selection of new children's books.   And since I am a teacher with a limited classroom budget I also love InkSpell Books also in Half Moon Bay.  They have great selection of new and used books, best of all they let me bring my Kindergarten class in for a field trip and let them each pick out a free book!