Bits and Pieces certainly describes what this blog will contain beginning today, Monday, Nov. 4, 2013.  I am 76 years old and have the advantage of viewing my life and all it's bits and pieces so far. From this distant vantage point I hope to share what I have seen and learned over these 70 plus years.  I hope you, dear reader, will find something worthwhile here.............

Comfort of Books......

From "Dick and Jane" to "Memories, Dreams, Reflections", what a ride it has been and I'm not done yet.  I can see the progression of my life through both the chronological list of the books I've read and the influence that many of those books have had on my life.

I actually have no memories of the names of books that were read to me before I learned to read on my own, but I know I was read to by my mother and my great aunt and I have a memory of my father skipping pages as he read to me.  What I do remember  "Dick and Jane" and being so proud that I could actually read those strings of letters and they made sense.  From those first grade books I traveled on to "The Bobbsey Twins" and "the Little Colonel" series and never looked back.

I cannot name one influential book but can name many during each stage of my life.  My preteen years I read all the "Cherry Ames, Nurse" series as well as the Nancy Drew books, both series featuring strong young girls in charge of their own lives.  At this same time I was also reading the Campfire Girls series and all the books from my favorite author, Gene Stratton Porter.

Of course, like hundreds/thousands of other girls, after reading "Little Women" I knew I wanted to be Jo, and the fact that she could write......be still my heart!  About this time I tried my hand at writing and produced  a handwritten story called "Travels With An Ant".   A friend typed it for me as she more or less knew how to type and I didn't........the result being there were no paragraphs, no punctuation or even periods.  We were so proud!  I don't know what happened to it but wish I had kept it.  Books like "Dragonwyck" and others by author Pearl S. Buck and John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" continued my love of the strong female theme along with the attraction to write.

There have been at least three books in later years that have been most intriguing and influential in my life and those are  "Women Who Run With the Wolves", by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Carl Jung's "Memories, Dreams, Reflections", and "The Artist's Way", by Julia Cameron.  All three of those I have read and reread as I still find something new in them each time.

Needless to say, I LOVE BOOKS.......not just serious books but any books....not just fiction but nonfiction as well.  I just love to read.  I read magazines, newspapers, backs of cereal boxes or whatever is at hand when I am not otherwise occupied at the moment......no looking into space for me........I want and need the printed word to keep me company!