Returning from my mini-hiatus

You may have noticed that things have been pretty quiet around here for the last couple of weeks... I lost a little bit of my blogging momentum lately, partly from things getting busy in real life and partly from needing to strike up a better balance between reading/blogging and everything else. When I first started blogging, I was reading a book a week, but over the last few months I've picked up the pace, reading 2 or 3 books a week, and while I've really enjoyed becoming exposed to some great books through blogging, I also became a little fatigued by reading so much (I didn't even think that was possible!), and as a result I've been reading the same book for the last two weeks (Searching for Pemberley by Mary Lydon Simonsen), which isn't a reflection on the book itself so much as my own need to slow down a little.

Anyway, I think I've finally gotten through my hump and am planning to resume pick up my blogging schedule this week :) This is just a quick note to explain the mini-disappearance, and to let you all know that I'm looking forward to catching up on reading blogs this week!

Passion

"It's the same thing. Passion is passion. It's the excitement between the tedious spaces, and it doesn't matter where it's directed [...] It can be coins or politics or horses or music or faith...the saddest people I've ever met in life are the ones who don't care deeply about anything at all. Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand, and without them, any happiness is only temporary, because there's nothing to make it last. I'd love to hear your dad talk about coins, because that's when you see a person at has best, and I've found that someone else's happiness is usually infectious." (p71)

This is a quote I came across last night while I was reading Dear John by Nicholas Sparks. For reasons unrelated to anything actually going on in the book, this quote pretty much sums up my life philosophy, and I wanted to post about it separately.

I've mentioned before that I work in an environment-related field, and this quote just reminded me of why I do what I do and why I love what I do, even on days when it doesn't come easy.  This passion kept me going in college when I struggled through tough classes, and when I was working and began to wonder if what I was doing plays to my strengths. I work in the environment because I'm passionate about environmental issues, and what the quote says is really true - I do feel satisfaction because I'm following this passion. When I came across this quote, I knew I had to blog about it because the idea behind it - the importance of having passions in life - is so important to me.

What are you passionate about?

Hooked from the first paragraph!

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderly again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge-keeper, and had no answer, and peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was uninhabited.

From Rebecca, by Daphne DuMaurier, first paragraph.

Have you ever fallen in love with a book on the first page? The first paragraph, to be exact?

That's what happened when I opened up Rebecca last night. I was totally blown away by that first paragraph, and as I kept reading the first chapter, I was entranced by her language and just knew that I was going to end up liking this book.  I'm not sure that I've ever gotten such a strong feeling from the first paragraph of a book before.

I was almost going to put off Rebecca too, because a new batch of books arrived Thursday that I really want to get to, but I'm so glad I decided to read Rebecca first. I haven't gotten very far yet -- I was distracted by bloggiesta for most of the weekend so didn't get much reading done -- but it's so good right now, I just had to share. Here's to hoping it doesn't go downhill from here ;)

Bloggiesta!

This is my introductory bloggiesta post. For more information about the bloggiesta, check out the post on Maw books here. Since my blog is still in its nascent stages, I figure now is a great time to figure out my approach, etc.

I'm not sure what I'll actually accomplish, but here are some of my initial goals:

• Decide if I want to participate in any more challenge UPDATE:  Done! See here.
  
• Figure out different kinds of content I want to feature on my blog UPDATE:  Done. See my wrap-up post here.
  
• Work on adding to the layout etc of the blog UPDATE:  Done for now, but I'm still not completely happy with it. UPDATE2:  I added some widgets from goodreads, and I think I'm happy for now.
  
•  Organize my to read list UPdATE:  Done! Took forever, but I put my entire wishlist on goodreads. You can find it here.
  
• Figure out an organizational/labeling system for my posts UPDATE:  Done! It wasn't that hard, since I don't have that many posts up yet anyway, but I'm glad I did it sooner rather than later ;)
• Get a profile picture up UPDATE:  Done, but I'm not entirely happy with it. It'll do for now though.
  
• Set up a ranking system for reviews  UPDATE:  After some thought, I've decided against instituting a rankign system at this point. This is an issue I'll revisit after I've reviewed more books and have a better idea of how I want to review them.
  
• Organize my google feed reader and add some more great blogs to follow! UPDATE:  organized my feed reader, so now I can start adding blogs again...
• to be determined...

The re-emergence of the bookworm

When I was younger, I used to be a total bookworm. I would read for hours and hours, sometimes staying up all night to finish a good book. Then I went to college, and a combination of having little time for recreational reading and overdosing on dry, scientific papers meant that I was lucky if I read one non-class related book a semester. Now that I've graduated, I've just begun to rediscover how fulfilling it is to get sucked into a book, to have have a stack of books waiting to be read, and a to read list a that keeps on growing.

You'll notice, however, that this blog is titled "Rantings of a Bookworm Couch Potato," and that's because,   in addition to reading, I also spend a lot of time watching TV, and occasionally I need to vent/squee about it, so from time to time some tv-related posts may make their way on here as well. At the moment, however, partially due to the lack of new TV and partially due to overdosing on Bones before Christmas (I just discovered Bones -- it's awesome! I'm halfway through season 2 right now), my TV watching has waned, so expect more reading-related posts for now.

Speaking of which, I'm about 2/3 of the way through Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (Winifred Watson), and it is as awesome as the movie, if not more so. Expect a post about that tomorrow, unless I get hopelessly distracted by my netflix instant queue ;)