Ah... one of my great loves!

Bookstores. I love them. I absolutely, truly love them. It's my idea of heaven.

However... real life doesn't allow for a lot of time for visiting bookstores and the majority of my book purchases are done on Amazon.com. I forgot how much I loved the brick and mortar store.

When I was young, there was a WaldenBooks in the Maine Mall. Most of the girls my age would head to the clothing stores... not me. WaldenBooks was my first stop and my last stop with every visit. And today, bringing together books and coffee?! What a brilliant idea!!

As mentioned above, most of my book purchases are done online, but I needed a certain book today for training material development, so we went to Borders. I'm not sure what it is, but there's something almost magical about being surrounded by all of that information. I want to just stay there all day... or maybe a week.... or month... I wish we could have spent more time there, sipping coffee, perusing.

I used to read books voraciously, finishing at least 3 or 4 a week. Now it seems our time is filled with the Internet, tv, etc. (of course, growing up we didn't have cable and one of our three channels didn't come in very well - no wonder I was always reading!). I'm setting a goal to read at least 45 minutes in the morning and 45 minutes at night to try and get through my list of books that I want to read. I'm starting with Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Still a no-go on the cardio or hiking, but I was able to wear a shoe for the first time today! Progress! Every time I see "our" mountain, the big one, I'm just itching to go hiking again. I'm going to look through my book "Hiking Arizona" and start scheduling some good hikes and backpacking trips. Gotta be ready - August and RMNP will be here before we know it.