$12.30 was all it took to get me off the hook.

I decided to use my "day" on Tuesday to hit the library. My mother in law comes about once a week to stay with my kids while I go do whatever I want/need to do. Usually I do the shopping that is just too terrible to face with two children in diapers.

So on Tuesday, I went to the library. We need to recoup from some medical bills and extra use of the credit card when the TJMX problem rendered me without access to cash for 13 days in January.

I suck at returning books on time. Always have. I am, however, finding a little more time now that the new baby isn't quite so new and I am no longer quite so responsible for my grandmother. I didn't actually get anything for me to read, which I realized a little too late. So, I'm back to rereading New Moon and eyeing The Kite Runner guiltily. I love The Kite Runner everytime I start it. It's the follow through that's bugging me. I need books with unfamiliar names to be consumed in one or two settings (Doctor Zhivago is a prime example). I have a bad habit of turning names into sight words that don't actually hold enough meaning. Themes, plot points, great ideas, they all stick with me. Names slide out from under my finger like that little piece of egg shell you try to get out of the bowl.

I came home with:

The Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook
A copy of CK Scrapbook Magazine
They Shoot Canoes, Don't They?
Mailbox
What to Expect When You are Expecting: The Toddler Years
A DVD: The Happiest Baby on the Block or something like that.

The one work of fiction, Patrick McManus' They Shoot Canoes is a throwback from my childhood - my father and I read everything the man printed about his outdoor adventures. I wasn't always a vegetarian, you see. I haven't actually killed anything larger than a good sized trout, but I suspect I'm the only one I speak to most days now that has actually ever fired a weapon. My husband is not a hunter, but he does fish and do other outdoorsy things. I got the book for him to try. I've leafed through it a few times - it's funny how I so clearly remember McManus' writing voice (I'm sure it has influenced my own writing.) but I had forgotten so many of the stories, and even characters. How could I ever forget a character named Rancid Crabtree?

The kid stuff was just an attempt at being thrifty - our two year old is starting to perplex us. We never really realized quite how easy going he was until that day in January he pitched a fit at Best Buy. Between the tantrums and his burgeoning interest in using the toilet, I feel like I need to do more than just wing it. I think I like the What to Expect book well enough to obtain my own copy - it's definitely a "drag it down when you need it" kind of book - inconvenient when you have to get it at the library. I've been trying for it on Ebay - I'll hit the used bookstores next week, maybe, if I can find any.

The Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook has enough in it that it also should be made a permenant part of the household, alas it is quite hard to find on Ebay. I love being able to try a reference book out before I buy it - I think I'm hooked on my library again.

The CK Scrapbook magazine was interesting in a "definitely not worth the five bucks nor 1/60th of a pulp tree" it would take to own it myself sort of way. I do loves me a good magazine, and it really bums me out that I won't have any good access to magazines now that I'm not visiting the OB twice a week. I do believe I will partake of the periodical goodness a library can give one. The University library required magazines to be returned within three days (yeah, right...) so I got out of the habit of trying to check them out.

I'm already ready to go back to the library - a pretty successful adventure, if I do say so myself. Hopefully, I'll get back there before I owe more than $12.30 in late fees.