Friday, May 13, 2011

Fri
13
May
2011

Reading: The Wilder Life

Marcus bought me a Kindle for Christmas this year. I absolutely love it and it has brought back the passion for reading that I once had (when I was young, my nose was always in a book). I've read more books in the first part of this year than I have in the last 5 years combined. It's sad how I've let reading slip, but I totally see how it happened. Being laid off and relatively poor for a while meant cutting books out of the budget, then my recent desire to downsize my life and my clutter left me not wanting physical books around. My obsessive game-playing on Facebook squandered valuable reading time. Then there was my new obsession with knitting. I know that there is the public library, but I really have a moral opposition to them (except for reference material). Authors make their livelihood by selling books and I feel really guilty borrowing novels from living authors there.

Right now, I'm reading a book by Wendy McClure called The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie. To say I'm disappointed would be an understatement. I'm not going to go into why, as those thoughts are better kept to myself. It has rekindled my desire to know more about Laura Ingalls Wilder, though. I've visited the Little House site in Independence, Kansas and the Wilder Home in Mansfield, Missouri. I've got plans to go to some of the other sites.

I think I've always been fascinated by Laura Ingalls because she represents a simpler way of life. I'm well aware that "the old days" was not an ideal existence, yet I yearn to get out of the big city. Marcus and I have dreams of one day living on land in South Dakota. I want to raise my own chickens and grow my own food. When I was younger, I loved sewing on my mother's antique Singer because that's how it used to be done (don't get me wrong - I love my computerized sewing and embroidery machines now), but I always felt connected to the past in some small way when I used it. Weird, I know. Sometimes I wish that old machine was close by so I could run it, but it resides with my sister out in California. If Marcus and I ever do get settled someplace permanent, I'd love to find one of those old machines.

*sigh* Well, I'd better wrap this up because it's almost time to head off to work.