Books & Shelves

One of my new year's resolutions this year was to read one book a month (it was last year too and I did better but I didn't quite make it - but I did get myself going to the library more). When I was younger I used to read all sorts of books, mostly fiction. I even read all 1000+ pages of "Gone With the Wind" (it was good!) and sadly made it through "Where the Red Fern Grows", a book I probably couldn't read now that I actually have my own pets. During college and when I started working, I read the entire series of "Star Wars" post-Jedi books, probably 40+ of them.

But somewhere along the way I stopped reading fiction and have gotten hooked on technical, self-help, self-improvement, and biography (along the lines of self-improvement) books. Some of that is because of work, but I actually decided yesterday as I was reading another one that I think I find them entertaining and that I should stop feeling so bad about reading them :) The one I'm currently reading is called "Influence Without Authority" by Allan Cohen and James Bradford. Slightly dated, but it was interesting to read about the concepts of getting work done in a matrix organization, which most of us work in now, where there isn't a clear "chain of command". It was especially interesting when I am reading and think "oh yeah I do that" and "yeah that's common sense" - I learned new stuff too but nice to see I'm doing some things right already :)

I also did all the measuring and cutting for a new pantry we're putting into the little-used closet we have in the laundry room - when we added laundry room cabinets we were able to put all the laundry supplies in those, and the closet sits empty. It has a coat rack but the coat closet in the main hallway is so big that we'll never fill it up. So...pantry here we come!