It’s just a few days until Christmas and then we hurtle towards to the new year. I set two “digital” goals this year: a picture a day at flickr and the librarything 75-book challenge. I gave up the first one in July and I’m pretty confident that I won’t finish seven more books between now and the end of the year. Oh, so close.<\/p>\n
But, in January, when I began these leisure time challenges, I had no idea what the year held for me. A new “part-time” job that began in July added to my other projects quickly overwhelmed any leisure time I had. I did keep reading but just couldn’t keep up the pace needed to reach the magic 75. By the end, I took the route of all potential losers and questioned the whole goal: maybe reading more isn’t necessarily better? At least once or twice this year, I picked a book because it seemed like a shorter, easier read. Poor John Adams is still languishing on the shelf and Churchill<\/a>‘s history of the second world war has joined it. <\/p>\n Mostly, I’m finding that my concentration has gotten increasingly fragmented. I have memories of spending whole days readings books, and now after 15 minutes, I’m sure there must be something else I should do. Today I managed an hour in a sitting. <\/p>\n I am enjoying Shannon<\/em> by Frank Delaney<\/a>. He has hit a certain satisfying balance between history and fiction. And my reading friend sent me a wonderful Christmas gift that I opened the moment UPS left it on the porch. It included the Colonial Williamsburg triology by MG McManus<\/a>. I’m imagining practicing my reading concentration skills on them during the holiday week. <\/p>\n I think I will take up the camera again in 2011. I took some pretty good pictures<\/a> during the first half of 2010 and would like to try again. For now, I’m working on the 1998 pictures from our Lewis & Clark trip<\/a>. I dug out the trip journal to check on some dates. And, I learned that the Camp Wood Monument near St. Louis was now under water! I wonder how much else has changed in the past 15 years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s just a few days until Christmas and then we hurtle towards to the new year. I set two “digital” goals this year: a picture a day at flickr and the librarything 75-book challenge. I gave up the first one in July and I’m pretty confident that I won’t finish \u2026 Continue reading