It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

My mind starts to wander every year as spring approaches, so I'm not surprised that I've had a hard time focusing on Book Chase this week.  I guess what did catch me by surprise is that it happened earlier this year than normal - blame it on the exceptionally warm winter we've had here, I suppose.  

Even with the horrible news that we've lost both Harper Lee and Umberto Eco in the last several days, I could not force myself to sit down and mark those losses for the record here.  I think I'm starting to feel beaten down by the kind of news cycle I see every day from the mainstream media.  Television, radio, and newspaper editors seem to believe that if a potential story is not bad news, politically divisive news, or about some half-brained, self-crowned celebrity, then we don't need to hear about it.  After a while all that negativity wears a person down.

When that happens, I turn to books for escape, but I don't want Book Chase to evolve into just the place where I post book reviews.  I want to talk about all things book related.  I suppose the good news is that I'm easily reaching the goals I've set for number of pages read each day and number of books finished per week.  And I have almost a dozen book reviews in the can that with one final editing will be ready for posting here.  

But now baseball season has started - and I love baseball at every level.  I've been known to pull over and watch Little League games if I drive by one of the parks and see cars in the parking lot.  I watch my grandson play 40 or 50 middle school games a year, and I support the local high school team.  I drive to College Station (90 minutes each way) to watch Texas A&M home games or down inside Loop 610 (45 minutes each way on a good day) to watch the Rice Owls play.  I make several Astros game a season.  In other words, I have it bad.  

And there are only 24 hours in a day.  As much as I love this time of year, I can't imagine how I got it all done before I retired last May.  The lesson?  Time is precious; make the most of it.