Still working on that list

I am working on a list of books (or at least authors) for this year.

 First, I will finish the ones which remain unread from this year's book list.

After that I want to read a good deal of Calvin, maybe Vol 1 of The Institutes of the Christian Religion,
then a sturdy pile of Martin Luther, Chesterton, some puritans,
More Spurgeon, Martin Lloyd-Jones,
and for something completely different, Thomas Hardy
and maybe this year I will get to those ten Wodehouse titles, as I only did seven last year.  
And that was a silly place for me to fall short of my goal!

I am quite certain that I will be reading "Alice in Wonderland" to Daniel, Helen and Maggie, because somehow they have not yet had that pleasure and I love to read that book.  I might have a bigger category of kids books this year.  I am reading them, might as well include them.

I am nagged by the memory of my French Atheist/Communist neighbor's remark that my booklist of 2009 was xenophobic.  I sort of want to make it ultra-xenophobic this year, and see what kind of lively discussion we might elicit from that.  She and I are still friends, and we have so far disagreed without  much emotion.

I might avoid books of more than 700 pages in general, except for the Institutes.

It might be an idea to set a page number as a goal.....something like 50,000 pages, rather than 100books.

I was all set to work on this list last night.  Then something happened which happens frequently, and in variable ways.
I was all set up by the fireplace, everybody was snug in bed, I thought.  And then a charming teenager who I love came silently into the room and wanted to talk.  So, being thankful for that opportunity, I set my list down and had some good fellowship.  Then, as he went off to bed and was  ascending the stairs....... people in my house began showing dreadful signs of a Gastro-Intestinal bug, which kept me, the mop and the washing machine hopping until 4am.

I tend to want to blame nights like that for my failure to read and run as much as I had hoped.  And certainly, there is a connection.  The trick is to not lean too heavily on the excuses that present themselves.   And if I learned anything this year, it was that complaining is making excuses for not doing what I am supposed to be doing.  Complaining is how I justify doing less that I could have done, or at least it's how I justify doing my duties with a thankless and lazy attitude.   It's so much sweeter for these poor sick folk if I can serve them with a smile on my face!