Spare Moments

“Guard well your spare moments.  They are like uncut diamonds.  Discard them and their value will never be known.   Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life“, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I realized the value of spare time and moments many years ago and in turn made adjustments to my lifestyle.  Recently, my oldest daughter has reminded me of this again.  For the past few evenings, my daughter (and sometimes baby) and I have spent quite a bit of time reading.  There’s a process we follow – she selects a few books, we snuggle up to each other on the couch or in bed, and then discuss each frame in the book.  I love watching her fall deep into my descriptions of what is happening on each page – excited and interested to learn.   Generally, I would do this for a book or two and then go off to do dishes, laundry, etc.  But lately, I’ve decided to let her determine how many books we read.  She usually gets to about 5 books before tiring.  The funny thing is that by allowing myself to wallow in the moment with her, I’m now asking her for “just one more“.

So where to but all these books?  I wanted to keep the books handy and easily accessible.  So I opted for a Hemnes shelving unit from Ikea for the play area.   The books are kept on the lowest shelf while toys are stored on the others.  Unfortunately, I don’t think they sell this model anymore.

The majority of our kids books are upstairs because many times we lay in bed and read.   For this location, we purchased a Billy shelving unit from Ikea.  Both units have served us well.

Looking forward to adding more books to these shelves – the used book sale is next month!

Images:  House of Many Hues