Do Or Do Not: Breaking with Tradition

A moment for a choice, to do or do not

For years*, I've attended the annual VNSA used book sale so steadfastly that it has become a tradition. The three previous years resulted in three posts here: 2012, 2011, 2010. But this time, I really didn't feel like going. No S24O to camp overnight in line to be one of the first inside, not happening.

Partly, it's because I'm behind in reading the books I already have. I usually don't have such a backlog, but work has been consuming more of me, leaving less for avid reading, or for that matter, blogging**. So I should probably make progress reading the books I have before I go and buy more. 

And behind or not, I am about one VNSA used book sale away from getting my own episode of Hoarders: Bookman: Lost in the Stacks. OK, maybe not quite that serious, not yet, but I do have more books stacked up in non-shelf places than I strictly should. It would be better for all involved if I were to remove a carload, or rather a Burley Travoy trailer load, of books from the house this year, rather than adding another.

So instead...stack of family bikes at the Falls

So instead, the family and I went for a fun bike ride along the canal on an afternoon where it his 80°F, with a stop at Arizona Falls. Suggestion of younger daughter. We also stopped for ice cream, did some shopping, and generally just rode around. We do this sometimes, but not often enough. As the kids grow older, this is the sort of tradition I want to start: regular family bike rides, possibly to create a stack of memories of many such rides hoarded up.

Part of the tradition will be jumping at the suggestion if someone in the family makes it, to drop whatever we're doing, to make a little time for a ride. Go for an easy spin together, get a little sunshine, stop and check out the wildflowers which have just started to bloom, get a bit of exercise. Younger daughter picked one of the first African daisies of the year, and did a little "he loves me, he loves me not" with it. A small thing, yet a perfect thing.

Coulda gone to the book sale as in years past. Instead, though, I went for a bike ride with my family on a sunny afternoon, then went home and continued to take stock of the books I already have, to choose the next ones to go into the donate box. You know, less books would mean more room for bicycles and bicycle parts. Speaking of hoarders.

Sticker on the daughter's bike

*it would be accurate to say "decades"
**how much has been consumed, and how much remains, is tough to gauge sometimes