It's not 'goodbye', Library, it's 'see you later.'

I am addicted to the library.

I live just a five minute walk away from one. I don't always have the cash set aside for buying new books. And my city's library system is AWESOME at sending books from library to library so I can get any book I want at the branch that is so close to me.

Any day that I have off, or any evening that I am left alone while Boyfriend is at school, I trot down to the library and scan the 'new releases' shelf in the YA section. I look over titles and see if any books I've been waiting for have been returned by other readers. I get an arm load in the teen section, avoiding the raised eyebrows from actual teens who are also browsing in the teen section. Then I waddle over to the Adult Fiction shelves, and add on to the arm load that I started developing in the Teen shelves. If I feel like being scholarly, I will also look around in the Non-Fiction sections for funny memoirs, or books about food and relatable health issues.

Then I walk up to the desk, dump my armload of books down, and check out. I usually leave the library with shaking arms, and I am confident that this is the only real workout I give my arms. Then, I race the three-week-long clock to read the books I've checked out before they are due back. But sometimes, if I can't get to them, I can always log into the library website and renew them from home, which forces me to hoard them for as many months as I am allowed. Then, on the same day I return a stack...the process starts again.

But now....it's time to say good bye. Or rather...see you later, to the library.

As you all have noticed from my previous book hauls, I am accumulating quite the exciting collection of books. And that's not even counting the dozens of other books I've been acquiring over the years. I have about ninety-four titles that I own but haven't read. Plus I'm sure I'll be getting more for Christmas. It's time to start giving these books some good attention, and it's near impossible to do that when I keep getting books from the library that have a timestamp on them.

In order to start reading these fabulous books that I keep buying and receiving, I am cutting myself off for the months of January and February! This could be the best or worst decision I've ever made, but on December 31st, and library book stragglers I have will be dumped into the return bin. I'm excited to explore the books that I own, and I wonder if my reading experience will slow down a little knowing that the books on my shelves don't have a looming return date.

How often do you go to the library? Do you also have issues with not reading the books you collect?