Finding myself again

Back when I was a little girl, I was a huge reader.  I loved reading and that carried into adulthood until I became a Mom and then reading, especially for pleasure, well...it pretty much took the back seat.

When I got pregnant with Alyssa, I got my hands on a ton of books to help prepare me for being a Mom.  Sadly though, What to Expect When You're Expecting and The Nursing Mother's Companion (my two favorite baby books) where pretty much the extent of my reading reperatoire for the the last six years or so.

And then recently, some things have changed.

Life is getting settled again; we're done moving, the girls are growing (the baby is already 15, almost 16 months now) and I'm finally getting a little freedom back and it feels good!

Ironically, what's gotten me back into reading was actually TV!  I'm not a big TV watcher, but one night, my Hubby convinced me to sit and watch the Twilight Saga with him as it ran non-stop on Showtime and I was hooked!  Believe it or not, I'd never seen any of the Twilight movies before and I was surprised to find that I actually liked them!

After watching all three Twilight movies, I thought it would be fun to read the books and I remembered that one of my nieces was a huge Twilight Fan back when the movies came out and owns all the books. When I was at her house last Monday, I borrowed the first book and started reading it immediately.  It was so good that I found it hard to put down!  Instead of spending my spare time on the computer, like I normally would,  last week I read. In between chores and the usual stuff with the girls, I read.  And then I read, and read some more, until Saturday afternoon when I finally finished the book!

image courtesy of Amazon.com

I honestly can't remember the last time I enjoyed reading this much, but I'm excited about getting back into it! The funny thing for me is that it took me reading a book about vampires (something I totally thought I'd never be interested in) to get me back into something I've always loved.

Anyhow, what I'm even more excited about is something else reading related! My in real life blog/MOPS friend, Shannon from The Mommy-Files (she has an awesome blog with TONS of reviews/giveaways that you have to check out if you haven't already) has recently started up a book club!

I've never been a part of a book club before, so I'm really looking forward to the chance to combine two of my loves: reading and hanging out with friends!  We start our meetings next month and our first book is this one...

image, again, courtesy of Amazon.com

Has anyone else read this book or been part of a book club?  I'd love to hear more about anyone else's experiences with book clubs and what you do to make them fun!