Book diets

Well, I finally got my house clean--so I thought to myself...hmmm...I have lots of thank you notes to write, play with my children, or I should work on my sharing time that I have to do on Sunday. Guess what I actually did? I read a book for two hours. Admittedly, it was a very good book. A tree grows in Brooklyn. But then as I looked at my children whom I had ignored for the last few hours and at my stack of unwritten cards and the guilt started to settle on me. Time for another book diet. Let me explain. I love reading. It is my absolute favorite past time. Unfortunately, when I get a really good book--I do very little else except read. Laundry piles up, the house is a mess--you get the idea. In fact, the week I read the Twilight series (which admittedly, was not so great from a literary perspective--sorry Twilight fans--but a very good page turner) was possibly the worst things got. My wonderful husband actually told me--I can't wait until you are done with those books! :) I've tried moderating myself...I can read a chapter after I finish cleaning the bathroom for example. Unfortunately, one chapter turns into two then three. Therefore, I put myself on book diets--getting only books that are easy to put down (like self help books--yawn!) and only allowing myself the luxury of a good juicy novel every so often. Hence the name book diet. Of course anyone who knows me knows that I am a terrible dieter. I am doing a meltdown this year (trying to loose 10lbs) after I weighed myself and found that I had gained 6 lbs over the holidays (I call it my christmas cheer and I carry it mostly in the midsection--like santa...) . Part of this meltdown is rigorous exercise (which I like) the other half is keeping a food journal that keeps track of caloric intake and fat (which I don't like ). However, I was very good....for three days. Then the siren call of sugar hit hard. I remembered my mom gave me a cookie mix at Christmas-bingo! I made it and ate some cookie dough and three cookies. There. I've confessed. I just can't bring myself to write it in my food journal. Maybe I should add the fact that while I was eating the cookies I was reading my book for two hours too!