Books and Magazines

I've been corresponding with friends lately about their reading habits because I invited them to the Good Reads web-site which is like Shelfari---they both keep track of the books you've read and allow you to recommend books to others while giving you ideas of good books to read, too. Some of the responses have made me think. M.L. said she only has time to read on airplanes. R.T. said she only reads 2 pages a night. Others live in turmoil and couldn't find time to read. G.W. said he only has time to read magazines.

I've been to all of those places. Just this Spring, I realized that if I go to the beach for 5 days, I can get all of my magazines read, but that's a pretty crazy reason to take a vacation. Magazines sit around my house in piles because we subscribe to too many magazines. I was having a hard time reading books because I spent so much time reading magazines. When I check a book out of the library, I only have two weeks to read it (2 pages a night doesn't cut it), so I'm forced to cut into my magazine time. As a result, magazines are starting to pile up again.
I am having to make new rules. 1. If the "news magazine" is more than a month old and I still haven't read it---it's old news---so pitch it. 2. If I can get it on-line, pitch it. (hubby can't agree with me on this with Consumer's but I can pitch old Angie's List magazines)
We should be rich with the number of financial magazines and newsletters we get. . . At least we recycle these with our daughter and son-in-law who probably are thinking, "Great, a two-month old magazine on which mutual funds are good." This interest area has gotten better---we used to subscribe to The Wall Street Journal or Financial Times. About now you're thinking, "so much money being wasted", but most of these aren't costing us anything---cashing in random frequent flyer miles.
Again, these didn't cost us much---we are Friends at the Missouri Botantical Garden, we got a free subscription to Midwest Living when we gave it as a gift, Woman's Day was frequent flyer miles and Food and Family just needed to be signed up on line. I've also had free issues of Weight Watcher's Magazine as rewards or prizes.
We have let some subscriptions expire, but for some reason, I can't throw the magazines away until I read them or finish the crossword puzzles.
I really enjoy these magazines (like the 100's of National Geographics in the basement)---if they're about history, they're pretty timeless. And, yet back to the "if I can find it on-line. . ."All of the Americana magazines at the beginning of this post were thrown out with the exception of one or two copies.

And, I thought I'd have plenty of time to read after I retired. . .