Encyclopedia of Me: B is for...
Books
I've always been an avid reader. One summer, as a child, I checked out about 15 chapter books to read on our 3-week long vacation up to Northern California, and then proceeded to read them all on the 15-hour drive up there. My problem these days is having a hard time choosing-- I'm always reading more than one book, if not about five.
But I not only love reading, I love books. Just ask my husband... we have three bookshelves in our house and many more boxes of books in the garage. I'm not sure I could ever switch to a Kindle, despite its convenience and greenness, because I just love holding a book, turning its pages, underlining when appropriate and even using bookmarks (I know, I'm a little weird). I still try to be somewhat frugal and conscious though... as much as I love to linger at Barnes & Noble, I try to stick to the library, PaperBack Swap, borrowing from friends, or to the books I receive to review from LitFuse to feed my book-needs these days.
Baseball
I always like to tell people,
"I married into a love for baseball."
My parents and brother give me crap because as a child I was your average luke-warm-fan-of-the-home-team {Padres} but when I married, I married into a love of the game, and a love of the Dodgers.
I always liked baseball. My brother and I even once scored tickets from a family friend to a very exciting playoffs game. But I never really knew or understood the game fully.
When David and I got married we lived on a half-a-shoestring budget. We had no cable but our college town happened to have a station on the Dodgers Radio Network, so we listened to just about ever Dodgers game on the radio (so old-school, huh?).
It was then that I "met" Vin Scully and began to learn all the ins and outs of the game, got to "know" the players and some of the Dodgers lore and history, and basically fell in love with America's pastime.
Here are a few things I love about baseball...
-it's (essentially) a summer sport, so it invokes feelings of long, warm days -it's a mellow, relaxing game, most of the time. -other times it is so exciting that you worry your husband will fall off the top deck at Dodger Stadium because he's jumping and cheering so enthusiastically. -it's a family thing for us (we have quite the extended family of baseball fans). -it has a rich American history. -it's become a global game, especially in countries where they speak my other language. -the culture, players and fans are generally pretty down-to-earth; the vast majority of pros are not known for their extravagant lifestyles (superstars aside) -it spans all ages and generations. -it's a family-friendly sport.
I'd consider myself a pretty sport person, tolerant of almost every sport, but here are a few factoids on why I would definitely categorize myself, 29-year old crafty, stay-at-home mom of a girly, as a bonafide Baseball Fan...
-I've been to 20 out of 30 Major League Baseball parks. -I've been to several Spring Training games, in both FL and AZ. -I've been on a 3-week long road trip to a dozen games across the Midwest and East Coast. -I allow a collection of bobbleheads in my master bedroom. -I attempt to run a baseball blog with my hubby (we're not very consistent with it yet though). -I play fantasy baseball. With my mom. (we totally tanked last year. my father-in-law whipped us all. we vow to pay a little more attention to our team this year). :) -my daughter (who went to her first game at 3 weeks old)'s favorite color is Dodger Blue. And she loves Manny. -I even find myself watching baseball when David's not home!