Speaking of simple satisfaction....

After I wrote yesterday's post, I had a playdate with another mom. She's super smart and does all kinds of neat things with her kids and she should totally be homeschooling, but she's not (well, not officially right now at least). Anyway, she and I started talking about a unit that I'm getting ready to start with the kids and she suggested that I check out the library near her house. I'd thought about that before, but we don't live in that county and I didn't think we could get a card to a library outside of our own county. Our library is mediocre, at best. It's small and most of the books are older. I can rarely find what I'm looking for if I go in there with something specific in mind. It really had me kind of worried because of the unit study approach we're going to take in homeschooling. I can't afford to buy books all the time and our library just doesn't have much.

So, back to yesterday's conversation....she said she would ask at the library the next time she was there. I decided I couldn't wait that long, so I called them yesterday afternoon and asked if I could get a card. They said yes!! I was so excited that I loaded Stephen up (I was already at my mom's so the younger two stayed with her) and off we went.

Y'all. Talk about simple satisfaction. My library card to that library has made my year. It's HUGE (the library, not the card). Just the children's library is the size of our entire library here at home. We can check out SEVENTY-FIVE books at a time each. And the kids can have a card whenever we see fit! Which means we could have 375 books if we wanted. And, oh the selection! I got several books on our new unit study and still left the majority on the subject on the shelf. They have so many different series of books and rows of early readers. We were there for over an hour and a half and I still didn't get to explore everything I wanted to look at. We can also search their card catalog online and reserve books or transfer books from other libraries in the county.

If you've always had access to a large library, please take time to really appreciate it next time you visit. It really is something special.