Category / Personal

My 8th birthday cake, photo by Sarah Reck
by Sarah

Leap Day: Thoughts on my 8th Birthday

I’ve always had trouble putting into words precisely how being born on February 29th feels to me.

It would be easy to say I have a love-hate relationship with it but that would be inaccurate; I don’t ever hate being born on February 29th. For the most part, I love it. It’s unique. There are a heck of a lot fewer people in this world who share my birthday than any other one. Every four years I get an extra special day to celebrate. It’s a topic of conversation for parties and small talk (this tends to only happen in leap years as otherwise it feels a little sometimes like I’m bragging, though that doesn’t necessarily stop me). And it’s a great truth to include in the getting to know you game, “Two Truths and a Lie.” Spoiler alert: People almost always choose it as my lie.

Most people tend to remember this about me once they learn it. Which means that while some people can’t remember their friends’ or sometimes family members’ birthdays, they nearly all remember mine. I would wager that my birthday is one of the most memorable things about me, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
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Quotes Notebook
by Sarah

Being a quote-keeper

I’m a sporadic quote keeper.

I have a small Moleskine notebook set aside just for quotes, and while it’s nearly full, I don’t use it as often as I mean to. The last book I recorded a quote from was Andy Miller’s A Year of Reading Dangerously, which was my first read of 2015. It’s now June.

I love finding a quote in what I’m reading that stands out and speaks to me louder than all the other words. Sometimes I can go through a book and find a hundred phrases and passages I want to save, too many really, and sometimes I can pick out one and sometimes none at all.

Finding one or none or a hundred doesn’t matter when it comes to my quote keeping. I don’t write everything down. If my notebook isn’t handy, I won’t write it down. If I’m reading an eBook or a library book and can’t underline or want to take the time to figure out how to highlight on my tablet, I won’t save the quote. A quote has to be ridiculously outstanding for me to scribble it on a post-it or type it into a draft email.

In fact, writing that made me recall that I’ve had a quote saved in my email since January. I’m recording it into my notebook now. I also have 28 quotes saved to this blog that randomly refresh in the sidebar. I should add more, and I will. In fact, I just added the quote I mentioned here. (It’s from Bill Bryson, who is a one of my most-quoted writers, because everything he says is amazing and I would just dictate everything he’s written down if I could.)

Keeping quotes is important. It’s important as a reader and as a writer to have an archive of quotes that meant something in a moment.
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