I’ve suspected it for a while now, but now I’m utterly convinced.

When it comes to predicting what I’ll be hungry for/in the mood to read/craving etc… I’m completely in the dark. In the past I’ve worked hard at making educated guesses, only to be baffled by my own wishy-washy tastes.

For instance, I’ll be hungry for a certain meal for months, but if I actually go to the store and buy ingredients for said dish, it’s as if my cravings sit up straight, sniff the air, shake their heads, and lie back down. Sometimes the dish still sounds good, so I’ll set aside time to make it. (Take spinach quiche for instance.) So yay! I finally have the meal I’ve been wanting for so long. I’ll serve myself a thin slice – or better yet just place it on a napkin and eat it right there, standing up at the counter – then place the rest of the quiche in the fridge. And… next thing I know I’m telling myself I have to eat it so it doesn’t go bad.

Folks, this has happened far too many times for it to be a coincidence. I’ve finally decided it must be an attribute of my personality.

I’m learning to combat this strange quirk of mine by buying small amounts of food, making even smaller portions, and spending half the time rolling my eyes at my cravings rather than giving into them.

Then there’s the whole book issue.

Since I’m living away from my beautiful bookshelf with hundreds of lovely books for the summer I tried to predict what I’d want to read. I gathered a few old favorites from various shelves, thought ahead and bought a handful of new volumes, and gleefully splurged on a couple books I’d been wanting for a while.

And there the books have sat for the last three weeks. Beautiful and quite un-opened on my bookshelf. All the bright, new books I’ve been looking forward to reading for so long – and saving for this move – have remained, quite literally, unopened.

I’ve read three of the twenty-seven books I’d been looking forward to. The rest of my reading time has been divided by new (nonfiction) books I’ve gotten at work, old favorites from my kindle, and library ebooks that I browsed to find.

Sometimes I’m not sure if I should be more amused or frustrated by this quirk of mine. See, when I hear about Bloggers/YouTubers/Bookstagramers who have their TBR piles set out weeks or months in advance I get excited. It sounds like a perfect plan, something to look forward to, and so schudeled. And we all know that I like scheduled to a degree that’s slightly crazy.

On the other hand, I’ve always longed to be spontaneous (a serious dream of mine and something that I’m not sure I’ll ever actually achieve), so maybe the fact that I’m impetuous with my cooking does have merit after all. For instance, last night when I started making supper I saw I had some noodles with pesto sauce that needed to be used up. So, I sautéed some onions and garlic in my pan, then just started throwing in food until it smelled right. I ended up with a pasta dish that included Brussels sprouts, snap peas, celery, pulled pork, an a sprinkling of cheese and man was it good! 

In conclusion, I’ve discovered through the writing of this post that I am a spontanous creature. Just…not in the ways that I always imagined. 😉

QUESTION: Do you plan your week/month To Be Read Pile in advance?