I don't only read books!

I've been blogging with three fabulous women for two years and have been enjoying all the fun topics we come up with week after week. If you want to see what we've discussed in the past, check out our posts here.

This week, I chose the topic: Magazines

Before reading ahead, first see what everyone else had to say on this topic:
Froggie
Mom of Many
Moma Rock

When I was a kid, I developed a fascination with magazines. My parents would leave People and Redbook laying around the house and I would find articles of interest and read them to my heart's content. When my parents felt I should have age appropriate magazines, they would buy me the ones with pin-ups and information about celebrities, such as Bop!, Teen Beat, Tiger Beat, etc. My bedroom walls were covered with the pin-ups of all the hot guy celebrities of the time. (Think New Kids on the Block and Patrick Swayze here.)

I also wanted more intelligent magazines with articles of interest to pre-teen and teen girls, which is how I got started on Seventeen, Teen, YM and the best one of all, Sassy. I found some pen pals through Teen and entered a contest to write for Sassy. (I was 13 and coming off a high from working on the school newspaper.) My teen magazine addiction carried through high school and partially into college.

Around my last year of college, I started reading Cosmopolitan and subscribed shortly thereafter. Then I found out about Glamour and, of course, had to subscribe to that too! They are magazines more suited to a 20-something crowd. I lost interest in them when I became a mother. (However, I'll read parts while waiting in line at CVS or at my hairstylist's.) At that time, I got more into magazines like Parenting and Parents, as well as the freebies like Baby Talk and American Baby, which were both really thin.

Realizing that I needed some magazines that spoke to me as a woman, I subscribed to Redbook and Ladies Home Journal. I also get Family Circle, but that's more for recipes and special interest articles. In the meantime, people would bring back issues of People and US Weekly to my office and I'd grab them as soon as I saw them laying in the kitchen, waiting to be read again. (Recently, a co-worker left them on my chair instead of delivering them to the kitchen, as they'd end up with me anyway.) I also got a deal through a website for Entertainment and have a year subscription now. I love catching up on movie and TV news that way.

My magazine tastes are definitely diverse and I end up looking like a hoarder with the variety I have laying around my house. In all fairness, I give them to my friends when I'm finished, as well as bring the back issues of my woman-themed magazines for others at the office to read.

Magazines have so much to offer....advice, pop culture news, recipes, decorating tips, ways to entertain kids, fashion and make-up ideas, etc. They're just so entertaining and addictive. I am glad they're available as extra reading material when I don't have time to focus on the book I'm currently devouring or I just need something light to distract me after a long day.

Some of the latest from my "collection"