Stacking the Awesome

It's something I've been doing for a while, and I wonder if anyone else does it too. Stacking the awesome is my name for when you have something awesome and you make it even better.

Life is full of ups and downs, and while it's important to have a happy medium, when the highs are really high, it's amazing. As a booklover, one of the best highs I can get is when I'm reading an awesome book. I've already written about how awesome books can make me feel, and everyone knows it's really rare to find that perfect read. So why not enjoy the time we do spend with these incredible books as much as we can?

That's what stacking the awesome is about. For me, it goes like this.

You start with an awesome book. A book you have been waiting forever for, or something that once you read, you're completely hooked.

Then, you add other awesome things. First, you read the book in the perfect environment. For me, that's my room, lounging across my daybed.

We all have that special spot. 

You read it at the perfect time, which is a time where you won't be interrupted. For me that's after dinner when most of my family is sleeping.

Then comes the food. Food is essential to making me happy, so I save some of my favourite foods for when I'm reading a good book.

That's me right there.

The food I always pick when reading is chocolate. Toblerone, Lindt, Ferrero Rocher, M&Ms, Hershey's Dark, etc. I always have at least one type of chocolate in the house that I save for special occasions. And what can be more special than reading an awesome book?

In the past, I've also made myself a smoothie (strawberries, bananas, plain yogurt, apple juice, maple syrup, milk, and maybe chocolate chips, raspberries, blueberries or blackberries), a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows, a chocolate chunk or blueberry muffin, or a slice of cheesecake. Either way, good food and good books go together perfectly.

There are other ways you can also stack the awesome. Sometimes I'll listen to my current favourite song before reading. It'll get me upbeat and happy.

Happy dancing teddy!

Basically, there are ways to make an awesome experience even better. Do you stack the awesome? What do you use?

-P.E.