November 19, 2012

19: Book Balanced



The Big living room bookcase with Sci-fi, arts, architecture, and our radio.  2012.

Estate sales and donations at the store leave me rethinking my own way of living.  Slowly over the years, we have discarded the things we no longer use because of this.  The great masses of stuff we have collected has been winnowed down.  As of yesterday, it’s slimmed down even more.

I read, but slowly I’ve found that some sci-fi bores me.  Oh, I still like space operas and deep space adventures with definitive endings.  But I am tired of series that go on endlessly leaving me hanging through the too many pages, and too, I’ve grown away from some authors.

Yesterday I called Lessa to find out if she has replaced her McCaffrey’s.  “Some,” she said, “but not all.”  While the Discovery shop now has the quilting books, Perhaps Lessa will find Anne McCaffrey’s under her Christmas Tree.

There’s lots more in that big bookcase to discard.  I’ve kept the architecture books now in order by nationality.  Sometimes I remind myself that grandma reduced her reading to that smaller white bookcase on the right.  Mixed in with the few books were a pewter tea set and her radio.   

Maybe someday far in the future, I will be reduced to just those volumes I will reread.  Until then, even with a nook I find I still bring new-to-me books home.  Yes, I’m an incorrigible book nerd, but just today I’m feeling balanced.


  • Keeping those on the east coast in my thoughts and donating where it will count.

  • Himself:  Everyday better.  His work computer won’t start tho.  He grinned and began making jokes yesterday.

  • Herself:  Feeling virtuous because of the discards.  Left hand thumb out of sorts today.

  • Reading:  Reread “The Ship Who Sang.

  • Balance:  The quiet, uninterrupted time.

  • 4 comments:

    1. Addictions...some worse than others. Mine re books, photography, photographs, folk art, plants, and boots. I only own 6 pairs of boots and while I may get a new pair this winter...old ones should go.

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    2. I wonder if it's any easier when your stuff is all destroyed in one fell swoop. I thought I had managed to be pragmatic about what I lost last year. But watching someone else cope with the same kind of loss -- in my house -- is heartbreaking.

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    3. It doesn't get easy but it does get easi-er! We have given away or sold so much of our treasures that it doesn't seem as much of a chore as before. Of course, I still find little things that I put away and now realize I don't use. But I also have been acquiring more things because one of my RV neighbors has put her place up for sale!

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    4. I don't buy hardbacks or paperbacks anymore. I have donated or discarded many books over the years. These days, I rely only on my Kindle e-reader. No regrets.

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