There are always more books to get rid of. I still haven't made it to the secondhand book store to see if they will accept any of what I think might be saleable books. Maybe I'll find a moment this week. I was in a book club for a few years -- when it was my turn to suggest a book I mentioned Doris Lessing's Love Again. And then I didn't read the book or go to that month's meeting. Everyone hated the book and hated me for choosing it. I still haven't ever read it, not after such scathing reviews from my friends in the club. I haven't read Bette Davis's autobiography either. Nor the Bill Bryson, nor the André Brink. I have given up the notion that I should keep books I haven't read yet -- really, if I haven't read them in the past 20 years, it's unlikely I'll get to them.

Tags: books, June 2010

My mom is clearing out a small storage room in her basement. A bunch of my stuff from my teen years is still there. She skyped me and held various items up to the camera and asked what I wanted to do with them. Of course I didn't even remember that these things were there. Apparently I collected bits of driftwood at one stage. I do remember as a child making a sculpture with a piece of driftwood that looked like a tree branch and gluing litle clam-like shells on as butterflies. This was in the days before video games. I told my mom she could give these pieces of wood back to nature.

Tags: wood, crafts, miscellaneous, June 2010

If you had told me a year and a half ago that I would be willing to give up my ratty copy of Gone with the Wind, I would have laughed in your face like Scarlett. And there is no way I would have parted with anything by Anne Rice. However. I have read Ms. Mitchell's book at least twice, same for the Vampire books — you will have to pull Interview with the Vampire out of my cold, dead hand before I'll give that one away — and am ready to make way for other reading material. I tried to finish The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, but didn't make it. The others were bathtub reads. In and out. Can't even remember the plots.

Tags: books, June 2010

We have two tall cat trees and 8 or 9 other places for the cats to scratch. The cat trees are made of driftwood from local beaches -- one has three levels and the other has four. The cats love them. There is always cat hair and cat nip residue on the platforms, but they make a handy place for taking photos. A lot of my blog photos were taken on a cat tree. Anyway, today's discard is a pair of shoes. They were very comfy, but my feet have spread and now they are too tight at the tips of my toes. Shiny too. Not into bronzy and shiny so much anymore.

Tags: shoes, June 2010

I took the pennies and change out of this dish, washed it up and am now ready to put it into the big box of things to go to the Sally Ann or other donation pile. It's a solid, pretty dish, but I have found another pretty dish to throw my extra coins into. My mother-in-law is kind and generous and has given me lots of lovely things. I'm sure she won't mind if this finds a new home after all these years.

If there is something that you own that you can't give away, you don't own it, it owns you. —Albert Schweitzer