I think this is the first time I have done this, that wasn’t prompted by having to pack up and move house.
I pulled three books from my collection that were duplicates. Four more weren’t even listed in my catalog, when I went through to remove them all from the record. Odd, that. I wonder how much further off the count is. Now it sits at 2,042.
But somehow, I’m not nearly so keen and eager to attend the public library’s annual used book sale, as I once was. I find myself eager to acquire, fondly perusing or re-organizing, and reluctant to let go of any puzzles right now- but my ardor for book collecting has cooled. And scanning shelves and shelves (or tables and tables) of titles for the ones lodged in my dim TBR memory to leap out at me- just gives me the feeling of oncoming headaches, unfocused vision and mental fatigue nowadays. Sigh. I still hope that will lift in the future. It feels kind of weird that I had no qualms- not even a twinge- about purging forty books from my shelves. (The TBR shelves, not the permanent I-want-to-keep-forever shelves. They’re all books I’d picked up on a mild whim, never had a strong interest in, and now wonder if I ever will).
I could have probably gone through my ‘permanent’ shelves and culled many more. I don’t think I will ever grow bonsai, my collection of houseplants has also been purged- due to cats that eat them- and my interest in keeping aquarium fish is seriously waning- so books that deep dive into those subjects seem kind of pointless to me at the moment. But this exercise was tiresome already. And who knows- perhaps a friend of mine who also suffered a traumatic brain injury a few months before I did, was right. She told me she didn’t feel like herself again for a full year, and had just started to wonder if “this is the new me, I better just get used to it” when things suddenly felt back to normal. Maybe one day I’ll wake up eager to spend hours getting my hands dirty in the garden again, or longing to stock a new aquarium and tend the underwater plants? Right now I can’t see it though.
I’m still going to the library sale this upcoming weekend though! I just don’t expect to bring home a full bag or two of books like I once did. A handful, is more like.
I thought this culling exercise would make my room feel less cluttered. It didn’t. There’s still four hip-high stacks on the floor. I had a faint hope I’d get enough cleared away that my books would all fit on the shelves again, but that was kind of laughable. I did do a bit of sorting through the TBR, though- pulling titles that seem to fit my current reading mood and capability- juvenile and middle-grade fiction, animal stories- to the top, so that I have easy ones close at hand.
Re: the plant cull. How can I protest or bemoan having a house devoid of plants, when instead I now have these two felines with such lively personalities?
Seems worth it to me!
3 Responses
If, months down the road, you feel like picking those subjects up again, you’ll have the fun of getting to hunt them down once more!
I wonder if there’s a solution to the cat issue? I don’t keep live house plants either, because my cat will eat anything she can get her paws on. I bought some “Lego” (knock off) plant kits.
https://www.lego.com/en-us/themes/adults-welcome/botanical-collection/faux-plants
I wonder if they would be fun for you like puzzles? I got my knockoffs at aliexpress.us for a dollar or two per plant. (I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy making them, so I didn’t want to pay Lego’s high prices.)
The three I’ve made: https://i.gyazo.com/5be90b80e9b0139c492c0de01cd24d0a.jpg
Just a heads up, the pieces are TINY. I’m not sure if the size would be an issue. This is an in-progress one on a dinner plate. https://i.gyazo.com/9c9c7edf7190d2f0fe14246e6dbc9f52.png
Hope you’re feeling back to yourself soon!
I don’t know. I’ve tried several things- and do have about a dozen plants still, but most are on very high shelves or hanging from the ceiling where the cats can’t reach them. One of my new cats eats the plants- not just nibbling, she chomps and chews the leaves down to shreds. So I had to remove all plants that could make her sick or poisoned- there’s just no way to keep them all out of reach. Especially since I don’t have the best window light positions, either. The other cat likes to knock small plants over, and dig up the dirt in bigger pots. I’ve tried some suggestions for discouraging that behavior, but now it just seems like the easiest thing is to not keep live plants (she even goes after the prickly succulents and cacti!).
And they DO have cat towers, tons of toys, playtime with humans twice a day, etc. I did give a lot of my favorite plants to a friend who will give them back to me if in the future my cats calm down and quit being so destructive. But, I’m also just not as keen on plants anymore, which is strange to me still. I just feel like “eh, they’re only plants” which was never my stance in the past. I feel like the fall literally knocked some passions out of my head and replaced them with a new one (skating), LOL.
Reading is still there, just diminished in focus.
I’ve seen those lego plants before! I do enjoy legos sometimes, but not nearly as much as the jigsaw puzzles. I’m okay having a house with just a few plants right now, it really doesn’t bother me so much for the time being. Maybe I’ll get some silk plants in future, for ambiance- I’ve seen some very convincing ones lately that look so real . . . (although having fake plants is not something I EVER would have done in the past!)
Skating seems like so much fun! I did it a lot as a kid, but I feel like my balance is too unreliable now, heh. I’d hate to break an arm or leg. I live up a flight of stairs, I’d be so stuck if I broke a leg.
Sometimes I get tempted by fake plants as well, but I suspect my cat would just eat those, too. I use tiny little aquarium plants for some color on a shelf with figures I collect, and she goes INSANE trying to get to those to eat them. I had to put down “cat spike strips” on the shelf below them to keep her from climbing to get them, and still sometimes she reaches them during the night.
I see a lot of people put the spike strips (“Ley’s 12 Pack Cat Deterrent Mat” on Amazon) inside their plant pots to keep cats from digging, if you do go back to wanting some.