Aaron and I have spent the past couple of weekends purging our lives of various media that we no longer need. First, he went through his videogames and got rid of some stuff he wasn’t going to play anymore. Then, we weeded out our CD collection, ripping some of them to iTunes before trading them in to Allied Records with the games. After that, we went through the records and laserdiscs, offloading 150 LPs and 40 laserdiscs.
Today, we went through books. As avid book-lovers, we tend to collect cheap books that sound interesting. Sometimes we get a good deal; other times, we pick up books that we can never actually bring ourselves to read. We finally bid farewell to a few of the latter this evening, along with some books that aren’t relevant to us anymore… like these diet books.
I had picked up some of these early on in college; The Hilton Head Metabolism Diet, along with The 200 Calorie Solution, actually helped me lose 10 pounds one summer. The Setpoint Diet and Farewell to Fatigue were some other early purchases, and I do recall that they had some helpful (if typical) ideas. Of course, Atkins’ New Diet Revolution helped me lose 50 pounds (and keep 80% of it off). The rest of the books were in the review queue for my now-defunct Low Carb Lifestyle Podcast. I read The Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet and found it to be something I wouldn’t feel comfortable following. (I hesitate to use the word “hogwash,” as I am not an M.D. like Drs. Heller.) I never got around to reading The T-Factor Diet or Protein Power, although I do remember scanning Sugar Busters and trading e-mails with an avid follower of that diet. It seemed fairly reasonable, as low-carb diets go.
Now that I’m having moderate (if plateauing) success on Weight Watchers, though, I feel quite comfortable giving these books to the thrift. Maybe they’ll be what someone else needs to get themselves on the road to good health.
That’s so funny. Jamie and I have also been having the ‘what can we get rid of’ conversation. Our home is not a mansion or a warehouse. Our home is designed for basic 1960’s living, not for obsessive book-aholics, clothes-aholics, music-aholics. It reminds me of the ‘more stuff, bigger house’ dialogue from George Carlin. Now that we’ve lived in our house for a couple of years, it feels like its time to get things organized. I traded in a heap of CDs at Allied (after ripping them). We have been giving books and clothes to Easter Seals. Last year, I traded in a bunch (7?) guitars for one good guitar… guitars (and guitar cases) take up a lot of space. The main problem is that I have so many things that have ‘sentimental’ meaning to me. For instance, my Frank Black or Matthew Sweet concert T-Shirts. I haven’t worn them for 10 years, but I still have them in the closet taking up lots of space. At some point, you just have to get rid of this stuff. Take photos of everything and send it off to a new home.
One good thing I did was to organize our basement by putting everything up on shelving units. We still have a long way to go to reach ‘simplicity’, but at least we are moving in the right direction.
I’m sick of all the clutter.
Bookins.com makes the person requesting the books pay for shipping.
…lighting a match now! Into the burning barrel everything.