HOARDING

Be aware of the man of one book. ~Anonymous

I have a hoarding issue. I wish it was money that I hoarded, but it is not. It is books, magazines, and recipes. I cannot seem to get enough. My bookshelves are overflowing. I have cookbooks stacked on top of my kitchen cabinets and refrigerator (artfully arranged, of course). I have smaller books stacked on the top of the breadbox. I have my must-read books stacked on my nightstand. Even more books out in the soon-to-be sunroom. Wherever I go, a book must accompany me. Yes, that means often to the bathroom as well. I read in the car while stopped at red lights. I did do a bit of a clean-out of the bookcase about six months ago. My husband was in shock and wanted to know what was wrong with me. I didn’t want to say that I might really be making room for new books. The old books were donated to a used book store.

Don’t get me started on magazines. Magazines seem to be everywhere. I have a collection of old wire baskets that make the best place to stack magazines! Just when I say I’m going to not renew my subscriptions, a great deal will come in the mail. How can I justify buying them every month (I know I will) when I can save over half by subscribing? So the cycle begins again. Currently I get Down East (The Magazine of Maine), Maine Boats, Homes, & Harbors (I have a love affair with the State of Maine…more on that another time), Veranda, Country Living, Martha Stewart Living, Martha Stewart’s Everyday Foods, Traditional Home, Vegetarian Times, Audubon, Country Gardens, and Herb Companion. I did give up my Hobby Farms, Hobby Farms Home, and Mother Earth News (I think). When the original Victoria and House & Garden went out of print, I almost cried. I wish I could explain the feeling I get when they come in the mail. I got three just yesterday and almost jumped up and down. It is sad, really. What comes next with that, though, is once or twice a year I go through the magazines to see which ones I can part with (and there are many that I can’t). I will then sit down and turn them page-by-page to see if there is something I can never part with…be it a picture of the perfect kitchen, bathroom, vignette, garden, recipe. When I find it, I rip it out. It goes in a box that will one day become a binder—by subject—of these perfect things I cannot live without seeing again. What is left of the magazine comes to work to be placed on the back table to be viewed just one more time before hitting the recycle bin.

That brings me to recipes. I will run across a recipe, or two, or three, online and I have to print it. If only I would actually make even a small percentage of the recipes I feel that I just have to have, I would eat like a queen. I eat gluten-free always, and vegetarian primarily, so when I see a recipe that fits that description, I just have to have it. They are currently stacked ready to be bound as well. Couple that with the stack that I have saved from old magazines and I could start my own cookbook!

One may be thinking right now, “Wow, that girl has a problem!” Or, “Her house must be a mess!” I like to think “No,” is the answer to them both. Artfully arranged, remember? But don’t ask my husband either question please. The answer may not be the same.

I brought to work with me today four magazines that I have not cracked yet and a book I am greatly enjoying. Work is really getting in the way of my reading schedule; however, reading does not pay the bills, so work wins in the end. I can’t wait for lunch when I can read again.

She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain. ~Louisa May Alcott

Into what, I ask?

P.S. I just got an email from Amazon that my copy of Slow Love has shipped. “Yippee!!!” she says as she jumps just a little.

(Reprinted from my wordpress.com blog dated April 23, 2010.)