Leaving the Book Clutter Behind

On another thread, I mentioned getting rid of my book clutter. Being an English major and writer, I guess it's no surprise that I love books. Years ago, I had 1000's of books in my house--lots of bookshelves in every room to store my massive collection. Everything was nice and neat and most books were alphabetized, like a little library. I kept every book I ever read. CRAZY!!! I seldom read a book twice unless it's REALLY good. So why I thought I had to keep them all, I don't know.

When I got really sick several years ago, I decided I didn't want to leave my family this burden of getting rid of things that were probably only important to me. So I began culling out my books. I sold a few and carried 100's to the public library. Over time, I whittled my collection down to just a few I hadn't yet read and a handful that I had read but would read over and over again.

Last year I discovered a new author (new to me but she's been around for decades) and bought about 150 of her books here and there. Recently I feared I might be falling into the same old habit. Everyone I know has been talking about their Kindles; they love them, can't live without them, oh you should really think about getting one...blah blah blah. You know how the new gadgets are, everybody's gotta have one. Well, I didn't see what was so great about them...until I scored a new Kindle Fire for $125 recently. It's taken me a month to figure out how to use it, and boy, am I hooked. They really are awesome!! OMG, I'm thrilled!!

I've found places to download free Kindle books, and I found a seller who has LOTS of ebooks on disc really cheap--way cheaper than I could buy the used books. Most of the books I bought last year by this one author are on my Kindle now. So I'm getting rid of about 100 of these physical books. Y'all, I can carry around about 200 or more books, all in my purse, on this little Kindle. I can read anywhere--on an airplane, in my hammock, on my bed, in my car. It took me a little while to quit trying to turn a page the old fashioned way. LOL I've read 3 books on my kindle this week, and I'm hooked!! No more bookshelves, no more book clutter, no more book dusting. Ahhhhh, simplicity!!!

I'm also giving up physical CDs. I have a stereo system that will play music from an SD card and my MP3 player uses the SD Card. A few years ago, my son transferred the songs I wanted from my CDs to my computer. I have a few more to transfer myself, and from now on, I'll just buy individual songs online. My public library lets me download 3 songs a week for free too. I can save everything to SD cards and my computer and not have shelves of CDs either.

I'm sure there's some way to save my movie collection to the computer too, but I don't know how yet. I only have about 30 DVDs, so that's not bad, but I'd love to clear those out. They're favorites that I do watch frequently, so I've got to figure out how to save them to the computer.

Technology is wonderful!! If you haven't figured out how to save your stuff to your computer yet, you should! Books, CDs and DVDs take up too much space and require too much effort. And they're all easily destroyed. CDs and DVDs scratch easily and my dog likes to chew on my books if I leave them on my nightstand. On the computer, they're safe and easily accessible. I can save them to an external hard drive as well as SD card too and they take up almost no space. I can also save these things to my Kindle, so I can read, listen to music or watch movies anywhere. Oh gosh, I get so excited just thinking about it! I think I gotta go read my Kindle now...! :-)

NancyAnn