"One small cat changes coming home to an empty house
to coming home."
~ Pam Brown
Since starting my serious, heavy duty declutter rampage (round gazillion) I am continuously confronted with the knowledge that I own an incredible mound of books that I have never read.
If I had to start a fire to survive, I think my books could provide at least a full 48 hours of warmth.
All of the ones I have kept are ones I want to read and so I have started making sure to read one throughout the day - especially before going to bed instead of putzing around uselessly on the internet.
And I can stare in a vegetative state at a computer screen with the best of 'em, just so you know.
My eventual goal is to read these books and donate them. It's almost as daunting a job as my current resolution, but I can do it! I swear!
I want only to keep the ones I know I'll need to reference again or that bring me explicit joy by merely their presence like my copy of The Blue Sword. That book has been read so many times since middle school that it is held together with a rubber band.
I've also decided not to continue posting my grocery purchases. Much like my mortgage, my insurance, my utility bills for electricity and water, one's grocery bill is a bit of a necessity. And listing the entire thing right down to the specific bit of chow I got seems a waste of time considering I'm doing this to control spending in the shops for unnecessary items.
And, seriously, once you start cleaning out your entire house with the mind to simplify, you realize how much you really own and how few things truly are necessary. Good grief.
Oh, well. I'll thank myself for this when I move next year at least. Packing will be a helluva lot easier, that's for sure.
I'm still going to be posting my "holy shit, you guys, look how much I saved this month compared to before on these items" posts, however. So I am paying attention to what is coming into the house grocery-wise, I'm just not going to list it item by item for the world's perusal.
Speaking of noms . . . Today I purchased something in the store that was not edible.
Well, I suppose I could eat it, but I'm sure it wouldn't go down easily. Yikes.
I went to the pet store and replaced my cat's jangle toy. It's the only kind she'll play with and being nearly blind, bell toys are the ones that she responds to best. And because she goes into a whirling frenzy after her toys, I prefer them to have strings attached for the sake of retaining all of my digits.
So, regarding her vision, let me just turn a long story short:
At the tender age of Not Quite Four, she developed idiopathic uveitis and glaucoma that wasn't responding to medication. As a result she went entirely blind in one eye and subsequently had it removed and expensive laser surgery on the remaining eye to extend her ability to see out of it for at least another year. She recovered, can see, but mostly it's just vague shapes and changes in lighting thus if she is going to play, she needs toys that jangle and make noise.
And, yes, for my cat it is worth breaking my No Buy Budget regarding her having the one toy she loves.
Thus, today I bought something for the first time that wasn't a bill or grocery item in sixteen days. And it felt weird. Despite enjoying a quick meander through the pet store (KITTIES FOR ADOPTION! ZOMG! *petpetpet*), I felt no desire to purchase anything other than that which I had came for.
That right there, ladies and gents, is a darn good success! Woot!
Pay Up Time!
What did I buy on days 14, 15, & 16 of my 365 days of No Buy, No Way, No How?
I am proud to report that I have purchased only:
- One jangle jingly bell cat toy on a string
This comes to a whopping total of: 3.29 USD!
Jingle bells, cats with sharp nails, I still have my fingers after playing! La, la, la!
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