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Nancy Parker Brummett

Nancy Parker Brummett

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Downsizing

Books-a-Bazillion

May 7, 2015 by Nancy 23 Comments

Antique book stack isolated on white backgroundAh, spring! Time for tulips, green grass, baby calves frolicking in the fields, and spring cleaning! My husband and I have been in the process of downsizing for a while now (or “rightsizing” as we Baby Boomers prefer), so spring cleaning is sort of an ongoing thing at our house. I’ve had no trouble at all sorting through clothes, linens, dishes, pots and pans, and even jewelry. So many items have found new homes or been relegated to the recycle bins. But there’s one problem. Our house is chock full of books, and I can’t seem to let them go.

My husband and I once fantasized about selling everything we own and buying a sailboat to sail around the world. We figured we could generate enough income via the internet to keep the galley stocked, and we could stay in touch with friends and family via e-mail. Only one thing—well, besides the fact that neither of us knew how to sail—was stopping us. What would we do with all our books?

It’s not that we never give a book away, sell a book at a garage sale, or take a stack of books to a used bookstore. We just don’t seem to have done any of those things frequently enough. Hardbacks, paperbacks, pocket-sized volumes and coffee table tomes…our house is full of books.

Even with all the moves over the years, we both still have textbooks from college courses we took in the late sixties. I saved valuable texts like the Norton Anthology of English Literature and the Harbrace College Handbook. He, on the other hand, has texts titled (I’m not making this up) Engineering Economy, Applied Regression Analysis, and Principles of Operations Research with Application to Managerial Decisions, copyright 1969. Now, excuse me, but William Blake will always be William Blake and the tiger burns just as brightly “in the forests of the night” in 2015 as he did in 1967. However, any manager needing advice based on what was known about systems operations in 1969 is probably managing a push broom—if that!

In addition to nonfiction titles and novels, we have a complete library of children’s books. Now I’m reading Dr. Seuss favorites like Hop on Pop, Mr. Brown is Out of Town and The Foot Book to a second generation. I suppose I could forgo the set of 1975 Encyclopedia Britannica Junior (minus Vol. 16, which one of my sons left at school), but I couldn’t abandon Tuggy the Tugboat for the most luxurious sailboat made!

We also have travel guides to every place we’ve ever been or dreamed of going. Those would come in handy on the sailboat, but where would we put them? At least I could toss overboard those for inland locations, like Beijing: An Illustrated Guide. We would need one whole foot locker to hold those classics we plan to read some day, including the Complete Works of William Shakespeare and the Complete Novels of Jane Austen, and another for the books we bought but haven’t read yet. We’d need all the books we’ve saved from foreign languages we’ve taken so we could look up how to ask directions to the post office in every port, and I’d need my full supply of cookbooks in the galley, with titles spanning trends from fondu to gluten-free.

You may be wondering why we don’t just read books on an electronic reader like a Kindle or Nook. Well, we do. But somehow that hasn’t replaced the joy of holding a book in hand and turning the pages one by one.

Although we do own a book titled Sailing for Dummies, I doubt we’ll opt for the sailing fantasy. Far more likely is that we’ll move to a smaller house with a lot less stuff—except for the books stacked floor to ceiling in every room!

Filed Under: Back Porch Break Tagged With: Books, Downsizing, rightsizing, sailing, Spring cleaning

What’s New with You?

January 3, 2013 by Nancy 21 Comments

IMG_1098Are you, like me, tired of the same old New Year’s feature stories and articles? I mean really. Can a TV program convince us to lose weight or exercise if we haven’t made those commitments already? And do we really care about the latest trends in fashion for the new year? Or how to organize our kitchens, closets, offices, or garages? We’ve been there and done that. And if we feel like it, we’ll do it again. But not because we read an article about it or saw it on TV!

Still, we shouldn’t let our cynicism about stock New Year’s features keep us from using the new year for a much needed jump start or as motivation to make some necessary changes. So what’s going to be new with you? What change are you ready to make not just because it’s the first week of January, but because you’re ready to make it? Think about that while I share a few of mine.

First, I’m ready for a new perspective on politics. Seeing the movie “Lincoln” reminded me that leadership can be either exemplary and unifying, as it was with our 16th president, or deplorable and divisive. But that regardless, our nation will survive for as long as God wills it—not a day longer and not a day less. So we can do our best to be responsible citizens, and we can pray. That’s it. My new perspective includes letting go of the sadness about our nation that has been upon me for so long now. It’s weighing me down and making me unpleasant to be around, and it’s got to go.

Second, I can feel in my bones that this is the year I will deliver on my desire to “downsize in place.” My husband and I aren’t ready to leave our home for smaller digs because we still love having room for kids and grandkids to visit. But we are both ready to jettison a whole lot of the stuff in it: to streamline our lives in every conceivable way so that we’re ready for whatever the future holds. I don’t need a fortune teller to tell me there are a lot of large, black trash bags in our future. It’s going to happen!

Third, although I haven’t taken time for granted for many years now, I’m going to take more seriously the wisdom of Psalm 90:12: Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. As trite as it sounds, each day IS a gift. I have no idea how many I have left to do the work I feel God has called me to do, but I’m wise enough to know there’s no longer time for procrastination. This year I will be keenly aware of time and treat it with respect.

My sister Mary called me this morning and commented on the first devotion in the book God Calling, edited by A. J. Russell, that we are both reading this year. Written by two British women who met to pray together in the 1930’s, it contains the things they believed God was saying to them through his son Jesus Christ. In the January 1 entry we read: I stand between the years. The Light of My Presence is flung across the year to come—the radiance of the Sun of Righteousness. Backward, over the past year, is My Shadow thrown, hiding trouble and sorrow and disappointment. Dwell not on the past—only on the present. I determined not to let the past use up too much of the present many years ago. But, with the Lord’s help, I’ll be even more focused on the present as I move into this new year.

What about you? What’s new with you?

(Thanks to my grandson Peter for being my model once again. This was taken on New Year’s Eve 2009. If this doesn’t get you going, what will?)

Filed Under: Back Porch Break Tagged With: Downsizing, God Calling, Lincoln, New Year, Time

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