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[botias]

My clown loaches are beginning to become more tame. They come out for food now, and will eat from the surface. Experience with my still-mourned former batch, has taught me that it takes a couple of months or more before they feel secure enough to spend any of their daylight hours outside of their hiding spaces, and longer than that before they begin 'begging' and being otherwise obvious. It's funny to look at a seemingly empty tank and know that there are seven good-sized, very brightly colored fish in there somewhere. Earlier in the hobby, I didn't think fish behavior changed over a period of months. I rather thought that their risk-filled lives and instinct-driven natures would cause them to set upon their method of dealing with a new environment very quickly, and stay with this mode until a change of circumstances forces them to do otherwise. So, if I had new fish that were hiding for a week or more, I would assume that they would never come out unless I altered their environment such that they felt more secure. While making their environment better probably didn't do any harm, time to adjust was probably more called for than new things to deal with. And, of course, the younger we are, the more the urge to fiddle and poke is nearly irresistable and not much resisted.

Before we moved I had latched on the 'Simply Your Life' credo with all the enthusiasm of the newly converted. While this wasn't a bad thing, and resulted in many boxes less stuff to move, my pendulum is beginning to swing back the other way, hopefully come to rest at some happy medium. I told myself that while I was bound to regret a small portion of the stuff I sold and gave away, it was worth it to be shuck of the other 95% and this has proven to be true. Further, 95% of the stuff that I kept is in boxes in the garage, and I find I have yet to really miss any of it, even my most favored items. It's the books that are the problem here. And I have found a rationalization for keeping them in greater quantities than I might ever expect to read again. I can just think of them as supporting texts for homeschooling.

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[botias.livejournal.com]

Actually, a lot of the ideas came from a book by that name, but if you read Your Money or Your Life you've probably got the gist. Mostly I got rid of things that I always meant to do this or that with but was pleased to finally admit that I just wasn't going to (rather liberating), things that I had done this or that with and was really never going to again (high-heeled shoes, security blanket), cortisone cream that expired in '89, sundae glasses, coffee mugs, etc. etc. I also tried to pare my stuff down to the stuff I liked a lot, which involved getting rid of stuff I liked. Why would I do this? Maybe it was a bit of self-therapy at a time when I didn't feel like I had a lot of control. Maybe it was hormones driving my to clean my nest. Maybe it was spending a lot more time with that stuff staring me in the eye, and this sounds weird, but I found that it kind of weighed on me. It's like even having to look at it all, sucked up energy. My place was a hundred times nicer to live in afterward. Then we moved. :(

I'm inclined these days to give away books also (the ones I'm not hoarding). I've been enjoying the local library so much that I've been donating there lately. I feel some miserly guilt about this because used book stores are kind of a family tradition with me and I feel like I'm not being frugal if I don't trade in saleable books.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Maybe it was spending a lot more time with that stuff staring me in the eye, and this sounds weird, but I found that it kind of weighed on me. It's like even having to look at it all, sucked up energy. My place was a hundred times nicer to live in afterward. Then we moved. :(

Nah, that doesn't sound weird at all, but instead very familiar. I feel kind of - paralyzed, bogged down, by all my stuff, not physically so much as mentally and emotionally. Unfortunately, my drive to get rid of stuff was pretty much brought to a screeching halt when dave_over moved in, leaving his two matresses and dresser lodged in the middle of my room. He'll be leaving in January (I hope I hope I hope I hope), and then I can get back on the wagon... or off the wagon, that figure of speech has always confused me.

[botias.livejournal.com]

I guess clutter and disorder is serious bad for most everyone. I've read lots of owner-builder, mortgage-free, ditch the daily grind sort of books. These are butcher your own food, wash your clothes in the bath tub, kerosene lantern burnin', wipe your ass with leaves kind of people. Anything for the dream. The one thing they all say they would never do again is live in an unfinished house full of building materials. Maybe Home is more sacred than we generally realize.