MarthaJeanne 2021-23

Well still the same Covid problems. I even had someone else call me to find out how to get rid of books. We'll have to take more bags to storage soon.

In the meantime I've been sorting other things, like the beer bottles lying around. turns out I had quite a collection of vintage beer. Some best before 2013 or so. The thing is, I quite like to try the collections of beer - usually 9 bottles of craft beer. But I don't actually drink beer all that often, and it gets forgotten. Anyway, the beer is down the drain, and the bottles recycled. More space! And yes, I will probably buy the next collection I see.

I discarded 5 books of MHD that we might have been able to read back when we were students. Turned out there had been bugs back there, so I cleared and vacuumed behind the books. The only thing alive now was a spider, and I decided to let her stay.

I have new books coming this week from Amazon, so it's good to have a bit of shelf space available. Just checked mostly fiction. One history book, but not for that shelf. Touchstone moved to next message. Not for discarding.

Oats in the North, Wheat from the South: The history of British Baking Why did I put this here? No I did not discard it.

I saw The ritual bath in the regular bookcase, but it seemed to be a thriller. Jerry reread it and decided to throw it away. I see that I gave it four stars eight years ago. Should I reread it before it leaves the house. He seems to think it quite brutal, but the background interests me a lot more than it does him. Maybe why it was there?

In the meantime I have marked it as a discard.

Am not going to finish Die Byzantiner Too dry.

'Inward and outward health' is going to the Methodist pastor. Once we see him, that is. I suppose it is fitting that the problem is the health regulations.

When I bought bulbs for the table a while ago, I also bought Easter pails to hide the plastic pots in. The plants are done, and our neighbours will use the pails as Easter baskets for their grandchildren. Win, win.

Again, not books.

The last time I was downtown was the day we saw the hedgehog. So when I walked by the tea store and saw a hedgehog mug in the window I just had to buy it. However, We have quite a selection of old mugs that we never use, and there was no space for the hedgehog. I sorted out quite a few. a set of 5 Bennington pottery mugs, a Christmas mug, several nice enough mugs, but without sentimental value, even the big black thing Jerry used to keep full of tea on his desk at the office. A stack of three Chinese tea cups - little, without handles.

I think the Mistplatz has an area for depositing things that are still useable.

>8 MarthaJeanne: Argh! I have a full shelf of tea mugs that have got to go. They are identical except for the solid colors vary. When I had a houseful of kids for cocoa, they were perfect for keeping each person's mug sorted. My husband and mine each had a matching chip.
I have gone to using a bigger mug, and these are just still here sentimentally. But there is no place for them at the new residence. (I’m in WV this week, doing clean-out.

Making a leader
When Christians Clash
Becoming the Family of God

1980s theology. I'm fairly sure I did read these way back when, but if I don't remember and there are no reviews and no high ratings, I think I'm not going to keep them.

listening, wakefield

>10 MarthaJeanne: I have a shelf or two very similar. Picking at it only.

There are some I remember reading. I'm not throwing those away, at least not now. I might even reread some of those. But these are on the paper recycling pile.

Walking on water, Kissell
How can I Find Healing?
A Question of Healing
Emotional healing

More of the above, Although some aren't quite as old.

The problem is that I keep buying cookbooks. There just isn't enough room for them all.

Salz küsst Karamell
Vollwert Mehlspeisen aus Österreich
Wildes Brot

On a different note, I'm currently reading a book about Safran. It assures me that eating saffron every day is good for anything that might ail me. But when I went to the spice cabinet, I couldn't find it. In the process, I found several old packages of spices that hadn't been used in a long time, (unless you count bugs that had gotten into them). That's better! I can see the remaining spices much more easily. But no saffron. So I dug into the area below where things sometimes fall down. Much more to throw away, including an empty old saffron glass. No, I want the small tin. I don't want a dried up orange, or several bread crusts. (This is behind the bread box.)

I even vacuumed back there. And when I finally did come up with the tin, I had more than half filled the kitchen bin. Jerry took the bag out, and now the garbage men have come by. Wonderful timing.

The saffron tea is still too hot to drink.

CulinArt is still in the house. It came with the oven, so I stuck it in the drawer with all the user manuals.

By the way, the lockdowns have been useful one way. My 'To Read' collection is down to 240. (Have to write this before going downtown today and to the library tomorrow.)

A Child's Garden

Many years ago in a supermarket I heard a child complain that her mother had weighed the fruit and not let her do it. I let her weigh my bananas, and spent a good deal of time with both of them over the next year or two. But I don't really need the mother's book.

Jesus in Ägypten If you read the titles of the author's books you will quickly figure out why I say 'No!' to this.

Geheimnis des Frühlings and América went straight from the To Read pile into the paper recycling. Apparently I had tried to read the later in English a few years ago, so there is no point in trying it in German. The other I must have picked up free or very cheap, but looking at the work page it just doesn't look like my kind of thing, and it's long.

I'm not keeping Knödellust.

Discarding Vintage, Kornfeld.

Quick crochet huge hooks

Socken - flach gestrickt

It's amazing how protective I get when trying to weed my textiles bookcase. But I will never use these two, and I need space for the Indian Textiles book.

Gary Rhodes cookery year : autumn into winter Need the shelf space.

Weeded the biographies. Many of these are good books, but neither of us is going to read them again.

Black Count
Galileo's Daughter
Long Walk to Freedom (over 700 pages)
Al Capone, bair

And an India book
Indien reportage

Mundvoll
Christlich auf'kocht und teuflisch eing'schenkt

I was trying to tidy up some of the cookbooks lying around, but to do that I need space in the bookcase, and some of the books I took down to discard need to be reevaluated, which puts them on the pile I was trying to tidy up. Losing battle today.

There is also a stack of books I had decided about a while back, but hadn't dealt with. This is also a losing battle because we just cleared the hall of bags of books. (They are now at self storage. I really hope there will be a women's guild bazaar this year.)

Omas Strickgeheimnisse : 200 bezaubernde Muster

Bäuerliches Stricken 1
Bäuerliches Stricken 2
Bäuerliches Stricken 3

Gehäkelte Schmuckstücke
Learn to Crochet Socks

My neighbour thinks she might know someone who would like the knitting books.

Leaps and Boundaries is nearly 25 years old and is very ECUSA oriented. I should have read it back when I bought it. But I didn't and it's really not relevant to me now. This is landing in recycling, as I can't imagine anyone else here wanting it.

1) Uncommon threads Good to read once.

2) Atlas shrugged I was very impressed by Ayn Rand back several decades ago. Can't quite understand why today. Anyway, will never read again.

The third book I brought down was never entered and probably never read. First half is corrected.

3) Elisabeth von Thüringen Not sure why I finished this. 2 1/2 stars is probably generous.

4) Lake of Fire

5) Baum des Lebens

Found a big pile of books I wasn't sure when I had last (if at all) read. All read. Do I have bookcase space for them? (Mostly, yes.)

1) The British Medical Association illustrated medical dictionary
Medical dictionaries are not very reliable after 20 years.

Besides, I want that bit of bookshelf for some other books.

Rama Revealed Do I want to read this? No, probably not. Lousy reviews. No, better discard.

>32 MarthaJeanne: I recall the first book in the series with fondness. But I’m not sure it was worth a follow up.

This was the fourth. We have the first, and yes, I recall enjoying it back then. This one had really bad reviews.

Jerry took the big bag of old clothes to the Caritas collection box this afternoon. It had a wide selection of stuff - from a workman's overall that might have been worn once. To two blouses that I love the looks of, but don't love ironing the ruffles or trying to close and open the tiny buttons. We found a lot of ignored corners in getting the boiler replaced.

I decided to dig around in the basement for a while. Jerry even joined me. Found a lot of stuff lying around

Pillow and duvet for guest bed - put in vacuum bag and labelled
2 mattress covers - good shape, bag up for Caritas.
2 pillows - bad shape, throw in garbage.
Playing cards from Venice, paid for in lire. Garbage.
lots of old paper from projects I've long since forgotten - paper recycling
Folder of print outs of things by Nicolas of Cusa. - ditto
Sweater I was crocheting. Might have been my taste way back when. Garbage
Old rather mangled pad. Jerry wants.

He is now practicing down there, and I am enjoying the feeling of being virtuous.

Some of this is from boxes I just threw stuff into when we moved here in 2007. Really time to at least go through it.

I've added a sparkly sweater to the bag with the mattress covers. It would have fit better if I had put it on under the flannel shirt, and not over, of course. That might have also meant that the sparkly bits would have scratched me less.

I am now caught up on both washing and ironing, and have to admit that I have more shirts (blouses, sweaters...) than any reasonable person needs. I really should try to add a few more to that bag. Part of the problem is not knowing when and if we will get back to 'normal life' or even what that might mean.

Right now I'm mostly wearing flannel shirts and jogging trousers. I put on a skirt this morning just because. Now and again I wear the shirts from 20-30 years ago. I mostly stopped wearing them because I was afraid they would wear out. Now I'm thinking I might as well wear them out. Nobody else wants the frayed collars, and if I'm at home, nobody else is going to see them, either. But they are still very comfortable. Putting on one of the fancier blouses seems a bit silly if I'm just home all the time.

>37 MarthaJeanne: Yeah, I’ve got clothes hanging in closets in three homes. Not so much the ridgetop anymore, because I’m not sleeping out there and have brought most into town. And not much in West Virginia; just enough so I don’t have to cart clothes in between. But still, too many. The experiment is I’m weighing what I go to most in the closets. Problem is, like you, I love fabrics, and become attached emotionally.

At least I resisted the temptation to order two more flannel shirts from the sale catalogue. Most of mine are from that company. I seem to have a dozen, at least. I don't need more. Not even marked way down.

As administrator of this group, I think I am supposed to be able to edit subject lines, but I can't figure it out.

As admin, go back into the thread. There should be a button for edit. I think.

Thank you. Got it now. And this thread is not just for last year.

The Singapore grip is over 600 pages long. It is also the third in a trilogy. I have the second, but haven't read it since joining LT. Maybe I should get rid of that one, too.

The Singapore grip is over 600 pages long. It is also the third in a trilogy. I have the second, but haven't read it since joining LT. Maybe I should get rid of that one, too.

I just decided to get rid of 5 books by Berthold Brecht. In the unlikely case that either of us wants to reread these, we can borrow them from the library.

Besides I have two books I want to keep that needed that space.

I found two copies of Lipperts Alpenblumen Kompaß 2 that had never been entered.

Also Beeren Kompaß
Sterne Kompaß (for 1984-1986)
Wildfrüchte Kompaß

I decided years ago that these are too small to be really useful. So now they get thrown away.

This should mean that the useful books have enough space.

Not enough cookbook space.

1) So schmeckt Spanien
2) The foods and wines of Spain
Since I am keeping The food of Spain, I don't need the others. Claudia Roden is the one I would use.

3) Fruits of the Forest
4) Brazilian cooking
5) Masel tov! Die moderne jüdische Küche in aller Welt :

Well, for now all the loose cookbooks have been shelved.

We are throwing away the old wine books. They do not seem to have been entered. The newer ones are 30 years old, and Jerry would rather use the space for organ music.

Organ-isms I decided to enter before throwing away. It goes in the bags that might go to charity, and not just in the bin.

Not a book, but we are looking to give away our youngest son's guitar if we can find a child who wants to learn how to play it. This is noticeably smaller than my guitar, but then he was in fifth grade when we bought it. A good size for a not full sized person.

This started because I bought strings for my guitar, thinking that I might enjoy playing it again, then we remembered this one. I refuse to hand a child a guitar with 10 year old (at least) strings on it. There won't be a lot success at sounding good. So I have used those strings to restring the smaller instrument. You know what? I don't really enjoy restringing a guitar. It's hard work. There are some pretty awful noises involved. After two sessions, all the new strings are on. They hold a tuning for long enough to play a chord two or three times.

Tomorrow I can hope to tune it up properly and even play a bit between retunings. Normally I have reminded myself at this stage how good it will sound after a few more days. But with any luck this guitar will leave our home on Sunday. I'm trying to keep my spirits up by feeling virtuous and charitable. Doesn't quite work.

I have found my favourite book to play from, so if I figure out where my guitar is, buy another set of strings, and go through the whole rigmarole again, I might even get to play in a week or two.

However, it is one less piece of stuff in the house. Or will be soon.

Well, almost books. I went through the large size music in the bookcase. Anything Jerry might be interested in I had already pulled out and moved up with his organ music. (This is the space that used to belong to his wine books.)

I found a bunch of guitar and recorder books of mine that I will keep, at least for now.

I also found a stack of music that our eldest sang at a concert in 2000. Not quite sure how it got into our bookcase, as he was not living at home that year - we were in Geneva, he was with a family in Vienna. Anyway, if he hasn't claimed it in 22 years, I'm throwing it out.

In the process of trying to shelve a new book, I realized that all the canal companions are very out of date, so I have put all of them in the recycling, along with another canal book that was even more out of date. That gave two recent purchases space on the shelf.

I didn't bother entering the one that hadn't been, although I combined several entries before realizing that none of them was mine.

Lebensalltag im Mittelalter Totally deleted from LT. No idea why I bought the thing.

We finally got rid of our son's guitar today. The first attempts to advertise that we had a guitar to give away didn't take, but friends were at their local music school and mentioned it, and they were willing to take it. We took the guitar to the friend's house today. I gave her the guitar and a sample of my szechuan pepper. She gave me a jar of piccalilli. Good exchange.

Today we got rid of an old computer that's been sitting in our shed. We got it out before putting things away for the winter. (About time!) Then we drove off to 'PCs für Alle' to be refurbished and passed on to some kid who otherwise has none. They apologized for things being messy, 'but we are expecting 30 PCs to be picked up tomorrow.' They are obviously proud of their work, telling us how many thousands of computers they have already handed out. They also wanted to know how we found out about them. (Google). It was really easy to find them, they have a small parking area right there, two of them hurried out to bring it in. AND we are rid of the thing!

We then went to the British 'supermarket', which actually had the things they were missing the last few times. No parking nearby, as usual, so Jerry circled while I shopped. Then we went out for pizza. I was expecting to finish mine this evening, but I'm not hungry yet. That might have something to do with a small bag of liquorice all sorts that somehow got into my basket at Bobby's.

When we got home I discovered that Amazon wanted to make a delivery today. One order made last Thursday. Three books came from the UK, and have been bouncing around Italy. Another book was in Spain, and has now reached Germany. The boring stuff - hygiene liquid for our humidifiers- last to be dispatched, and still in the Czech Republic this morning, really was delivered today. I won't complain, because we do need it, but I would rather get the books.

A few weeks ago Jerry was asked where to get rid of books. Our old method died during the pandemic, but after a bit of thought, I realized that Caritas (the RC charity) would take them for their 2nd hand shops. "Carla"

Today I went to add Coming Home, Molcho to the piles in our front hall, and realized that a book of that size and weight would knock the piles off the bags. I filled two more bags and suggested that we carry them off. Our front hall is not big enough for five bags of used books on top of the other recycling and such minor details as coats and hats.

They are very well organized, and seemed happy to get our stuff. They even offered us the use of a shopping cart to get everything inside. We also had a big bag of textiles that I've been adding to for months. It had gotten too full for the regular collection boxes, so I'm glad I remembered to throw it into the car. The only negative was that the' large parking lot was large, but also quite full.

Well, I just changed the subject again, as this topic has a way to go yet.

Arthur Schnitzler Two books that seem never to have been entered. Meistererzählungen and Meisterdramen.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare This has very small print, and we'd need a different edition to be able to read it.

I also filled a banana box with games and puzzles for the next time we go to Carla. Not really a good idea, as it involved climbing around and looking up more than my spine likes.

>58 MarthaJeanne: But if not you - who? And the decluttering proceeds!

>55 MarthaJeanne: I hadn't realized how many bags of discarded books were sitting in our self storage. We arrived at Carla today to say we need two shopping carts. They accepted the stuff we had carried in, then asked us to drive around to their main warehousing area. they helped us unload, making very sure that only stuff we were donating got taken in. We were so glad to be rid of it! But they were cheerfully thanking us for our wonderful donation. They must really work at that. Personally, I can't imagine being that pleased to get so much stuff to sort and deal with on Dec 21. And we weren't the only ones. We had to wait for the previous car to be unloaded, and another arrived as we were leaving. This just the really big batches that couldn't be dealt with in front.

And on top of all that, we aren't going to get lots of begging letters from them. At no time were we asked to give personal information. They just took the books etc.

I've been buying too many cookbooks.

1) Alpenküche vegetarisch I seem to have given this 4 1/2*, but leafing through it, I can't see why.

2) Backen mit Gemüse This was 4*, and had markers in it that I didn't make then, and won't now.

3) 30 Minuten Gemüseküche 4* and a review, but never used.

4) Deutschland vegetarisch 4* Never used, not really interested.

Two others go back on the shelf.

5) Artisan Baking 3 1/2* I have a lot of better bread books.

6) naturally

7) Natürlich Buchinger I gave this a fairly good review, but I find the printing even harder to read now.

Again, one goes back on the shelf.

8) Noch ein Stück
9) Schwarzbrot

One goes back. My review convinced me. (Yes, I have to make her bluebarb pie!) (Spell check does not like bluebarb.)

10) Kronen Zeitung Kochbuch

Enough for today. Some of this included combining work.

We need to go to Carla soon. I've also discarded a fair number of books that were in the 'to read' pile. Either after finishing them, or when I didn't get that far. Those shelves are beginning to have space on them, too.

>61 MarthaJeanne: I did not manage to make the pie, but as I had everything ready, I did make a bluebarb sauce. It's very good, but I put the whole package of blueberries in, and I don't taste much rhubarb, so I think I will cook up another stick or two of rhubarb tomorrow. This is from Top with Cinnamon and I am enjoying rereading it. Yes, this one really is a keeper.

We made it to Carla. Five bags of books, and a gigantic bag of clothing.I don't think we were stopped there more than 2-3 minutes. No sooner did we stop at the loading space than somebody was there with a big cart. The three of us loaded everything onto the cart and we were off again.

Starting a new bag.

Gordon Ramsay's Uncharted is in there.

Hardly had I finished reading Reiche Bilder than I found a second copy in another TBR pile. It's a very good book, but I'll only keep one copy.

I had meant to keep Eulen und Greifvögel Europas until I tried to find a reasonable place for it. Much too big for anywhere we have bird books.

Sacred Places I managed to read about 10 pages, before deciding to throw it in the Carla bag rather than lose my breakfast

Der Mann aus Babadag I hope this book will eventually get around to talking about the man it's supposed to be about. All this background information and side trips and so are fine, but they are not what I wanted to read.

Lady of the English I gave it 4* ten years ago, but made no comments, and it's over 500 pages.

The Lydgate Widow. This is more recent, and only over 400 pages, but the cover info does not interest me at all.

Pauper's Child
Unholy Love

Before we say goodbye Found while cleaning up.. Apparently I read it four years ago.

A sailor of Austria I think I remember enjoying this, but it's too tall for the shelf it would need to move to.

Jerry has arrived back with 2 1-cup and 2 2-cup measuring cups by Anchor Hocking, so I can get rid of the Pyrex ones we got as wedding presents, (45 years ago next month) that would be fine if most of the measurements hadn't long since worn off. The frustrating thing has been that Pyrex sells measuring cups here - but with British measurements, not US ones (as well as metric), and while I can easily use UK recipes, I want my measuring cups to be US measures.

I put the old ones, including a few plastic ones I didn't know I owned in a bag for Carla, along with an electric back warmer and a few other odds and ends.

Before Jerry's sister came, we stuck a bunch of Carla bags in the shed. I have since put them in the car, since I needed to get into the middle of the shed, and didn't feel like filling up the entrance hall again. Guess we'll be heading out there again soon. I should try to discard more books first, if I can.

You might regret disposing of the heating pad, unless you’ve got a better one.

Bless Jerry for remembering to bring you household aids. I know he appreciates your cooking, Martha (Luke 10)

Who is Carla?

Carla is the Caritas (RC church) second hand shop. The people there are so great, happy to help unload, if anything over thankful for the stuff I'm glad to get out of the house. I assume they must have some grumpy volunteers, but they keep them far away from the donors.

No, I won't regret the heating pad. If I decide I want a heating pad I will get one that isn't full of complicated features that don't actually help.

I didn't ask for much. Cortisone ointment and measuring cups. I think he brought twice as much of both as I asked for. He also bought a lovely bowl that my sister made. Really glad I sent her a spice mix we both like.

Queen's Gambit

Both books by Rita Bradshaw

Revenge of the middle-aged woman

Some Sunny Day

The Beach Hut

Imperial Woman

And we're off to Carla!

Entdecke : die vielfältige Natur des Nordburgenlands

Ich simuliere nur

Did Darwin get it right?

Operating manual for spaceship Earth

I also moved a couple of books. What I really need is another shelf here. But at least now the newer books fit in horizontally on top of the older ones.