2 Adults 2 Kids » books

Self-Psychoanalysis (KJ)

KJ — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 03:09:11 +0000

So I have two sewing machines. (Well actually, one is a sewing machine and the other is a serger.) This summer I was planning on buying a coverstitch machine. There’s only one problem: I rarely sew. In the last year, I’ve probably only sewn 1 thing — a pair of pajama pants for Widget. But boy do I just love buying fabric and thread and sewing patterns. It just drives CM up the wall.

Today as I was going through my books — yes, more books — I realized why I do this. Furthermore, I think I might even be a hypocrite.

Some time last week, I wrote a post about conspicuous consumption. I blasted people who bought their Viking ovens, but didn’t use them. Tonight I realized for the first time that I do the exact same thing I’m just at a much lower price point.

I buy sewing stuff because I wish so badly that I enjoyed sewing. The reality of the situation is that I don’t enjoy it because I lack attention to detail. About 10 minutes into it I get frustrated which turns into boredom. However, I keep telling myself that if I just sew more eventually I will grow to love it.

So now I have 2 sewing machines, 4 bins of fabric, 1 bin of zippers and thread, 40 sewing patterns, and 10 yards of red fleece that I just had to have because it was on sale for $20. What makes everything worse is that I still want to hold on to this stuff, but there’s no room in the RV for it all. There’s no way!

The same goes for my books. I buy books not because I plan on reading them that day, or that week, or even that month. I just buy them because I plan on reading them eventually. CM doesn’t get it. He gets frustrated because to him it’s all just a bunch of stuff I don’t use or read. But I look at that sewing machine every day. I look over the titles of all of my books and think about reading them every day.

This stuff is a part of me. Well, it’s a part of who I want to be. The truth is, I’m a freak for computers and everything computer-related, but I don’t want to be. When I’m facing my computer, I’m facing away from my family. I don’t want to be that person.

That’s why it’s so hard for me to part with my books and my sewing equipment and so much other stuff.

Books, Knowledge, and Me (KJ)

KJ — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:44:38 +0000

We have a ton of books. This morning a book dealer came buy and bought about a half of them and all of our children’s books. I think he gave us a fair price, but I still feel violated. I had a lot of books on different software programs and various internet programming languages. I’ll be honest, I bought most of them, put them on the shelf and hadn’t looked at them since. But now I feel like I’ve lost something. I think I have been gauging my knowledge not by what I actually know, but by the books I keep on my shelf. I feel like this whole RVing thing is really forcing me to get down to the essence of myself, if that makes any sense.

For so long I have dreamed of having a library in my house, but like everything else, what’s the point of having a bunch of books if I’m not going to read them. Seeing the various titles really made me feel like I need to recommit to learning this new stuff. However, I felt the exact same way when I put those books on the shelf a year ago when we moved into our apartment.

I need to learn that I am not my books. More importantly I need to learn that I buy a lot of stuff that I never use. The result is that we save less and one day our family will feel the effect of the lost savings. Technically, we felt it when we were trying to come up with the money to purchase the RV.

Is there anything that defines you that you would have to give up if you moved into an RV?

Craigslist vs. Amazon (KJ)

KJ — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:10:53 +0000

I had the bright idea last night to list one of my old school books on Amazon. Well actually I had read somewhere that you get more money from Amazon than you would from a garage sale, so since I have a ton of books and still short a couple thousand from my RV goal, I decided to give it a shot. I woke up this morning to find a message in my inbox saying my book had sold — awesome! Then at the bottom I saw what my actual profit was — not awesome.

The lowest used price for this particular book was $6.25, which I thought was ridiculous, so I listed mine for $3. Amazon decides that books cost $3.99 to ship, and they add that to the price. Well when my book sold I thought I’d get $6.99, but Amazon took $2.79 off the top. Leaving me with $4.20 for shipping and profit. So once I drive to the post office, buy a big envelope, and pay for gas, I’m probably going to be negative.

Then my mind turns to Craigslist. I have a new appreciation for Craigslist. You can sell what you want for whatever price and the buyers come to you. I would advise anyone who is purging to try Craigslist before they use Amazon or even eBay. It saves a lot of headache.