Book geekdom

I threw out a lot of books when I moved. I mean a lot. I threw out more than I kept; the charity shop will love me (most of them were in mint condition – I’m protective of my books – and the remainder were brand new, never read). Anyway I’m left with a combination of several types of book:

• classic fiction that I will re-read
• non-fiction books (mostly pop economics)
• reference books (cookery books, economics textbooks etc)
• music books (sheet music, anthologies etc)
• books with significance or emotional attachment (my grandmother’s bible, signed copies/ early editions)

The cookery books live in the kitchen. My economics books (textbooks and reference books, not non-fiction ones) live in the bedroom along with all my sheet music. That leaves me with classic fiction, pop economics and books of significance. I have to divide the remaining books between the shelves in my bedroom and the shelves in the living room, but I can’t decide what should live where.

Option 1 is that all the classics and significance books live in the bedroom, as I’m trying to create a comforting environment there. That means pop economics goes in the living room.

Option 2 is the other way round.

I know it’s probably a really insignificant decision, but books matter to me and I am a complete book geek – so where different types of book live is important. Also, visitors will more likely see the books in the living room than the books in my bedroom, so which are better to exhibit to other people? All my pop economics books might make me look like a nerd, but all the classics (given that I have all the Harry Potter, Twilight and His Dark Materials books) might be not say the best things about my taste in literature!

Decisions decisions.

Almost, but not quite

This morning a lovely Lithuanian man from Virgin Media visited me, to check on the cabling in my flat. Yes readers, I am selling my soul and getting Virgin Media.

It was not a decision I took lightly – I am well aware of the bad press of VM customer services, but BT wanted £130 to install a line in my new flat even though one was already there. The girl on the telephone swore there wasn’t. I’m stood looking at it! I told her. You must be mistaken, it must be a cable line, she replied. No, I said, it’s definitely BT, it has BT written on it. She went silent for a second, then said that I could spread the £130 installation fee over a few months if I couldn’t afford it up front… S*d that for a box of monkeys.

So I called up the nice people at Virgin Media and they said that they would have to come and check the cables because they hadn’t been used for a few years, but apart from that no problemo señorita. This morning Mr Lithuania came and checked the cables and they are all peachy, so on Thursday morning I will no longer be EXILED from connectivity.

I set up gas and electricity today too. To finish getting organised I just need to:

• call the council to register for council tax (probably 2 or 3 times; City of Edinburgh Council are notoriously inept)
• cancel my BT line and my current broadband provider
• buy a parking permit for Boyfriend’s car
• transfer the remaining household bills into our new joint account

… I think that might be it. Maybe. Perhaps. So, I’m almost there, but not quite.

Trapped by life!

So I’ve almost finished packing. I still need to pack the crockery and cutlery up from the kitchen, and the stuff I need in the bathroom, but that’s it. Oh, apart from  a stack of “stuff that doesn’t go with anything else” that’s sitting on my bed. Mr Cat is sleeping in the middle of it. (He loves clutter and boxes. All cats love boxes: why?)

Anyway, the current tally is:

• 4 giant boxes
• 2 big fat plastic boxes
• 8 medium boxes
• 2 linen boxes
• 6 little boxes

Even though I’ve taken about 12 bags of stuff either to the charity shop of the bin, I feel like I’ve got way too much stuff and it’s making me feel trapped. I’ve been really ruthless with getting rid of stuff too, but it still seems like too much. Five years of living in my own place has just given me too much stuff, and no matter how much I get rid of, I’ve become accustomed to luxuries so even though I’ve cut back, the minimum amount I can bear is more than I expected.

It’s actually stressing me out! I don’t even know what to get rid of anymore. I’ve got time-related clutter! What do I do with it?

I hate packing

I’ve only managed to do 2 boxes. I have way too much stuff. Books are the biggest culprit – I have 4 boxes full of books, and I still have 2 entire bookcases to empty. I de-cluttered recently and purged a load of books so the ones remaining I do actually want to keep.

I could just be ruthless though. I could get rid of all the books I’ve already read. Non-fiction I like to keep for reference, and I need all my textbooks for my PhD, but fiction? Does it need to stay? I don’t know. Decisions decisions.

(Of course this is an ideal excuse for procrastinating when I should be organising, tidying and packing.)

What if there are ghosts?

All is sorted with the flat – I have to go to the letting agent on Tuesday to sign the lease and get the keys. The fly in the ointment is: Boyfriend has just left to go to Leeds to work for the next 3 weeks. So if I want to move in as soon as I get the keys (which has always been the plan) I have to do it alone.

In theory I’m fine with that. I’ve got special leave from work to move on the 2nd, and Boyfriend bought loads of boxes and packing tape. I have the whole weekend free to pack stuff up, and I’m great at organising and packing. P has even offered to help me carry boxes. But all of a sudden I’m reluctant to move. I’m a bit afraid.

This place has been my home for 5 years. I know my neighbours, I know what day and time the recycling is collected, I know when to expect noise outside and when it’s likely to be quiet. I know where to get tea bags at 11pm and I know the safest way here by foot, car and public transport. Most importantly, I know every corner of this flat, every crack, every squeaky floorboard and what windows whistle in the wind. There are no ghosts here.

The new place – I’m not even sure if I remember it correctly. It’s a new area – ok, only a mile away – and I don’t know where everything is. I don’t remember what furniture it has so I don’t know what I can take with me. I don’t know how anything works, what noises the flat makes, what noises are outside, when the recycling collection is, what my neighbours are like… anything. What if there are ghosts?

On top of that, the notion of having to pack everything, move everything and unpack everything is really stressful. I’ve not moved at all for 5 years. I have no idea what to expect. Especially with Mr Cat: I’m worried that he’s going to be so scared. I’ve been doing lots of research about how to help a cat adjust in a new house, and we have the benefit that Mr Cat is an indoor kitty so we don’t need to worry about him getting lost outside, but he is a big giant wimpy cowardy chicken scaredy cat.

And, it would have been nice for Boyfriend to be here. It would be something we could do together. After all, this will be the first place we’ve rented together. But he won’t be here. By the time he gets back from Leeds I’ll have moved in, unpacked, settled down… Mr Cat will (hopefully) be used to the new place. I just wanted it to be our place. But if I move in alone will it be my place?

So I guess my reluctance to move is three-fold. I mentioned this to Boyfriend and he said I could always wait for him to get back, but we don’t know when he’ll be back; he could be in Leeds for up to a month and they don’t get weekends down there, they work continuously as they’re on ad-hoc contract. Plus I do want to get it over with. Rip the plaster off quickly; it will hurt less. The sooner I get started the sooner I can settle.

And being nervous about moving is normal, isn’t it? Moving house is a stressful thing. Especially when you’re not used to it, as is the case for me. It’s ok for me to be nervous. I just need to figure out what I’m going to do about it: face it head on or shy away.

Good value?

I went to Cancom today and asked about getting a new hard drive in my MacBook. It will cost £183 to install a 500GB hard drive, including labour and data migration. I think it’s a good deal but Boyfriend says he could do it himself. Perhaps he could, but I don’t think I’d let anyone less qualified than an Apple tech bod go near my MacBook with a screwdriver.

He’s getting an iPhone 3GS this week. Well, I’m getting a 3GS, through him. He’s taking out the contract and I’m going to pay for the phone and then give him my iPhone 3G for free. Make sense? My iPhone needs a new battery so I was going to send it away, but Boyfriend thinks he can do that himself too. No way, Jose I said. The upshot is that my Boyfriend is a skinflint – despite having two mountain bikes worth upwards of £3,000 each and spending £350 a month on petrol entirely for recreational purposes.

Anyway, I’m going to take my MacBook to the shop tomorrow, they said it will only take a day, then on Friday I’ll probably get the new iPhone. Spendaholic… moi? Jamais….

Spanner in the works

I got half way through loading all my missing music onto my MacBook, and Boyfriend asked me a simple question:

How much space have you got left anyway?

Um… er… [I checked] Oh cr*p I’ve only got 30GB left.

iTunes says my music amounts to 30GB, but when I checked on the hard drive itself my music folder is 70GB. I have too much music! I have to halt my de-cluttering plan until I can take my MacBook to Cancom and see if they can install a bigger hard drive.

De-cluttering

I went skating this morning, it was really good fun, but I am still rubbish at it. I can’t do scissors very well so my parallel turns are pretty rubbish. I know what I have to do, it’s just a case of practice now. So, fingers crossed!

I’ve been de-cluttering all day, since I got back.

Firstly, I re-categorised all my music in iTunes, and now I am going through all my CDs to make sure they are on my computer. If they are, they’re either:

1. going in the bin if they’re just copied discs
2. going to the second hand shop to make a pretty penny

I also ordered 200 slim cases for my DVDs; I’m going to put them all in slim cases so they take up less room. I think I’ll leave box-sets intact though, because they look funky.

So hopefully that should mean I have significantly less rubbish in the flat! Next week, the wardrobe. *insert dramatic music here*