Virtual Coffee Mug #1

These are a few of my favorite mugs.

I collect coffee mugs. I never intended to do this, but ceramic mugs are texturally appealing to me and completely functional. Combine these attributes with a low price and a display that strikes me as funny, clever, or appeals to my sense of life or feelings of nostalgia and BAM! It’s mug mayhem in the kitchen!

When it’s time to cull the stock (those that are chipped, stained, or just don’t otherwise meet my needs any longer), I try to repurpose my favorite ones first. As many others I’m sure have discovered, an unused coffee mug is a perfect place to collect pens, pencils, and other tall/skinny stationery items on one’s desk. However, I have begun to use my coffee mugs to collect all the little things, which belonging nowhere else in particular, I like to have at hand.

While I am certainly not commenting on relative importance of the following items, here are the contents of the virtual coffee mug on my mental desk of late:

Getting Things Done. Read it, watch it, live it. Thanks to Gus Van Horn and NoodleFood for the reminders (can a virtual coffee mug play a role in a viable organizational system – I think not).

Obama and the Oil Rebate. Some may see this as a shameless plug for Stephen’s blog and view his crack ability to analyze the situation part of my specific adoration for him. And…?

The Values of Harry Potter by Ari Armstrong. If you love Harry and haven't bothered to figure out exactly why that is, it may be due to the extraordinary values presented in the books. If you have thought about its values, then this book may help you appreciate all that is Harry Potter even more!

Central Purpose in Life. This post at Making Progress has been nagging me for months for all the right reasons. I have, as of yet, been unable to identify my CPL. I am actively searching (through lots of tough introspection) for mine and I think I may be zeroing in on it. For starters, I’ve taken the idea of developing one out of my mental coffee cup and placed it into an actual 3 ring binder. That’s at least a step in the right direction.

How do you handle your book collection? Our collection, while ever increasing, must be housed in a space which remains fixed. Does anyone use a cataloguing system they really like? How, if perchance you can stomach the thought let alone do the deed, do you get rid of books?

At some point I will be watching “Cultural Movements: Creating Change” at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. Thanks to the Aesthetic Capitalist for that reminder.

This is basically how I feel about all religions and religious people. Thanks to Politics without God for the link. I really enjoy the visual encapsulation of important ideas: see xkcd and Indexed for some insightful and often hilarious ones.

If you want to guarantee at least five hits a day to your blog, name it after a common office and school stationery supply.

And from the "that's what she said" file, Sawubona is how to greet someone - in Zulu. It means good morning or hello.

I am currently reading Katherine by Anya Seton, Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich (beach brain candy which may account for my working blue above), OPAR by Leonard Peikoff, Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution by Ayn Rand, and am poised to embark on The Enchantress of Florence: A Novel by Salman Rushdie.

Anyone else care to share his current reading list? Or virtual coffee mug contents?

Comments

Valda Redfern said…
How do I get rid of books? Same way I get rid of clothes: if I never use it, or never liked it, or it doesn't fit me any more, out it goes - just so long as it has also actually fallen to pieces.
August 5, 2008 at 10:05 AM
Lynne said…
Yes. That's what I'm afraid of...there is no way/reason to get rid of perfectly functional books! But soon, they will take over our entire living space.

We must learn to use the library more often than Amazon!
August 5, 2008 at 12:07 PM
Shez said…
funny that I should read this post about books today. This morning Marc and I decided to cull books.

We have bookshelves in all but 2 rooms of our home and yet we're short of bookshelf space. I've even started double shelving books. Something has to give.

Our family room has two full walls of bookshelves and we realized that one wall has books we haven't touched in years. This afternoon we're planning on culling those books and taking them to the second hand bookstore.

we also have to start keeping a centralized record of our books or use the library more. I have lost count of the number of duplicate books we own because Marc or I will develop an interest in a subject and merrily click on the "buy me now" button on Amazon, not realizing that the other one of us had this same fascination years (or even weeks ago) and bought all those same books.

I am forcing myself not to buy fiction books for the kids. They have started reading so well now that they are finishing a book or two a day. I'll keep the classics but anything else has to come from the library.
August 9, 2008 at 9:14 AM
Lynne said…
Shez, going past the point of double booking years ago, I can say that it's definitely a problem. A few years back we took out many of the book cases in the bedrooms and tried to centralize the books into a loft space known as "the library". Then we built a large classroom and the book doubling on those shelves started almost immediately! I swear, they're like tribbles!
August 10, 2008 at 7:09 PM
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