I’ve been summoned a couple of times to head over to my parents’ place to work on clearing out a lot of my old stuff that’s still lying around the house. Today my mother wanted me to work on getting my textbooks out of my room and into my condo. I had no problem with that, but since I didn’t have a place to put the books I headed over to Ikea to get a bookcase. Man, that place is like an amusement park. There were a large amount of families, just strolling about the showrooms. I was off to the side when a bunch of children came and sat down on two chairs beside me. The parents asked them if the chairs were comfortable. The children cheerfully answered, “yeeeeeeah!” The mother sat down on the chair and opined that they weren’t that comfortable, to which the little girl insisted “But, I think they’re comfortable!” I had to smile at that. I ended up getting a Billy bookcase as well as a couple of dishes, a Lazy Susan to give me better access to all of the spices I’ve got in the cupboard, and a couple of new pillows for the couch. Yeah, I’m currently reclined on the couch making use of the awesome new pillows. Anyway, I somehow managed to haul a 64 lb. flat-pack back up to my unit and assembled the bookcase it with ease. I placed the bookcase between the couch and the window. It looks appropriate there, but to be honest with it there my living room is now starting to look mildly crowded. No, it’s not horribly cramped yet, but it’s certainly cozy in here.

So, anyway, with the case assembled I finally headed over to visit my parents. Prior to gathering the textbooks, mom insisted that I tackle some piles of old bills and other papers. I agreed and brought the shredder up to my room. As I was going through, I was simply shocked at how I had a tendency to horde things that had no use anymore. For example, why did I have pay stubs from 2002? Hanging onto them couldn’t possibly have had any value even two years after the fact, much less 8 years on. There were a couple of things that could have had some sentimental value, like some certificates from high school. Again though, why do I need a certificate saying that I passed grade 12 French? Bah. Old bills were well represented. Cell phone bills from 2003 were kind of interesting. Some of the envelopes had ads for phones that were coming out back then. As much as they’re outdated by today’s standards, back then they were amazing. In the end, I was able to shred 2.5 garbage bags full of old stuff. I honestly feel relieved to have all of that purged.

After shredding, and having a bit of dinner I finally got to the textbooks. I started bagging them, but was quickly overwhelmed by how heavy the books were. Perhaps unintuitively, those books were a heck of a lot heavier than the encyclopedia books I transferred two weeks ago. After stuffing a bag I tried carrying the thing on my shoulder. I swear, I felt like my shoulder was just going to break under all of the weight. Figuring that it would make my trek from the car to the elevator pretty miserable I decided to lighten the load and not bother to even attempt to get everything in one go; two bags of books was enough for today. Whatever I brought is already shelved and looking fancy. I think that’s one reason that I didn’t bother selling off all of my books back in university. As much as I could have made a few extra bucks I figured that the books would at least look good on a shelf. Some of these books are already almost a decade old. Crazy! Having these books in the living room kind of makes me feel like I’m projecting a slightly professional or tech minded persona. I wonder if anyone will be fooled? Hmm.