TELEPHONE BOOKS KEPT ME WARM.

It was cold all day yesterday. The night-time temperature sunk to 36* Brrrr!  I have wood, but I was too busy with inside projects to venture out into the cold and breezy weather to haul in an armload of wood. I read about a guy who rolled up magazines and kept his house warm with them and cardboard and junk mail. Hmm!  I grabbed four old phone books and twigs from the back deck, some cereal boxes from the recycle, lit a fire that did warm up the house enough to keep the chill off, along with papers that were meant to be shredded. The propane heater went on once. Passive solar worked well by mid afternoon.

You know that collectiholics are incurable. And, if we have two of something, a little spring goes off in the brain and...whatta ya know? A catalog collection. I have an explanation of how this can happen. We lived off the land in a remote location when I was young and catalogs were the most appealing thing we had in our old log cabin. They were paper dolls, color, tracing material, cut and paste, reading material and the wish books of Christmas were the stuff of childhood dreams. Then, as an adult I'd read with humor excerpts from even older catalogs.  Dr J. Hostetters Stomach Bitters. Ida Wheelers Ladies corsets, guaranteed to give you a 20 inch waistline. Benjamins Rheumatism Cure. The pictures were hilarious and the cures such obvious shams. Catalogs had funny parts and tools and implements and inventions we never knew existed.

Then, I coveted various "little" mail order catalogs. Don't ask me why. These I'm tossing. The big ones I'm offering free on Craigslist before tossing. Downsizing is turning into a lot of fun. This morning, I got an email from someone who wants my first day covers stamp collection that I placed in the free section 16 days ago. Yay!

This morning, I gathered wood and brought it in. The last papers I put into the stove last night were still smoldering, but I won't be burning catalogs.