is apparently the first way to get over it. Well I do have a problem bloggers. Spending.
I'm guessing it is usual for a girl of my age to be spending more than their fair share in shops but I envisage that by that it means a bit of retail therapy. And by retail therapy I mean clothes, shoes and bags. Well I haven't bought a single item to add to my lacklustre wardrobe since my extravagant expenditure on my boots at Christmas (I just wanted dry feet!). Instead I have lost pounds and pounds on books, games and more books.
This is the life of a non-student.
I've discussed the fact that I seem to spend far too much on games but lately this has spread to my need to buy every book that's going. Partly this isn't my fault (I try to tell myself anyway). I'm used to buying books left, right and centre from the moment I could read and appreciate that a good new book with that new book smell was a far greater purchase than loaning one from the library and dealing with those delightful yellow mysterious stains on each page. [Those that have read Mr Bean's book will appreciate what I mean...]. Since that moment I have more space dedicated to books than my actual living space. In fact I've got so many of them my parents devilishly exported some of them up to my grans house while I was away hoping that I'd not notice. Well I did. And ever since I've been buying new books to replace the old ones. But it seems that my greatest downfall is the Kindle (other e-readers are available).
The Kindle is a marvelous invention, made to fit a whole library on a small device the size of a book. It also offers many many free and cheap books, all heavily cut down from the original retail selling price simply because they've been wonderfully digitalised and can be made available to us at a touch of a button. This doesn't help an avid reader like me who is also seemingly prone to throw away money at any old thing. And this last sentence is a true statement (an author added me on Twitter and I almost immediately bought his book before realising how irrational that was...but that's a tip for other authors out there - advertising on social networking sites do actually work!)
Due to this necessity to spend, spend, and spend on books (seriously my mission is to read every book ever printed ... welll aside from textbooks and mathsy books because that's enough to give anyone a headache), I was forcibly reminded of my own mother. She used to spend hours in crafts stores looking at cross stitch patterns, leaving the shop only to come back later to buy something. After I'd had enough of all this standing looking aimlessly at some pretty coloured thread for a few years...I began to think that she never has time to do all them. In fact all she does is, at the time, work, do the tea, then collapse on the couch whilst trying to watch TV. Even in her weekends she didn't do anything. She'd maybe do 15 minutes here and there before dozing (to be fair that would have the same effect on me too). So I finally piped up as every young inquistive child (read: brat) does...I questioned it.
"Mam, why do you keep buying all these when you don't have time".
"It's all part of my 10 year retirement plan" She replied whilst burrowing through another line of patterns.
"But you haven't even finished the one you're on and you've been doing it for years".
"Go and find your dad".
And so I was dismissed. But now I quite understand her. Apart from noting the glaring genetic resemblance to my mother in that respect, I can see where she's coming from.
Perhaps I'm saving all these books for a rainy day when I have oodles of time to sit back and relax. Or for when I, too, retire (in more than 40 years...). Or maybe I do have a problem and need to go cold turkey on looking at deals and interesting books....
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