(Non) Minimalist Urges

It's not terrible to want things.... right?  I didn't think so!  Though my cluttered apartment is a constant nuisance to me and I am forever making donation trips to Goodwill, reorganizing, throwing away, etc.... I am also, conversely, always on the lookout to collect more interesting "necessary" things.  Yes, I have a tendency to sabotage myself.

This is most apparent when I make my donation trips to Goodwill, which happens to also be a bookstore.  Bookstores are my kryptonite (along with gluten).  I can't seem to enter one without exiting with a pile of books.  Some I haven't read yet, but many are ones I've already read and just want to have around because they were either SO GOOD (for example, the 7 books in the Death Gate Cycle, a sci-fi series that I will likely never re-read, but that I read so faithfully as a child that just looking at them sitting on my shelf fills me with happy memories) or so classic and meaningful (such as my copy of the Federalist Papers, the Apocrypha, Don Quixote, etc) that I feel they NEED to be present in my collection and I would feel like getting rid of them is a betrayal to the world of literature.

Or something.  I'm not the only one out there that places way too much importance on books, am I?

So, here are just a few of the books I want most right now!

 

Nothing inspires me like reading about people who push beyond their limits to meet and exceed their goals.  I've always loved reading/watching about the crazy achievements of athletes (even though I, myself, have always been about as athletic as a mound of mashed potatoes).  Now that I've decided to make running a habit and a hobby that will hopefully morph into a passion, reading about runners/running makes me feel super motivated to lace up.

Yes, I am an excessive over-planner.  No, I'm not pregnant, nor do I intend to be any time in the near future.  However, it's been on my mind a lot lately, and I figure that you can never be too ready for such a massive life-changing event, am I right??  Anyway, I've been doing a lot (a LOT) of research into the kind of birth experience I want, in terms of hospital vs. home (birth center, middle ground), natural vs. epidural (natural), etc, etc... I know, way too much planning before the fact.  But I do this this book will be an integral part of my research.  :-)

I love to cook.  My restless self doesn't always like to be stuck in the kitchen slaving away over a hot stove, though, so I need to make the most of my culinary escapades by making things that are DELISH!  This book is more like a dictionary, and contains lists of ingredients and spices and tells you what could be paired with what.  Apparently.  It sounds fascinating!  

And, because life isn't just about books, here's one other thing I would love to get my hands on:

 

A Garmin 305 GPS watch with heartrate monitor.  A runner's dream gadget.  Unfortunately, with a fairly scary pricetag (this particular watch goes for around $150, and the other more attractive Garmins are more like $300.  So, it's a pipe dream for now.  In the meantime I recently bought this Timex Ironman:

Which does just fine in terms of timing my laps.  It doesn't have GPS functionality, but since I go neither very far nor very fast for now, it works for me to map out my routes ahead of time.

Thanks to a work-related conference over the weekend, I'm on my 10th day in a row of working and I'm feeling the burnout.  The weekend can't get here soon enough.  Happy Thursday everyone!