A Recluttered Weekly Link Round-Up

I don't think "reclutter" is a word, but it should be. How many times have you worked your fingers to the bone cleaning for hours or even days only to have clutter start building up less than twenty-four hours after you've finished? A lot of men out there were not trained to pick up after themselves. However, I am happy to say that I slowly seem to be making progress with Denis. Baby steps, though-- baby steps! 

Pardon my holiday dust!

What brought up the subject of recluttering? Two things. One was an article written by a Swedish author about "death cleaning"-- thinking about your impending death while cleaning to prevent becoming a packrat. Yes, it sounds morbid, but it makes sense. I know this because I've had to do the death cleaning for my grandparents and my mother, and none of it was pretty. It was overwhelming, and I won't even go into the secrets I learned that I would've preferred to remain hidden. 

So... for quite a while now I've done my own version of death cleaning, not knowing that that is what it's called in Sweden. I keep downsizing things to make it easier for the people who will be responsible for dealing with all my cherishables. (I think I just invented another word....)

The other thing that made me think about recluttering is a conversation I had with my friend Virginia when we met at The Poisoned Pen to see John Sandford and Joe Ide. She wanted to know if I would be decorating for Christmas this year because she and other blog readers always looked forward to my Christmas photos. I've been downsizing there, too. We used to rent a large storage unit to hold all my Christmas decorations. Now everything is here on the property-- the majority out in the shed because Denis has been downsizing, too. I'm just about to get the house all cleaned up only to reclutter it again with all the storage containers for Christmas decorations. That is... if my present mood holds. Virginia said that she thought it would be extremely time-consuming to take all the decorations down and put them away. Believe it or not, that's the easy part. The hard part is putting all the stuff up, especially since I've gotten into the bad habit of breaking things the past few years.

Regardless what I do, I'd better stop yakking and hotfoot it out to the corral. Those links are definitely sounding miffed! Head 'em up! Mooooooooove 'em out!

 

►Books, Movies & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• A yearly reading challenge just might be the most beneficial bookish goal you can make. 
• Ernest Hemingway's first work of fiction (which he wrote at age ten) has been found...in a freezer bag. 
• An exhibit sheds new light on Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party.
• Jane Squire and the Longitude Wars.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• The excavation of the Antikythera shipwreck has recovered a priceless bronze arm from the ancient Greek wreckage. Here's another article from PBS.
• Archaeologists have found a 4,000-year-old obelisk near Cairo.
• The discovery of the long-lost ship Macumba has ended a 74-year-old mystery. 
• An 1,800-year-old pet cemetery filled with one hundred skeletons has been discovered in Egypt.
• The analysis of ancient human remains in Russia shows that humans knew not to have sex with their relatives 34,000 years ago.

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• Which bird is the fastest runner?
• Ajax is an amazing dog that helps to save endangered parrots in New Zealand. 
• This stunning video captures humpback whales catching fish with nets of bubbles. 
• Sooty bird feathers reveal a century of coal emissions history.

►The Happy Wanderer◄

• Canyons and valleys: striking landscapes around the world.
• An irreverently honest literary tour of New Orleans. 
• Eight places to see amazing fall foliage outside of New England. 
• Rancho de la Osa might be Arizona's most historic place. 
• You'll love visiting Arizona's seven most notorious ghost towns. (I've been to four of the seven and was close to a fifth. We've also taken a couple of our English nieces to two or three on the list.)

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Read your way through Italy: thirteen books to take you from Venice to Sicily.
• Nordic Noir: The ten best books to get to know the genre.
• Forty of the creepiest book covers of all time. (And when they say creepy, they mean creepy!) 
• The top ten brothers and sisters in fiction.
• Sixteen of Truman Capote's fiercest insults.
• Fifteen fantastic J.R.R. Tolkien-isms to live by.
• Beyond boring bookshelves: fifteen cool new ways to store your books. There are some interesting storage pieces in this article, but don't you just have to smile at the "boring bookshelves" bit? As if bookshelves could ever be boring!
• The top ten human-animal relationships in literature.

That's all for this week! Don't forget to stop by next Friday when I'll be sharing a freshly selected batch of links for your surfing pleasure.

Have a great weekend, and read something fabulous!