Drifting Off Into a World of Words

I think winter has finally arrived here in Montana, and part of me is excited. I had to laugh at myself for writing that because I would not have said the same thing last year. What makes this year different from last year is that I have a great car now, where last year, I didn’t. Last year I had to walk to work, sometimes in single-digit to below zero temperatures, and I had to walk back home, too. Sometimes I would get a ride from a friend, but that wasn’t a reliable option. This year, though, this year I have a car. I bought my 2004 Dodge Durango because she has 4WD and a V8 Hemi engine. She roars through these icy roads, and I feel safe and warm in there. I didn’t like having to brush the snow off my car and scrape the ice from my windows this morning, but that just comes with the territory. The beauty, though. Amazing.

I don’t want to write about my routines today, because it seems like that’s all I’m writing about. They’re important, though. Today was no different. In other news, my frames finally arrived. My posters look great in these beautiful wood frames, and I can’t wait to hang them up. I’m not entirely sure where they’re going yet, since I have to nail them to the wall, thus making my decision of where to hang them up a bit more important. I have plans to buy furniture, which greatly affects where I can put these posters. I have an idea, and tomorrow I’m going to measure out the wall to space them all out evenly. I’m very anal.

Lets talk more about the stuff that’s been on my mind. By stuff, I mean actual stuff. These are all just things I’m thinking about getting, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to get them. I started with that preface because what excited me this morning was the idea of buying a projector instead of a television. A television is big, clunky, and requires a whole other set of furniture to prop it up. I could mount it to the wall, but that’ll just ruin my wall and not save me much space. And don’t get me started on all the wires. A projector, though, is small. I can tuck it away in the corner somewhere and adjust the image to compensate. The image size will most definitely be bigger than a television, and the quality about the same, depending on the brand. There’s one projector I saw that has a wireless receiver that creates its own network, which means I can tuck that away somewhere and hook it up to any HDMI enabled devices I may want to get. I’ll have to buy a screen for the projector, too, which I’m totally okay with because of how minimal that’ll make my dream home entertainment setup. A small projector, a thin screen. That’s it. No big television, no clunky entertainment center. Minimal, practical, but expensive.

I want to buy a bookcase from Ikea when I drive down to California¹ because of all the books I’ve left behind. I want to buy a rug (maybe two) to decorate my home with, and I want to buy a couch. Those are the major furniture purchases I want to make. I want to buy a floor lamp, maybe some small wall lamps for ambient lighting, some plants, and frames for the pictures I want hang up once I buy the new camera I want. Yeah, there’s a camera, too. On my way to California, I want to take lots of pictures. Not just any type of picture, though, a good, high-quality one, one I would be proud to display on my walls. And since it’ll be my first road trip, I want to document that journey in a beautiful way. I won’t buy all this stuff at once; hell, some of this stuff may not enter my life for months, but they’re stuff I’ve been thinking about getting for a long time, and I think they’ll make me happier.

Even though I don’t consider myself a minimalist anymore, I do consider myself someone who doesn’t buy things just to buy things. I have a purpose for every item I allow to enter my life. I used to be so concerned about the quantity of my possessions and never about the lack of quality that brought to my life. Things, even though they’re just things, are the little details that make life more pleasant to live.

When I come home from work, I want to just melt into my couch, grab a book from my bookcase, turn on that floor lamp, and just drift off into a world of words.