LibraryThing.com

It took me a while, but I finally have started to catalog my books. I'm beginning with the free 200 LibraryThing.com allows, but I'm afraid I'll have to become a lifetime member, because I have at least 1000+ books at home. What riches!

Book Review of _It's All Too Much_ by Peter Walsh

I posted my review of Walsh's book about decluttering on my stretcher blog:

http://www.stretcher.com/blogs/bookbuzz.cfm

I've been spending a lot of time decluttering and it's amazing how it makes you feel. You have to be brutal but in the end it pays off. You feel like a new person in your fresh new surroundings.

My biggest bugaboos are books, papers and catalogs. I signed up for

http://www.catalogchoice.org/

and that worked like a charm for the unwanted catalog problem.

I've already opted out of junk mail at

https://www.dmachoice.org/MPS/proto1.php

but the junk mailers have found ways around it like making up new names for me and sending me offers. Now I'm getting offers sent to my married name, which I've never used.

And while I'm on that subject, what's with the obsession of adopting a married name?
It really disrupts your life and is totally unnecessary. Some young girls still seem to be under the impression that it's a legal obligation, which is not true. I agree with Suze Orman on this issue: changing your name does dilute your identity. There are women who have been married several times who don't even know what name to use anymore and have kids with various last names (so much for the argument that you have to change your name so your child won't be "confused.")

I don't exactly love my last name but it's the name I was born with and it's the name I'm going to die with, as far as I'm concerned. I am what I am.

And if anyone wants you to change your name against your will, I'd say--question their motives, because it's an indefensible position to take and doesn't bode well for the rest of their reasoning.
Do you really want to marry someone who doesn't make any sense?

Some people seem to think it's a testament to love to take someone else's name; to that nonsensical argument I say, love the man, not the name.

Most of the women I know who surrendered their last names upon marrying now regret it, for many reasons.

It seems like a little thing in the beginning but it's one of those seemingly small concessions that should never be made. The importance of a name cannot be quantified.