Writing for Self-Discovery Exercise 1

I picked up a new book at the thrift store called Writing for Self-Discovery by Myra Schneider and John Killick.
It has exercises which I will be doing and posting on the blog as long as they don't get too personal.

The first exercise had you look around the room and pick one or two things in the room to write about. My two things aren't nearly as interesting as the examples they gave in the book but then, of course, I am not those people. Here is Exercise 1:

Our room is the usual mess. I try to keep it tidy but it seems to get away from me more often than not. It is mainly untidy because of the books. Piles of books. Why I have so many, I don’t know. Some of them I buy and never even use. Yet I keep them anyway thinking that someday they will come in handy.

They are mostly things that have to do with self sufficiency which is my passion. Books on wood carving, old time skills, gardening etc. Even the fiction books have something to do with self sufficiency. Apocalypse books, books about ancient people, all can be found in the piles in my room.

Not all of them are books however, some are magazines also dealing with self sufficiency. I seem to like magazines better as there are more of those.  Several of those have not been read either.  The unread ones are mostly the cooking ones. For some reason, I love to cook but tend to find all my recipes on the Internet now. Letting the search engine find my recipes instead of taking the time to look through a book myself. Another example of how lazy we as a people are getting.

The second thing I choose to write about in the room are candles.  There are a couple of big red pillar candles on the entertainment center.  I bought them for just a couple dollars at the thrift store.  I have only lit them once.  They sit there waiting for a power outage which will be their day to “shine”.

I have lots and lots of candles.  The power has been out too many times for me. Once it went out for 2 and a half days and I ran out of candles. I was re-melting wax trying to make more to see us through.  It is unlikely I will have to do that ever again with the stock of candles I have stored now. Not to mention the oil lamps and extra oil stored. It never hurts to be prepared.