The

Undeniable

Ruth

®

…and the Ruth shall set you free!

  • Minimalism Project Update – Cleaning Out my CDs

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    Ruth Carter

    When I started systematically cleaning out my life last year, I got rid of a lot of the obvious clutter in my life. Now I’m going back through my possessions and asking myself what truly adds value to my current life. In the last few weeks, I cleaned out my CDs.

    My CD Binder
    My CD Binder

    Like a lot of people, I saved space in college by getting a CD binder and throwing out most of my jewel cases. I had a big binder – 26 pages, 8 CD slots per page – that was mostly filled with CDs I’ve acquired since high school. When I de-cluttered the house last year, I moved that binder from the top of the dresser into a drawer.  I also had two smaller CD cases that I used when I traveled.

    I suspect I haven’t purchased more than 10 CDs in the last 10 years. I certainly haven’t opened that binder since it went into a drawer over a year ago. I probably could have simply taken that binder and moved it to the pile of stuff to be donated to charity. But there was a voice in my head that was afraid that I might regret doing that and that there might be a song that hadn’t burned that I’d want to listen to later. (Because buying it on iTunes would be so expensive.) So I spent my downtime for the better part of a week going through my CD binder and burning CDs.

    Some of the CDs I used to Own
    Some of the CDs I used to Own

    When I first got iTunes, I went through my CDs and burned the songs I loved and enjoyed off each album. Unfortunately, when I put the CD into my computer last week, it didn’t tell me which songs had been previously burned, so I had to re-burn everything if I didn’t want to check what songs I downloaded previously. I probably wasted a lot of time burning songs I’ll never listen to, but by the end of the process, all the albums I wanted were burned into my computer and I had no trepidation giving the originals away.

    Burning a binder full of CDs takes a long time. I played a lot of solitaire during this process.

    My Current CD Collection Fits in Here
    My Current CD Collection Fits in Here

    My CD binder and two travel cases have been reduced to one travel case that holds up to 48 CDs – and it’s not even full. I have a CD player in my car and there are handful of albums I rotate through it. I also kept a couple of podcasts that I’ve burned to CDs that aren’t available iTunes anymore and the backing tracks that came with sheet music books. Everything I’ve kept are albums I regularly listen to and expect to continue to listen to in the future.

    Cleaning out my CDs allowed me to reclaim about half of a drawer. It doesn’t seem like much but every little bit of de-cluttering makes me feel that much more at peace.

    And since I know someone’s going to ask, here are my thoughts about the legalities of burning CDs and getting rid of the originals. A lot of minimalists suggest doing this.

  • How Could Anyone Not Love This Dog?

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    Ruth Carter

    My baby girl doesn’t cry. And by “baby girl” I mean my basset hound Rosie. Yes, she howls when the phone rings and she’ll bark when she gets excited, but she rarely cries.

    Rosie Bone
    Sweet Rosie

    Last week we were out for a walk and she walked through a patch of dirt and pebbles. She’s walked over this area many times before without any problems. Unbeknownst to us, a recent storm blew a bunch of dry stickers into the rocks and we didn’t realize it until she stepped in them. She didn’t make a sound, but picked up one of her back paws. It had at least five stickers in it. I removed them, and gently put her foot down on clear ground. I picked up each of paws and removed several stickers from each one. I pulled at least fifteen stickers out from her feet. She didn’t make a sound, not even when one of them drew blood. When her paws were sticker-free again, she looked up at me, turned around, and headed for home. She was done.

    Rosie almost never cries when she’s in pain. She didn’t cry when she pulled a muscle in her leg. She didn’t cry when she had valley fever. She didn’t cry when she had tumors in her gums that had to be surgically removed. She didn’t cry when she got a bug bite between her toes that had swelled up bigger than a nickel. It makes me wonder what her life was like before I adopted her and if she learned not to cry because she was punished when she did or because no one cared.

    I adopted Rosie from the Arizona Basset Hound Rescue a little over two years ago. She was four years old at the time. As the story was told to me, her first owner took good care of her. I have her AKC registration and her records that show she got a check-up every six months. Then something happen and he gave her away. Rosie ended up with someone who was neglectful for about six months. I don’t know all the details but I know by the time the Basset Rescue got her, one of her nails had grown so long it curled under her paw and was pushing into the pad of her foot. Her teeth were so bad she needed surgery.

    Sleepy Rosie
    Sleepy Rosie

    How could anyone treat my baby girl so badly? How could her first owner never check on her? I can’t let her go to the kennel for more than a few days without checking on her. Rosie is one of the sweetest dogs you’ll ever meet. Even people who aren’t fond of dogs in general love her. All she wants is to be loved.

    The other day I was getting Rosie’s dinner ready and I added a few bites of chicken to her kibble. She was sitting at my feet and I decided to see if she could catch a piece of chicken if I tossed it at her. I took a few steps back, got her attention, and gently lobbed a piece of chicken at her. Instead of trying to catch it, she cringed. It makes me sick to think that this reaction means that someone used to throw things at her.

    I hope Rosie’s forgotten what her life used to be like.  I try not to think about what it used to be like, because it makes me sad and disgusted.  I just try to give her the best life I can from now on. Few things make me smile faster than seeing that tail wag.

  • New Kicks!

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    Ruth Carter

    In my last post I talked about my latest running injury. Today, I’m going to share the culprit behind my pain – dead shoes.

    Here’s what I’ve learned in my short life as a runner from the staff at Runner’s Den and the physical therapists at Endurance Rehab – running shoes have a lifespan of about 400-500 miles. If you run particularly hard on your feet, it’ll be shorter. If you live conditions that are hard on your shoes, like the desert, it’ll be shorter.  And the soles of a pair of running shoes will rot in about a year even if you never wear them.

    Usually the tell-tale sign that I need new shoes is pain in the arch of my foot, but since I added SOLE insoles this year, my arches have held up really well and have been virtually pain free for months. When I started experiencing leg pain last month, my first thought wasn’t that my shoes had worn out, especially considering how fast it came on. With minimal improvement after 2 weeks of home treatment, I headed to Runner’s Den for their weekly injury clinic.

    Matt from Endurance Rehab confirmed the inflammation in my leg and speculated that my shoes were dead. Something was letting my arch roll in when I ran which pulled on my soleus and my post-tibialis, which caused the inflammation and pain.

    Nate at Runner’s Den confirmed that my shoes were dead. He popped out my insoles and easily bent them in half. Runner’s Den does a great job fitting people for shoes – they watch how you walk, talk about your specific needs, and make you run outside in every pair you try on. Nate noted that the wear pattern on my shoes looked really good so we probably had the right shoe for me. Even then, we tried on another type to confirm that we had the best shoe for my needs – the Asics GT-2000.

    My New Shoes
    My New Shoes – Asics GT-2000

    When it comes to running shoes, function surpasses fashion. I don’t care what color my shoes are as long as they work. And Runner’s Den usually carries my shoes in only one color. Last time, they had the GT-2000 in black, purple, and a touch of yellow. This time they had it in white, hot pink, and neon yellow.

    There is something about these white and hot pink shoes that make me smile.  They’re so happy. And I wanted to document how pretty they are because they won’t stay white for very long on my feet.

    I think there was something more than the color of my new shoes that made me happy. Buying something usually does not make me giddy, but these shoes did. And I think it’s because these shoes embody hope for me. Running pain-free in these shoes keeps me dream of running the marathon next year alive. It was hard sitting out the 2014 race with injuries and now that I’m so close to getting back into the training groove, I didn’t want to be sidelined again.

    I’m excited and optimistic about taking care of this injury and getting back to pounding pavement.