Serious Magazine Addiction

Hi! My name is Diana and I'm a magazine addict...

Not trying to make light of serious addictions, but my dear, sweet husband may argue that my addiction to magazines is quite the case study. To be fair (to myself), many publications that I receive are true trade publications that I get by free subscription for being employed in the design profession. Many others are offered at a professional rate (and I'm not one to turn down a bargain). But each month that passes finds me up to my derrierre in slick, glossy pages of decorating photos, images of beach houses and cottages, pictures of beautiful gardens and endless luscious recipes and food.

So several years ago, in an effort to hold on to the best of each publication, I started ripping out pages and painstakingly cutting out any inspirational images or any recipe that I thought sounded worth a try. Among them are flowers, seashells, jewelry, beautiful rooms, vegetables, and so on, and pasting them onto cardstock, creating my own version of scrapbooking. Nothing embellishes my pages, however, except for those sought-out special photos. They have become haphazard collages, sometimes grouped by theme or color. Sometimes they are categorized by room type, interior or exterior, etc. I have several pages devoted to doors alone! (Am I developing OCD?) I then put them in sheet protectors in a binder, to pull out and tack on my memo board when I need a spark of imagination.

And the recipes? In a binder, organized much like a cookbook, awaiting the day I find time to prepare them...and many I have prepared. I will share them here eventually.

The fact that this is a fairly time-consuming process that I go through each month does not deter me from continuing, but I have alllowed some subscriptions to lapse in an effort to try to manage my time a little more carefully. Maybe this will allow me to pursue some of the projects and cooking inspired by all of my clippings. However, I will NEVER give up my Coastal Living or Southern Living issues. Too much information that I don't want to miss.

Trying to be a responsible citizen (I'm no "treehugger"), I do recycle by sharing what is leftover with the assisted living center where my mother-in-law currently lives, as well as a clinic where my aunt works. If anyone has other recycling ideas, I would appreciate them.

So while my addiction will never be cured, maybe I can say I have it under control....sort of.