Under "M" for "meant to be"...

In recent weeks, I've been feeling the need to use more text in my "hands-on" (ie "not digital") artwork. A lot of the pieces I've been drawn to lately have had text backgrounds as a base, and although I have a few zillion books in the house, none of them really seemed to be what I wanted. Finally, I decided that I needed a dictionary.

I have an odd thing with altering/recycling books. I actually feel sorry for the books, and guilty for "re-purposing" them. So finally I decided that it would be okay if I went to the Sally Ann and picked up a dirt-cheap dictionary there because a) it wouldn't cost much, and b) it would be "rescued".

(Yes, I know -- I'm weird.)

So today I decided that I would take my big bag of empty Diet Pepsi bottles to the recycling depot. I figured I'd get about three bucks for them, which should be plenty to take to Sally Ann. And, since I was gathering up the recycling, I picked up the cardboard and plastic from the kitchen, too.

Hubby, Piper and I headed off to the big blue containers in the grocery store parking lot, and I did my usual stuffing and sorting. I had just dusted off my hands when something lying on top of the next bin caught my eye. It was three hardcover books just lying there on top of the Paper bin. Evidently whoever had brought them wasn't sure if they were supposed to go in the bin, or, more likely, was hoping that someone else could find a use for them.

You bet I could!

So now I'm sitting here with a well-used three-volume set of Webster's Third New International Dictionary, printed in 1966. It's a smidge musty but really not bad; the bottom floor at the university library where I worked was much worse. I actually gave it the sniff test at the bin, much to the amusement of my fellow recyclers, and figured it would be just fine.

Hubby is convinced that I should give it to some poor child who might not have a dictionary, and when I tried to explain to him the whole "meant to be" concept, he did a decent impression of a cuckoo clock.

So now I can scan certain definitions, or pull out whole pages, 'til my heart's content. And I don't feel guilty at all because they were just sitting there waiting for me.

(Oh, and Hubby? Kids don't use printed dictionaries anymore. It's far too primitive for them. They use the Internet.)