The best laid plans as they say. I intended to get to my closets this week but my daughter got sick and wanted me close by so instead, I spent a full day sorting books.
I have a lot of books. I have books I own, books I lend and books I borrow. I have books on all the subjects I am interested in (there are many). Should I need to lay my hands on a particular book, it helps to have a clue where to find it. It also helps, if you wish to borrow a book, to have returned any previous lent book in good condition and in a timely manner. If you books aren’t organized, it is too easy to forget what you have.
I spent most of my time on the book shelves in the living room as Karen was ensconced on the sofa there. I was pleased to discover that I did such a good job the last time I tackled this job that it was pretty easy this time around. Here is what my shelves look like from the bottom up.
Shelf 1: bees, gardening, general preparedness
Shelf 2: herbal, foraging, wilderness, self-sufficiency memoirs
Shelf 3: poetry and spirituality,
Shelf 4: Large, self-made notebooks (my own preparedness notebooks, Mother Earth News magazine archives, household management
Shelf 5: a full shelf of really old gardening encyclopedias that I want to pass on but can’t get Bruce to apart with
Second case Shelf 1: psychology, home schooling, education
Shelf 2-3: novels, economics
Shelf 4: writing and public speaking, religion
Shelf 4: home maintenance and repair
I have lots of other bookcases in the house.The one in the kitchen has my cookbooks and food preservation materials. The garden room has children’s books, a lot of wildlife and natural history references as well as my homeschooling curriculum. Upstairs, the girls have their own bookcases. I keep all the series books there.
I found a couple of books I needed to return to their owners and a number that could be donated to either the sustainability library or to our town library. I also pulled out a few periodicals although not as many as in years past. I have just about stopped buying magazines. I can nearly always get what I want from the magazine rack at the sustainability library. More mainstream news is available at the library. It seems a waste of both financial and world resources for me to purchase magazines designed for a single read. When I do find an article that I want to have on hand, it is easy enough to copy it and put it in a binder. I have good luck with putting articles in plastic sleeves first. I had picked up a box of those at the dump one day. They have come in really handy.
I spent yesterday on the sofa myself, suffering from the same stomach woes as my daughter. I watched more coverage than was healthy of the earthquake as a result. It is truly horrible stuff. At one point, I could not look another second and switched over to HGTV, my go to station when I need to escape. They were showing a segment called House Hunters, international. A couple was looking for a second home in Santo Domingo. They found one they liked but were unhappy with the pool area because it could not be accessed from the bedroom without walking down 4 steps. I am not making this up. They really complained about those stairs. The juxtaposition was pretty remarkable.
January 15, 2010 at 9:52 am
I love HGTV! House Hunters International is one of my fav’s. It is so interesting to see how they live in other countries. I get a kick out of some of these people who are used to McMansions and the stainless appliances and the Marble and granite and walk in closets. They expect to find that everywhere. Spoiled Brats they are!
I love to see the small spaces that people have to live in (especially in Japan) and how they manage to make it comfortable and workable. Lots of lessons in living a simple life there!!
January 15, 2010 at 10:14 am
We haven’t had cable TV since 1994, and the only channels I’d be willing to pay for, could I purchase them a la carte, are the home design and cooking channels. Sigh. Then I consider how many thousands of dollars we’ve saved in those years, and I feel better. Thinking about one of your recent columns, I’d have difficulty living without coffee and red wine in a crisis, but I wouldn’t miss a beat if the TV flickered and died.
My background is in Art History, so a lot of my books are HUGE (but beautiful) and I can’t let them go. I often stack them near a chair and use them as a de facto side table for a cup of tea. I too clip/copy articles from magazines and keep them in files labeled “Good Ideas,” “Growing Things,” and “Great Recipes.” If I haven’t used the clipping within a year, out it goes.
I hope you feel better!
January 15, 2010 at 10:45 am
When I was laid up with a pile of broken bones after an accident 4 years ago, I could not read or write or even use the computer. HGTV was my mainstay as I could not concentrate on even a short movie. The bad news was that I found myself craving some of the things I saw, even things I did not know existed until then. Fortunately, I recovered and got back to real life. Too many people think that IS real life.
January 15, 2010 at 11:52 am
Off topic but important. Due to so many cold related pipe breakage, water districts are unable to maintain adequate pressure and water delivery. I anticipate emergency designation and FEMA involvement.
January 15, 2010 at 1:28 pm
to Helen: You mean the water problems are here somewhere in the US right? i didn’t think you were referring to Haiti.
thanks, Shamba
January 15, 2010 at 4:24 pm
I have too many books! (Ha! no such thing)…I recently succumbed to the lure of an ebook reader in hopes that I can collect e-books instead. Hubby needs to build me a big new book shelf to put up some of the rest of my books still.
January 15, 2010 at 10:15 pm
We just purchased a new bookshelf last month and I had the joy of reorganizing everything on the new larger shelf unit and rearranging things on the smaller ones. In past years I had many more books and donated a full pickup truck load to the local library a few years ago, thinking I could just go check them out when I wanted them again. Little did I know I’d remarry and move quite far away from that library system. LOL I find it a lot harder now to get rid of books than I used to.
I’ve been tempted by an e-book reader too, for the same space issue. Still trying to decide – I love how much they hold and that the e-books are affordable, but there’s just something about having a “real” book – to have and to hold, as it were.
January 16, 2010 at 11:27 am
Melonie – I agree that holding a real book is so special, however, given the space and the lower cost of ebooks, I think it’s a reasonable trade off. Plus, my ebooks won’t ever get water damage or have to be donated if we were to move. I can get more self help books that I would have waited on also.