The small March project should probably be reclassified as the "Holy crap where did all this stuff come from and why have I kept it all and how the heck am I supposed to make sense of all this" project. For starters, I have the five shelf bookcases, at least one in every room and every single one is at maximum capacity. Now this is really great, we are a devoted group of bibliophiles in my house, but honestly, things have gotten a bit out of hand. As much as I've loved "Goodnight Moon", "If I Ran The Circus" and the entire "If You Give A _____ A _____" series, it might be time to let go of them. You can NEVER just throw a book away, it seems fundamentally wrong somehow. I imagine a cadre of heavily armed librarians decending from zip lines, bursting through my windows and battering down the front door like some kind of literary SWAT team if I even think of tossing a book into the garbage, no matter what kind of shape it's in. Yes, this is the kind of thought that wakes me up at night. So, confronted with bookcases filled well beyond their natural capacity, what is a girl to do? Time for another of my now famous (infamous?) sorting undertakings. Again I am faced with a crucial decision, is this to be another stealth mission or do I involve the others? The last time I consulted with anyone other than the animals, it did not end well. However, your books become terribly important over time and I think a stealth mission would probably result in a peasant uprising around here. The benevolent dictator would fall.
With my post as president for life at stake, I have given each member of the household their own personal mission, guided but not dictated by yours truly. They each must reduce the contents of their own personal bookcase. They will be weeding out anything they no longer care to read or those that never piqued their interest. Obvious hand me down-able material will be utilized, everything else will be donated to either the library or the used bookstore. Thus avoiding an onslaught of disgruntled librarial professionals. This was an interesting afternoon, I got a real chance to see where my kids' interests have taken them and to see what has held onto them over the course of time. Andrew happily passed his "Goosebumps" books to his brother but held tight to "The Tale Of Desperaux" that he's had for at least four years. Charlie readily gave up the majority of his Dr. Seuss books but refused to part with "I Love You Forever". My beloved held onto every single "National Geographic" magazine we've ever gotten but dumped a couple of dozen Zane Grey's into the box. I think I was the worst offender today. I HATE getting rid of books, even if I haven't opened the pages for several years. There is a chance that someday I MIGHT want to read "The Flame And The Flower" again, you just never know. With the love and support of my family, their strength quietly filling me, I was able to sacrifice my extensive Kathleen E. Woodiwiss collection, some of the crappier Nora Roberts stuff and my second set of the John Jakes Kent family chronicles series (Charlie was scandalized the a book titled "The Bastard") among plenty of others. I also managed to get rid of a half dozen cookbooks that I've never made a single recipe from. I really need to stay out of the cookbook section when I'm hungry.
Step one is finished, the unruly books have been tamed and the used bookstore loves us. Next we tackle our movies...both VHS and DVD, this isn't going to be pretty, I can't feel it.
