B is for Boxes and Books - Alphabe-Thursday

Boxes and books.

Those two words have been filling my brain for the past several days.

It all started on Monday night, when I walked up to our car at the train station.  Inside was my husband...and 55 boxes which he'd just picked up from U-Haul a few minutes earlier.

"Is someone moving?" I asked with a laugh.  Then I had to fold myself up and slide myself into the car.  Which wasn't easy since the seat was pushed pretty far up in order to accommodate those stupid boxes.  The situation wasn't so funny anymore.  Especially when Rob said "I just hope I don't have to brake suddenly", and I could only assume he was making reference to the fact that my forehead was inches away from the windshield.

Nope.  Not funny anymore.

And even less funny when we then had to unload all those boxes.  Hungry.  Cold.  Tired.  Sigh.

But we got them all in here and after chowing down on some reheated chicken and dumplings, we started packing in earnest.  Prior to the purchase of the boxes we used those we already had on hand - I saved a lot of the boxes that our shower and wedding gifts came in and just repacked their original contents.  Now, though, it was for real.  We had 55 boxes.

Which, after only packing cds, dvds and books, we realized would probably be far too few.  Time will tell on that one.

Rob packed the cds and movies.  I packed books.

Before I go any further, let me explain something in case you're unaware: I love to read.  And I love books.  What's more, I love OWNING books.  I love looking at my shelves and shelves of books and feeling...I don't know.  Accomplished, maybe? I never tried to put a name to the feeling before.  But there's definitely a sense of achievement when you look at books from when you were in your hoity-toity classic literature phase back in the late 90's, sitting next to the Twilight series and Harry Potter, and the hoity-toity historical and biographical books you're currently into.  You feel well-rounded.  Down-to-earth. 

Besides, I've always wanted to have a wall of bookshelves one day.  A small library, perhaps, overlooking my garden.  With a fireplace and a doggie who likes to nap at my feet or a kitty who likes to frolic and play with balls of yarn on the floor as I take an afternoon nap in my chair...

*shakes it off*

Anyway, here's just a small portion of what I was faced with when I sat down and rolled up my sleeves:

 

See, I was all neat and fine when I had enough room for them.  Eventually the chaos you see before you emerged.  There are books behind the books you see up front.  Stacked neatly.  The ones in front, well, I just kinda shoved them in when I was through with them and no matter how many times I told myself that I needed to sit down and at least make them look nice, it never happened.

So I started separating books into three categories: Books I wanted to keep in the attic, books I wanted to keep where I could lay my hands on them right away, and books to donate to goodwill.

At first this was totally traumatic.  I mean, hello! I love my books! I spent time building a collection which, by the way, included another 4 sets of shelves which went unphotographed.  How could I pick and choose which ones to abandon? It's like deciding which child you don't like and want to give away.  Who does that?

Turns out when you're faced with the proposition of spending yet MORE money on boxes to fill up your already limited attic space, choice becomes much easier.

There ended up being one small group of books which I had to admit I would never finish reading.  Like this one:

That beaut was purchased at some point during the aforementioned classic literature phase of the late 1900's.  And I'm sorry but never did I get more than a few pages into it.  Neither did Rob when he was feeling ambitious enough to give it a whirl.  I finally had to just give it up and admit defeat.  Into the "giveaway pile" it went.

Along with this went some Hemingway and a few others I don't even remember buying, and a couple of diet books (they're in the pictures above - can you spot them?) and some books that Rob didn't want any more.  Plus a few which made me go "eh" when I read them and weren't worth the effort of packing and hauling around.

Here's one I DID read:

I read it so hard, it broke in half.  Actually, I'm pretty certain its massive size caused it to break in half, but I still read it all the same.  I'm kinda proud of that.  Good book, too (and there's my understatement of the evening).

All in all I'd say we're donating between 3 and 4 dozen books.  Could I have left more than probably 3 dozen books behind? Yes, of course.

But I think enough has been asked of me in this endeavor, thankyouverymuch.

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