Okay, like many of you, I love books. And because I work with the Friends of the Library, I help sort donated books weekly. Which means I get first crack at buying wonderful books for a very nominal cost. So I bring home books weekly--to add to the collection of the many I already have.
But I want to re-decorate my office/guest room. And to paint, I need to move a bookcase filled to the brim with--you guessed it--books. Lots of wonderful, albeit dusty, books living in the rattan bookcase that's impossible to dust.
So over the last two days, I went through that bookcase, book by book. Made three stacks: keep, donate, discard. Worked really hard to keep the "keep" pile small.
Long story short, today I lugged, with help of DH, six large bags of books to the library. I donated them from whence they came. Full circle.
And that wonderful rattan bookcase--that major dust collector--is going to be donated to a local organization that helps addicts not be addicts any more. Maybe I won't be sneezing so much anymore with the dust collector gone?
The books I'm keeping will be moved downstairs to the living room, to the book cases that I also purged. I've reduced my book collection by two-thirds. I feel much, much lighter.
I love books, but there are new books coming in all the time. Going to do my best not to re-populate my shelves...
Did I read this observation here??: "Books are not trophies." That helped me a lot. Don't have prove I'm smart or cool just because I have a lot of books.