Wednesday is gob-smacked day!

I had an amazing day today - and one that I was not expecting at all. I was at my friend's house who are storing my things, and books in their house - minding their kids while they helped a mutual friend pack and move to their brand new home.

Now, my friend had packed up the books in two of the bookcases - because she's been inspired to install her own - an Expedit 4x4 in the same space. And she asked me to sort through the boxes of books for what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to get rid of. She has a huge long and wide hall and all but 3 of my bookcases are in the hallway.

She and her husband were gone from the house for about 4-5 hours. I spent the whole 4-5 hours going through not just the books in the boxes, but all the books in the bookcases and sorted them into the two bookcases I'm going to keep. At the end of the time, I was about 75-80% through and discovered that I can actually do this! I'm gob-smacked! I was totally without Ruth, and just chose the books that I actually used (in the case of music, cooking) or had re-read many times, and would miss if I didn't have them.

What I discovered was that I had books by authors that I had bought because I'd liked 2-3 of their books (e.g. Anne McCaffery) but the others I'd read only once and had no intention of reading again. So they were put into the get rid of book case. It was a real process of letting go of being a completist.

I had other books that were sentimental - a whole set of Poldark books that I adored as a young teen and that my mum had given me, read them many, many times but not in the last 20 years. They went too.

When it got too much, I went and played with the kids for a few minutes then came back to it.

I'm excited to say that I actually have done something that even as recently as last night thought that I couldn't have done without heartache - I've culled my books!

Wow!