James and I went downstairs after Jeopardy last night, and while he continued to put his room in shape, shelving all his reference books there, I continued to shelve in the main portion. Emptied at least ten boxes, maybe more. (I long for more than three hours to work. I just get started and ::whap!:: it's time for bed because it's a work night.) The Christmas books are finally all found and shelved. How three shelves of books became four-and-a-half I don't know (well, okay, the paperbacks were doubled back on themselves and some smaller books were shelved sideways over other books, but yeesh). The mainstream novels are shelved. Most of the science fiction hardbacks are shelved. All of the humor books are shelved, although not arranged well. The history bookcase is all but one shelf full. I'm not sure whether to put the household care books below the humor books, or switch the travel books to that space and place the household care books under the the biographies, where they will be next to the survival and money books.

I'm going to put the linguistics books back into the bookcase they were originally stored in, even though they were overflowing. I can probably make a little space by putting the Richard Lederer "Anguished English" type books with the humor books, as that's what they are. I need a few of the reference books upstairs, including the big World Book dictionary and the atlas (I need a new atlas; mine is from the 70s—a lot of countries just aren't there anymore. <g> ). So maybe they won't overflow quite so much, since I did get rid of several before the move.

Once I shelve the linguistics books we can move the two dark bookcases against the wall and James can fill them with his military and aviation history books. We have one more large bookcase left, but it's pretty ratty. I'm all for getting rid of it.

Next we have to decide what to do about the paperbacks. James has a huge paperback bookcase and I have three smaller ones, one of which I hate and do not want to use. (I have built the three paperback bookcases myself. At that time only Home Depot was in the area to purchase lumber from. I needed a new paperback bookcase badly, but all the boards Home Depot had were so dirty, even when I picked them over, that I had to paint this particular bookcase rather than stain it and here ten years later the books still stick to the paint when it gets humid in the summer!) There is only one place for James' big paperback bookcase, and that is on the wall leading to the bathroom, where it could slightly obstruct the door because the downstairs thermostat is in the library and is practically in the middle of the wall (why do they do things like that?) and the bookcase would have to go to the right of it.

Trouble is, that is the wall I wanted to leave "blank" for the old computer (so when we have a party and the kids are bored, they can go downstairs and play a computer game) or a small stereo, leaving the bathroom door clear. What I'd like to do is get two more "Billys," with two extra shelves each (and perhaps the top extension). That would make eight (or nine) shelves instead of six and there might be a chance of fitting all his in one and all mine in another, especially if we double stacked (which I really don't want to do but could be persuaded to do as a temporary fix). (It's also possible to cull some. I've already taken the television-nonfiction books upstairs to put in the media bookcase. The history paperbacks can go in the history bookshelf. I could probably get rid of a few more series that the library now has, like Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody books, but most of the paperbacks I have are not in libraries and I wouldn't want to get rid of them.)

So it looks like for now the paperbacks will remain in boxes until we figure out something.

That will leave the miscellaneous stuff, James records, the fanzines, the three boxes of APAs, the decorating magazines, and the Best of British and Reminisce issues. The decorating magazines can go up in my craft room. Not sure what to do with the APAzines, Myriad and 500 Year Diary. We probably are not going to read them again, but since the issues hold a nice chronicle of our own doings in the past (including the infamous epic "The Terrifying Tale of the Mortgage from Hell"), the temptation is to take our own stuff out and toss the rest. Dunno.

The papasan chair is now nestled against the window and supplied with a couple of pillows and a fleece. Next to it will be a table and a lamp. Once we find the brackets for the curtain rod we can put the curtains up. Then we can do some spot decorating on the tops of the shelves: some air/spacecraft and/or rockets, some stuffed animals. It will be really cozy in the end.

"End" is the operative word I want to see. :-)

Of course then it will be time to finish arranging the spare room (decide on which dresser to keep, probably the larger one). Soon we can have company (waves to Mom Young, Candy, Nicki, and also Shari)!

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. . . . . Linda at 9:23:00 AM

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