Back in Savannah, where I had a townhouse filled with bookshelves and still had piles of tomes all over the place, I used to wonder  how much more insane things would be if I could go to used bookstores instead of having to buy everything new.

Well, I’ve found out. Since arriving in Colorado, I’ve discovered the joys of shopping at thrift stores, where prices are cheap and the desert climate keeps most of that pesky mold (to which I’m crazily allergic, hence the moratorium on used bookstores, which tend to smell pervasively of aforementioned mold) at bay.

Compounding the problem–if it IS a problem–are two things: one, instead of having a whole townhouse to myself, I have a bedroom and part of a basement, and the books spill out into various other bedrooms and the hallway. And two, I have also discovered the joys of book-swapping online via BookMooch, my new favorite website. I like it not just for the books, but also because it’s set up to enable personal interaction between readers, unlike some other sites I’ve checked out. Many people are very friendly, and I’ve had some fun chats with people all over the world.

Of course, having approached both thrift-store shopping and book-swapping with a characteristic extremism, I now need to slow down. I have enough summer reading to last for…oh…fifteen summers or so. Peter Walsh, who is my organization guru*, says you should limit the number of books you buy to the number of bookshelves you own. He says the solution is not to buy more bookshelves (or storage units for other items of which you have too many) but to limit yourself. I think the ship sailed on that one sometime during my mid-teens, though, and while Peter Walsh’s advice has been extremely helpful for me overall–resulting in car trunks full of stuff I intended to “someday” use being donated instead to the local Goodwill–I have to differ with him on this one. The solution is not to get rid of my books. The solution is to somehow make enough money to afford a house large enough to hold enough bookshelves.

Now that the semester’s over, grades are in, and I’ve had some time to recuperate**, I plan to blog more frequently. I should have updates soon on writing, as well as some reviews of books I’ve read lately.

 

* Although the surface of my life shows no improvement in clutter and organization, Peter Walsh’s advice really has made a difference in multiple areas. I’ve gotten rid of a lot of things–as I said, I’ve filled the trunk of my car numerous times with donations–because of his advice. I refer to his book It’s All too Much every six months or so. Considering that this time around, I had to move a stack of books to get to his, I probably need to refer to it even more often….

**The day after I handed in grades, I celebrated by getting a pedicure with my sister-in-law in the morning (and boy, did they have to pry me out of that massage chair afterward!) and taking my nephew to the zoo in the afternoon. His new favorites are the “big lellow snake” (the albino Burmese python, which was more active than I’ve ever seen it) and the “dragon” (Komodo dragon). He also confided that “I like the hippos a lot.” That’s mostly because they were outside and quiet, but we’ll take it. The Komodo dragon and Burmese python are right next to each other, which worked well because most of our visit was spent bouncing back and forth between the two. And the hippos are in the same building, with the gorillas and orangutans a short walk away (a short walk that we made three or four times). My nephew is in the “Why?” phase, which is kind of fun, although I find myself censoring certain information that probably isn’t age-appropriate and talking about Disney characters instead, which I swore I’d never do (“Look! It’s Nemo! And there’s Rafiki…”). He gets so excited by everything, though, so absolutely thrilled with this crazy world he’s inhabiting and exploring, that a little Disney referencing is a small price to pay.