MAGICAL TIDYING UPDATE #2: BOOKS

It's time for another magical tidying update!  (1st Post, 1st Update) It is helpful to make myself write about this, because it does keep me motivated to keep going.  I'm learning a lot through this massive purge.  I can see that this magical tidying process may take me about six months, because there is this thing called real life that I have to do in the meantime.  Also- I only have so much tidying energy, and I am realizing that I need to allocate a bit more of that to regular tidying so that our main living areas don't become pig-sty-esque in the process.

I did finish all clothing and personal items for both myself and the kiddos.  Thankfully, their bathroom was pretty sparse on stuff, so it didn't take too long.  I go through their closets every six months, so there were not a ton of excess clothes, but our costume stash was out of control and that is now fixed.  I have tubs in the attic with each size of clothing, and it is nice to be able to eliminate some completely as Violet out grows the girl stuff, since she is very likely the last girl.

The next recommended category is books, so I tackled our largest storage space for those - a shelf in our guest bedroom.  Here's what it looked like when I started.

I took out every single book and was amazed at how many I had never read or will never read.  The truth is, I read voraciously, but it is almost always on a device.  That works better for me, and so, while most of these books are not obsolete in content for me, the reality is that I will likely not ever pick up most of them and neither will John.  With that in mind, I was able to get rid of quite a few which are pictured below.



I did keep beloved classics, and I also kept a generous amount of children's books that I hope our kiddos will be able to enjoy in the near(ish) future.  I don't have an after shot of the bookshelf yet, because it is still in disarray.  I haven't been back down to straighten it up.  I'm also planning on grouping media into this book category and getting rid of any movies/CDs/games that we just don't use.

Going through every little thing we own is really enlightening.  I get to see so much of our journey and what made us who we are.  The books we had collected were perfect examples of this.  So many of them were from college and though I'm not going to re-read them, I am thankful for the words that have impacted my life and shaped my world view.  The bookshelf was like a trip down memory lane, and that collection of books will never stand together again.  There is a bit of sadness in that, but I feel lighter knowing what I have and knowing that I genuinely want the things that I kept.