My husband and I are in the middle of moving and earlier this week I was sorting through the many (hundreds of) books we had just sort of piled and stacked and backfilled all around our home, because the bookcases were already jammed tight and the shelves were bowing under the weight. We had a team of movers coming in to do the packing, but 1) I wanted most of the books to be at least kinda-sorta stacked up near other books of the same subject or genre, in hope that like books would possibly end up in the same box together, and 2) I needed to sort out the pitifully few books we could take with us for more immediate reading, and the very slightly larger number we were shipping up separately.

(We don't have a place ready to move into in Seattle yet. We're in a hotel right now, taking care of last minute cleaning/repair type tasks on our old place, then we'll be flying up and living in another hotel [if it looks like we'll be able to close on the townhouse we're buying within a couple of weeks:] or in an apartment [if it looks like it might stretch out for a month or two:]. My husband's employer is paying for the move, but the bulk of our possessions will be in storage while we're in temporary quarters, so all we'll have for possibly a couple of months is what we can carry on a plane, plus the two boxes we shipped.)

Anyway, so I was going through books trying to do a rough sort stack-by-stack, and choose what I'd want for the next couple of months. Books are incredibly distracting, though -- has anyone else noticed that? I'd come across something ande think, "Hey, I remember that! It was great!" and start paging through it. Or I'd pick up one with a bookmark in it (from however many years ago when I put it down) and read a few pages around the bookmarked spot, trying to remember what was going on and figure out whether it was worth trying again, and if so whether I'd have to start over or would be able to pick up where I'd left off. Or I'd dig up something I'd forgotten I had but had been thinking I wanted to buy (I've acquired a number of duplicates this way [cough:]) and in my euphoria of "Cool, I already have this!" I'd start reading and... well, there you go.

As you've probably guessed by now, I didn't get through anywhere near as much sorting and organizing as I'd intended. :/ Most of the books from the living room got packed as they lay, and I'm pretty sure my duplicate-discard stack from the library, which I'd intended to move to the Goodwill pile, got packed instead.

I'm sure they have Goodwill in Seattle, so it's not a major crisis. We'll just have a little more sorting to do when we finally move into a permanent place; I don't imagine it'll add significantly to the total amount of time and effort we'll be putting in getting the new place set up.

And this time we're lining every blank wall with bookcases, first thing!

Angie, looking forward with great joy to a time when all her books are sorted and put away, which means findable and reachable whenever she wants them :)