It all began when I tried to find the cook book with the Tortilla Soup recipe.  T. is going to cook it for us.  The book has vanished!

Tried the bookcase in the bedroom with the other unused food books.  That led to purging those that have never been used, those that disappointed, and a few borrowed volumes.  What a lot of linear inches of bare shelf there are now!

The germ of an idea sprouted:  What if I could eliminate the bedroom bookcase altogether?  Then I’d move the rehab bike into the bedroom space freed up by moving it.  That, in turn, would yield enough square footage in our activities room to accept  a projects table. Moving furniture from time to time is necessary for the health of the soul.

So I went to the bookcase in my office closet with the Bankers Boxes full of tax records on its shelves.  The statute has tolled, so the 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 tax receipts can be shredded.  Their  boxes are now stacked elsewhere awaiting processing.  We no longer need the old brokerage statements because the securities purchased long ago were also sold long ago.  There goes another box. 

I asked Spouser if we could live without our collection of printed  maps, some  of which are over 45 years old.  The Internet and Google Earth weren’t available when we did most of our trips, and our household simply did not throw away maps.  He agreed. We’re no longer back packing, so Wilderness maps can go.  Our most recent Sequoia National Forest brochure/map (massive thing!) was printed in 2001, so the two prior editions  can go.  We’re not going back to New England, or to Turkey, or to Glacier National Park, so that documentation is out.  Now another Banker’s Box is gone, plus three of the four map organizers on the top shelf. 

Right now that bookcase has two Bankers Boxes “visiting” until I get them shredded, plus one map holder, a two-hole punch, some canned air and my purse.

There’s another bookcase in the closet, as well.  It holds wooden crates that stored my quilting and exercise stuff. Most of the project materials were donated recently and today I emptied five of the eight boxes completely. One that’s still left has workout and swim stuff in it, and the other two have sewing projects that I intend to finish.

This brings us to the big bookcase in my office.  It’s six shelves high and double wide.  This is where stray books belong, but it took three Bankers Boxes to hold the volumes I purged to free up space.  It also took a full-sized leaf bag to contain the binder contents that went.  All that’s left is a core library for each remaining interest:  Natural History; Geology; sewing and applique (not quilting); Christianity; Drawing; a couple of shelves of computer books and software, and a couple of shelves of favorite books I can’t bear to part with.

I’ll find space for less-frequently-used cook books, too.  There’s a small library in the kitchen for the ones T. uses.

Tomorrow or sometime soon I plan to finish clearing the shelves on the bedroom bookcase and see about moving it out.