Getting ready to move
06/13/2012 09:38
I’m spending a lot of time in a coffee-shop, writing. But we’re also preparing to move halfway across the country in just about a month. So last night I transferred my school books from the shelves in my study into boxes. An even dozen bankers boxes – because that was the biggest box full of books I wanted to carry. A dozen (the two on the left are from the kids’ room).
When we arrived in New England
a little over four years ago, I had about as many books as I could fit in a backpack (okay, I did keep my original boxed set of The Lord of the Rings that I read as a kid). My previous collection had been liquidated when we went to Chile, through selling on Amazon and giving books away. So this pile of books is the result of just four years of acquisition. Dang!
In my defense, most of the books on these shelves are history, and I have been getting a PhD, which involves a little reading. It could have been much worse: I’d have accumulated twice as many if I had actually bought every volume I read. And lately, I’ve read dozens of books on Kindle. Those don’t take up shelf-space, either.
I should probably get rid of some of these, but I suspect there’s material in them that I haven’t dealt with yet. As I recently found, rereading a text I’d powered through for my Comps, there’s a lot more to find when you have more time and a wider focus than preparing for Oral Exams. And more recently, I’ve added some books that are background to the writing projects I’m doing. And others that are practical, how-to books for the move to the farm.
So I’m going to consider myself lucky they all fit into just a dozen medium-sized boxes. That will be more than enough to lug onto the truck and off again on the other end. Then there are those three big boxes of clothes…
In my defense, most of the books on these shelves are history, and I have been getting a PhD, which involves a little reading. It could have been much worse: I’d have accumulated twice as many if I had actually bought every volume I read. And lately, I’ve read dozens of books on Kindle. Those don’t take up shelf-space, either.
I should probably get rid of some of these, but I suspect there’s material in them that I haven’t dealt with yet. As I recently found, rereading a text I’d powered through for my Comps, there’s a lot more to find when you have more time and a wider focus than preparing for Oral Exams. And more recently, I’ve added some books that are background to the writing projects I’m doing. And others that are practical, how-to books for the move to the farm.
So I’m going to consider myself lucky they all fit into just a dozen medium-sized boxes. That will be more than enough to lug onto the truck and off again on the other end. Then there are those three big boxes of clothes…
