We spent the two last week rearranging our upstairs in order to give our girls their own bedrooms. They have shared a room their entire lives. In general, it has worked well and they have gotten along. But with both girls taking college classes and working, they are often on different schedules. One will be getting up early to go to work and the other one wants to sleep in because she stayed up late studying or getting stuff done. We had the space, so it was time to rearrange things.
We pretty much moved the entire upstairs switching out bedrooms and moving my husband’s office. In the process, we moved seven bookshelves. Yes, seven. Three of which are floor to ceiling custom built ones. After moving all those books and shelves, I have decided that 15 years of homeschooling and a family of readers means we might have a few too many books. It is time to get rid of some.
I donated four boxes of books to a local group that runs a fundraising book sale. I also set aside a huge stack of books, including some cookbooks, to do some fun giveaways for email subscribers soon.
Anyone else have too many books? I know there really isn’t such a thing as too many books, but there is such a thing as too many books for the space you have. I think I may have hit that point, but deciding which books to get rid of is always so hard!
My food find of the week was the Fire Roasted Sweet Potatoes from Canadian Farms. I loved them! I thought they were better than most of the frozen sweet potato fries that I have tried. I served them with eggs and Canadian bacon for an easy breakfast for dinner one night. I will definitely be buying these again. And that is totally not sponsored. I am just sharing a product that I tried and loved.
If you are gluten free and are on Instagram be sure to follow GF Kitchen Adventures. I share all kinds of quick and easy gluten free meal ideas over there.
I have already had several readers tell me how much they enjoyed the cornbread cookies that I shared earlier this week. If you haven’t tried them you need to. They go perfectly with a bowl of soup or chili.
I had a conversation the other day with a friend. We were discussing the picture perfect life that is often portrayed online and in social media. So often though life is not picture perfect. We like to portray it that way, but it isn’t.
Sometimes life is crazy and discouraging. And in the middle of that craziness you just have to step back, take a deep breath, relax, and realize that it will all be okay in the end.
Reading has often been my escape. The way I step back and take a deep breath. There were times this week, in the craziness of this non perfect life, that I needed to do just that. A stack of books, encouraging words, and homemade chocolate candy were just what I needed to make it through this week.
If you are curious what I have been reading, I just added a complete list of the books I have read in 2017 to our book site. I will update it as I read throughout the year. If you love books and reading be sure to follow along.
On my plan for the weekend is family pizza and movie night, homemade microwave pudding, cleaning house, and reading.
And next week I am going to be sharing this delicious breakfast cake! Yes, you can eat cake for breakfast! I can’t wait to share the recipe.
I hope you have a great weekend!
As a conservative estimate, we have given away several thousand books in all the moves we have made. The last three moves alone, we donated nearly a thousand books to the libraries in our area, and put boxes on the curb. Those disappeared fast. I wish I had never given away my Southern Living or Taste Of Home yearbooks, and I will never be able to get all of my Agatha Christie books again at the price I once paid to buy them new! Those hardcovers were cheaper than the Kindle prices now. In the last move my daughter threw away all of my Christie books after I told her those were staying! Oh well. Kindle takes less space, and I was never going to reread all of them anyway, so it wasn’t such a bad thing. I have three bookcases instead of eight, and most of the new purchases are on Kindle. It’s easer to physically move three hundred books than three thousand, and the thousand I have on Kindle are even easier, although I did recently delete a hundred from there. Does it sound like I am obsessed with books? Everyone in my family is.
I am glad to know I am not the only one with a book problem!! I tend to keep books that I know, or am pretty sure, others in my family will read. If it is only a book I will read than I don’t keep it. I did just get rid of a huge stack of Taste of Home magazines. I have kept them for so many years, but I also have so many of their cookbooks that I decided to get rid of the magazines and keep the cookbooks. The cookbooks I decided to get rid of were ones I haven’t used in a long time. My teen daughers informed me that cookbooks were a thing of the past because everything is now online. I don’t totally agree with that, but I think they have a point. So much of what we need or want is available online. I still prefer a real book though. I also realized that we had quite a few duplicate books. I guess I need to find a way to keep better track of what books I have! I am also buying more books on my Kindle. Most of the books I have bought recently have been Kindle versions. I love that it doesn’t take up much space. I just wish I could find a way to organize my Kindle books better and need to figure out a better way to do that.