Monday Memories--moving the books out

My friends and I compare notes on how we're doing in clearing out the clutter. Three are planning moves to retirement apartments; we're not there yet, but we want to do some rearranging. Our photo albums are taking over the house--I think I counted 70! We did a massive sweep about 11 years ago, but it all came back.  Before I got sick in January, I'd started on the books again, and then last week renewed the effort.  The books have been rounded up and herded into the garage, tied with some twine, and Christmas ribbon, but there's not much change on the shelves. They'll go to the church, the cancer resale shop, the public library, our son, and the sailing books we'll take to the lake next time to see if a neighbor wants them.  A lot of cookbooks went this time.  That's unusual for me, but they were mainly just hanging around to remember the good times.  I have in that stack a 12 volume set of the Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery that I bought one week at a time at the grocery store in the 1960s, and many Taste of Home Annuals. If you are looking for a new set of that encyclopedia, it goes for about $2,000 according to Amazon, or about $40 used.  I think there are volumes in my set that are "new."  I wrote a Thursday Thirteen blog about my cookbooks in 2006.  

Then I decluttered in 2009 about 8 years ago. Shelves looked pretty good, but still tight.

Another set (tied in red ribbon in the photo) is the Famous Writers school of writing, 3 volumes plus an annual. I found them at a used book store about 20 years ago when I was doing more writing, but never really used them. Lots of famous names. According to Wikipedia, as many as 90% never finished the course, so perhaps this was from a disgruntled student. There was eventually a law suit. But I think there should be 4 volumes.  Going through the architectural journals I found an annual that included some places we've been like Thorncrown Chapel.

The bookshelves with all those titles removed, still very full.