Books..LOTS of books

I

LOVE



BOOKS



I do



NOT



Have too many books




Is it possible to have too many books?



Well.....




Maybe.....




Rule of thumb: If you have books sitting on the floor lining your hallway, you MAY have too many books.

Yesterday, a friend of mine invited my children and me over so the kids could play while she and I worked on her books. One of my favorite things to do...

"I need a little bit of help organizing them."

"OK."

I can do this. I love to organize books.

"Um....do you have a plan in mind? There are alot of books on the floor."



When I organize books, I start by sorting them into categories.
History in one, Religion in another, Health and Nutrition in a third and on and on. You get the idea. Just like a library has their books organized by subject.

My friend had other ideas.

Does anyone vacuum their books but my friend?

Come on - let's organize these babies! Then we'll clean each pile as we look at what we have here!

"Wait...you said there are more in the garage?"

"What? Another book on History? Did you know this was out here?"



After you have your piles of books organized by category, you can see what you have.

"Did you know you have two of these? Um, can I have the extra?"

Hint: You also don't need 5 Middle Ages Encyclopedias. One or two will do. You also don't need 25 books on character training. Pick the best, one or two that you know are good, that you would like to use. Put them on your bookshelf.

Sell the rest, give them away, or if you really can't part with them, box them up, label the outside of the box with names of the books in the box, and place them on a shelf in the garage, attic, wherever, with the label facing outward so you can see it at a glance. Too much is not always a good thing (unless you are talking Zenia seeds!). Too much leads to paralysis. Too many choices results in an inability to make any choice at all.

Well, after about 6 hours my friend and I had made a good dent in her stacks and stacks of books. The good news is that she discovered she has all the resources a homeschool mom could possibly need for history, geography, character training, biblical devotions. It was just like Christmas. She found books she "had always wanted" but had forgotten she had.

And, she has 3 or 4 HUGE boxes of books for the next book sale or to sell on eBay.

My last piece of advice? When you buy a book, immediately upon bringing it home, put it on the bookcase under the proper subject heading. If you no longer have room on your bookcase, then you'll need to pull another book off the shelf and pass it along to a good friend........

OR, you can do what I do....

Buy more bookcases.