The Book Purge has Ended - For Now

I have to say that this whole purge thing is labour intensive. It is far more work than the years of purchasing. ha-ha!
I've managed to pull out all of my books from the bins and trunks and boxes that I had of them. I got rid of a good chunk of books and now nothing is hidden away. All the books I still have I can actually see and reach. So next will be to do a whole lot of reading and to continue to purge.

I think it will be easier to let go of more books once I purge more of my other things. But in the meantime I feel like I've done a good job. I sold a few books and left a whole lot on the window sill of my apartment building for others to pick through. And they did! Walking down the stairs and seeing the books rearranged and disappearing was a satisfying feeling.

My trunk that was filled with books is now filled with my handbags and purses. I won't be purging those anytime soon because I actually use them all. So that's a great place to keep them since they are easier to access.
One of the rubbermaid bins that was filled with books now has my sheets, pillowcases and my electric blanket in it and is strategically placed under my bed.

So it was a good week of accomplishment considering starting with books was the hardest thing to do. The good thing about starting with the hardest thing is that I'm starting to feel more ruthless.

I met with a couple girlfriends, while I was on vacation, and brought one some activity books (from my Child and Youth work days) and stuffed animals for her daughter. The activity books she can grow into. And for my other girlfriend who has a boy and a girl, I brought her the rest of the small stuffed animals. Because she's a teacher, if her kids don't want the stuffed animals (like they wouldn't - hee-hee) she can bring them to school. I kept my oversized stuffed animals, for now since they already have a spot in my apartment. There are a few I will keep, like my mom's teddy bear from when she was a child and my teddy bear from when I was a child.

I took a break last weekend since I had to do laundry and get groceries and all those kind of chores. Plus it was the last of my vacation and I didn't want to be handcuffed to the purge. It was good to relax and get back to the mindset of going back to work on Monday. And I felt good about going back to work so that was all good.

Tonight I came home with a purpose and got rid of a whack of picture frames that have been in a pile forever and made more room for my cookbooks. I'm going to go through them at some point and whittle them down. It's so easy to get recipes on the internet, which I mostly do these days but there are still some cookbooks that I'll want to keep.

I was flipping through the minimalists site last night at my part-time job and jumped on to a post about throwing out/ getting rid of one thing per day. I like that idea as well. So I'm finding that trying ANYTHING and everything is probably my best bet.

And my binders. I've been looking through my binders of papers that I can scan to pdf and save on a flash drive.

And that's how the purge goes for now. :)

EY