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So I mentioned in my first post that I like books. I also mentioned that I have several home projects that I want to do. Well one of those projects is to take up the carpet in my living room and dining room. I have hated this carpet since I bought the house 20 years ago, but with (at the time) small children and tenants living below the decision was made to leave the carpets for the time being even though I love hardwood floors and I know that there are oak hardwoods under that hideous carpet. The kids are grown now and the time has come to yank these suckers up. One thing standing in my way was this bookcase, placed on the only long wall I have in the two rooms, which just happens to be my dining room. Having never been a big, eat at the dining room table, kind of person, the room just never took real shape. The bookcase has stood in the same place for 20 years, holding a small portion of my family’s huge book collection. Books are my “crack” and my kids always knew that while I might say no to some things books was one thing I almost never could say no to and they worked it. LOL.
Before I could even begin to take up the carpet that bookcase and all of its books, stacked in at least two rows, with random books we’ve recently finished stacked on top, has to move. So the first task was to gather a bunch of boxes and go through all of those books! A lot of the books are books we don’t really want anymore, a mix of textbooks from both my and my daughter’s college careers, novels for a brain break from textbooks and academic writing, how-to books, mostly on how to live life more graciously and gratefully, with style and pleasure, (I’m working on it, I’m working on it. LOL) but some craft books too (my daughter’s-I am just not crafty) and way in the back, under piles of other books, the books from my kids childhood ithat I loved to read to them over and over, including one of my personal favorites, “Mrs. Santa Claus”, which was one of my favorite christmas books, because it was about how when Santa got sick right before Christmas, Mrs. Santa used her resourcefulness to bring Christmas around the world, had an exciting adventure, and gratefully returned to her loving family of elves, reindeer and of course, Mr. Santa.
My daughter went through the bookcase and selected the books she felt were must keeps ; One I really like is a book she has called “Craft Hope” by Jade Sims, filled with simple projects to make clothing and toys for children in need: Aleks has made one project already, called the pillowcase dress, where you use the open end of the pillowcase as the hem, cut off the top to the length you want, cut a rounded sort of square for the arm holes, run elastic through the top, front and back and then sew bias tape around the arm holes, leaving enough length to tie the top, totally adorable.