Toys 1, Books 0

Living in a 1350 sq. ft. house with 2 children and all of their stuff presents space challenges. So, recently, I decided that all Extraneous Items must go. If I can't sit on you, store something in you, or use you to prepare food, you must be sacrificed to Craigslist or FreeCycle. Unless you are human, then you can stay. I tackled the living room first. To open things up, we painted the Cranberry red with Barely Beige. I am now changing the pronun "I" to "we", because I shanghai'd Agusti into the project by starting painting while he was at work without telling him, knowing he would finish it up because he does not approve of my painting skills. I am not ashamed, a wife must have strategies. Although the red was festive and cozy with a Christmas tree around the holidays, the rest of the year it's intensity left me feeling like the crazy lady in The Yellow Wallpaper. Next to go was the beautiful, but too massive, dark and scarily unstable bookcase. Plenty of takers for that. The book collection was tougher. I resolved to stick to my original mandate and not let sentiment get in the way, but they are my books, and Engels take their books very seriously. Every single one of them was like an old friend, each one had changed me in some small way. I could feel my Dad sitting on the couch watching me as I packed them up. Gotbooks.com couldn't pick them up for a few weeks, so they sat forlornly on my front porch. I went through them one last time this morning before they were picked up, and pulled out The Hobbit and Catcher in the Rye to save for Jaya. I almost saved Tess of the D'urbervilles, but could feel my resolve slipping so put it back. I spent my whole drive into work thinking about that book and where it was headed off to.