We purging, painfully. For the two months I’m back on the wards this spring, John’s grandparents will be staying with us to help take care of the babe (we are so unbelievably lucky!). That’s 4.1 persons for one bathroom. We’re trying to slim down and, this weekend, we finally got up the courage to tackle our book supply.
We love our books, but as we start to built a library for our new love, the time has come to trade my collection of Hawthorne and Icelandic folklore for Giraffes Can’t Dance and the Very Hairy Bear, and we simply don’t need three copies of The Hours (picture below). Any book we hadn’t cracked for a decade, we willed ourselves to donate, despite our emotional attachment to the content. Time for someone else to enjoy. We donated over an entire bookshelf.
As a special treat to myself, I placed my board review books directly next to my collection of Harry Potter. This summer, I’ll imagine I’m studying for my OWLs (Ordinary Wizarding Level exams), and that will make me feel better. And on the shelf next to Harry Potter is what is left of my Master’s thesis material, a reminder of a very different, but lovely time in my life.
More inspiration on living with less…not sure we’re there yet.
anna in med school 
We are going through the very same purging process! It is so hard to part with those relics from previous lives. Oh but it will be worth it—and liberating!
coming out of blog-lurking (been reading your blog for awhile–i’ve got a 9 week old)…to say, “OMG! Michael Cunningham signed your copy of The Hours!” 🙂 It’s funny the things that get us to speak and reveal ourselves.
love your blog. good luck on getting back to work. 🙂
Because my husband and I are soooooo oooooooold compared to you, we have literally hundreds and maybe thousands of “extra” books. Jonathan and I found thirty books to donate just the other day without breaking a sweat. It’s tough! But at least we can get a tax break for donating them.
Haha! When Kira and I moved in together (2 booklovers, 500 sqft) I purged my med school books from just the first 2 years. It was so painful to realize 1. how disposable they were and 2. how much money I had spent on them. We kept so much and got rid of so much and god help me if my parents decide that I actually need to move out all my childhood books one day…
Is it just me, or does it seem like the most serendipitous thing that the complete Harry Potter series fits perfectly in one cube of Ikea shelving?
We have a lovely used bookstore near us where I can trade in most books for credit. It doesn’t solve the shelving issue but because I give the credit to my daughter it helps foster her love of books.
We’re also going through and selling/donating various things, including some books and other things we’ve been holding on to but not using. It sure is hard, but I’ve found it incredibly freeing to have less clutter and “stuff” in general filling space around our home. It’s also nice to know that your excess could mean a lot or make a difference in someone else’s life.