The Worst Blogger In The World

Ok, confession time.

I feel like the worst blogger in the world! And I am struggling with doing anything about it.

I know I should be posting all these great updates, complete with pictures, since I have left you all hanging for so long. I also have some posts I have promised others privately to write (a post on what we are doing for school this year and a post on balance). And then there's just those great moments in life that beg to be blogged about that I am letting slip by without even trying to capture them.

But the truth is, my house is overwhelming me right now. I have unpacking on the brain. I am tired of living in boxes, boxes, and more boxes-- as we were living among them for several weeks before we moved and I am just tired of looking at them! I want the contents unpacked, categorized, and organized. I want to reach for something and know 1) where it is and 2) that I actually have a place for it.

Yesterday I spent the whole day unpacking books. (Interspersed with making and cleaning up meals, washing and folding clothes, and various other household duties.) But mostly, I unpacked and shelved books, books, and more books. The picture at the top of this post is my six year old standing in front of a whole lot of boxes. The significance of the photo is that every single box in that photo is filled with books!

Clearly, we have a problem.

To make things worse, in our old house we had lots of built-in shelving. My books were happy on their shelves, categorized by subject and always waiting on more friends to join them. It didn't matter if I necessarily read them all. I just felt good buying them because one thing we didn't lack for in that house was a place to put our many books. I could feed my addiction without worrying about what to do with all the books.

Not so in this new house. There are NO built-ins. The previous owner did leave us several bookshelves in the bonus room, which I have now claimed for all my homeschool materials and for the kids' books. But I have several boxes of books left and I am rapidly running out of shelf space. This has caused great amounts of panic to rise up within me. (And yes, I have been weeding out as I go. I actually boxed up two boxes of books to donate to the library or Goodwill.)

To make matters worse, I have 4 boxes of books still in my room that are just my personal books-- with no bookshelf and really nowhere to put a bookshelf in my room! Again with the panic feelings.

I keep telling my husband that, once the books are all happily nestled in their places on shelves, I will feel much better about life. Much more capable. Prepared. I don't know why having my books accessible to me helps with that but it does. This only proves something you have probably been suspecting for quite some time. I am a geek. And there's no pill, no treatment, no round of drugs, no therapy that will change that. Believe me, if there was, my husband would have already tried it. But he loves me-- books and all! (The truth is, he has just as much of a book-loving problem as I do. That's how we knew we were meant for each other! Ok, it wasn't the only way but that's not what we're talking about right now.)

And so, today I will tackle the books once again. I am praying that a shelving miracle will occur that is to the level of the feeding of the five thousand or Elijah and the widow and the oil that never ran out. Just as I go to put a book on the shelf, a place for it will miraculously open up! The shelving space will appear limited, yet expand without explanation!

And if worse comes to worse, I suppose I could get rid of more books. But boy does that sound like parting with dear friends. See? I told you I was a geek!