Getting More Done Than I Expect

I know, I know -- I said I wouldn't have time to update this week and yet, here I am again.

There is a bookshelf in the hallway that goes past the downstairs bedrooms. It has been there for 4 or 5 years and, originally, the offspring each had a shelf on which they could keep text books and papers that they didn't want in their own rooms for whatever reason (study? what's that?). For well over a year, I have been asking the offspring to go through the stuff on their shelves and deal with it. For well over a year, I have been -- as always -- The Inaudible Woman.

I have no idea why, but this morning I decided to take matters into my own hands and clear off the shelves myself. Here's an early morning shot of the bookshelf disaster:

One trip from the back hallway to the dining room table with my arms full of very heavy college text books convinced me that I needed a book transportation device (BTD). Books are heavy! So I found one:

The BTD soon became a transportation device for wildlife:

But eventually, all the books -- and notebooks and PAPERS -- were piled on the dining room table. You can't actually see the papers and notebooks. There are three piles of them hiding behind that tall stack of books.

And the bookshelf was empty:

Except for the dust and a few odd pencils. (And some of those pencils were very odd.)

Next, I had to harangue the offspring (who were, by the by, all at home today) to sort through their papers and notebooks. A great many things were discovered and the vast majority were recycled or shredded. Very little of all that mess of papers was kept. Good riddance, I say.

There were a few oddities:

You would think they could share their text books, wouldn't you?

On the other hand, we found three books that Sports Nut needs for a class he is taking this semester:

Which meant that we could take the copies of these three books that we bought last week back to the bookstore and get a credit of -- oh, wow! -- $31.25!! Unfortunately, these were not the books that brought his book bill for the semester to the point where it was higher than his tuition bill for the semester.

While at the bookstore, I looked around and decided that I really was not up to the task of sorting through all those books, figuring out which ones were still in use, and selling them back to the bookstore for a pittance. (Returning the books brought us roughly $10 each; selling them would probably have netted about $3 each. If we were lucky, that is.)

So I listed the books on Freecycle. The timing is great because this is the first week of classes at this college and lots of students haven't yet bought their books -- probably because they aren't as anal eager as Sports Nut to have their books before classes start.

The offspring actually made it through the papers and notebooks. Here's the last pile, waiting for Sports Nut to get home from his evening class and go through it:

And all those books (over 50) that I offered on Freecycle? Students (or their moms) have already asked for all but four of them. These should all be gone before the weekend is over:

All in all, I have to say that this was a good day in terms of decrapification, even if I only managed to knit a couple of rows on Future Vet's sweater.