Friday Report

[adair]

I have not done much the last two weeks; it's been very cold and I have been hiding out reading. I did move a lot of books out of the house - 58 in all of January. A lot of these came from a couple of boxes I stashed in December but did not count until I took them to Books to Prisoners a few at a time.

This week I cleared the bedroom chair of piles of books and clothes. I have to do this from time to time; this time I found a new pair of black knit trousers that I had ordered last fall and deposited in the chair but never opened. Of course they need to be shortened. I distributed the books to better locations and threw out a few pieces of paper that had taken residence there.

I am working on the east wall bookcases; shelf three four to be exact. It is double-shelved and has a lot of fannish books in it. The back shelf has a good number of Andre Norton paperbacks; I have not re-read Norton in a long time, and probably won't. Someone whose name I have forgotten has been posting reviews of Norton's books on DW, and I read them with interest but they have not driven me to re-read much. I will have to decide what to keep, if any, tomorrow. There is also a batch of Sheri S. Tepper that I have not re-read - quite possibly because they are in the back row - so I have decisions to make, including what goes in the back row now, to possibly be forgotten. The shelf is sized for paperbacks, and I have a lot stacked around waiting to be read, but the back row just about guarantees I will not read them, although their location will be noted on my LibraryThing account.

I have work to do tomorrow

Comments

[harpers_child]

Got two of the three display cases the SU inherited into place and leveled. Got all the breakables out of the various places they'd been stashed and put them into the cases. Next week I'm hoping to finally get the closets into some kind of order.

[adair]

What a pleasure it must be to have a place to put fragile display pieces where you can actually see them..
Good luck with the closets. I find those hard to thin out enough.

[harpers_child]

As I told my sister last night, I feel very dragon like right now with all the shiny and sparkly things on display.

[evelyn_b]

I'd love to see those Andre Norton reviews, if you remember where you found them!

I've been digging through my "sentimental keepsakes" pile - most of it stored in a trunk, and most of it, it turns out, stuff I didn't really want to keep. Now I have a nice nearly empty trunk and am not sure what to put in it.

I liked Marie Kondo's idea of ripping apart a childhood jewelry box to re-use the parts. Mine turned out to be surprisingly cheap inside - lots of cardboard and styrofoam - but I'm going to try lining it with paper and using it to hold index cards.

[adair]

I will send you a link to the Andre Norton reviews when I find them. They might be on the Tor feed; I thought they were from Judith Tarr, but she is doing the horse book reviews. The do drop in my reading page frequently; I will send the link when I get it.

I am picking through my Norton pb books, picking out a few to keep. I have a few of those collections where Norton invited other people to write in the Witch World; there are authors I recognize there, active in the late 80s. I also have a collection of Norton's short fiction, some from the 50s, when she was publishing in various sf genre magazines. The stories surprise, not really tied to the Witch World or her general science fiction novels. I am saving some of her early novels, Scarface, Follow the Drum, Ralestone Luck, Stand and Deliver, Stand to Horse - the basic plots are pretty standard for the time, - a lot of lost heirs, and young men in difficult situations - but she always manages to make the story and the people engaging.

Congratulations on making decisions on keepsakes; time helps me make better judgement on those things, but it can sometime take a Long time. I like your idea; I have a little sewing box my grandmother gave me around 1956; it is much to small to use for even my mending equipment (what kind of scissors did I have then?) But maybe I can repurpose it so I can keep it for the memory.

[evelyn_b]

Thanks! I appreciate it.

Getting older has definitely helped me more clearly separate things I actually want to keep from things I feel I'd be dishonest if I didn't keep, or think I ought to want to keep for some reason. And unlike my 11-year-old self, I now feel zero responsibility to any future biographers - a huge relief.

I hope you find a good new lease on life for your little sewing box!