I know I promised you a post on my recent purchases but you’ve got to see what I’ve been working on for the last two days… my bookshelves! I have five Billy bookcases, the one in the middle of these is narrower and holds all my craft books/magazines and special books I’ve made.

These other four though are double-stacked and stuffed and I still had books on the floor. I’m sure many of you have the same problem. The thing is, it really was starting to get out of control so I pulled every book off, shelf by shelf and went through and weeded out books that I was no longer interested in and books in bad shape.

I don’t know if you can see some of the blue sticky notes on some of the shelves. This was my guide as to which books went where. I don’t alphabetize by author but I do groups. For example one shelf has all the authors last names from A-C.

There are sections on my shelves devoted to Classics, Poetry, Books in Spanish, Fiction, Mystery/Thrillers, and advance review copies. I also have some groups of books like all the Persephones in one stack and all the Europa editions in another. You get the idea right?

I have no more books on the floor and of course I do have a bit of space where I could fit in some newcomers. Haha.. As far as the books I’ve decided to part with I’m planning to donate some to the Little Free Libraries in my neighborhood, the library, and maybe even take a few to Half Price Books. Tomorrow I’m off on another bookish adventure so I’ll tell you about that next time.

I hope you all you had great weekend and for all of you in the states, I hope you were able to celebrate the Memorial Day Holiday with your loved ones. We went out to the Zilker Park Botanical Gardens. It started raining as soon as we went in but we didn’t see anyone else around for at least 30 minutes so it was peaceful to sit and watch the rain and just be surrounded by nature. The rain finally stopped and we wandered around the different installations.

My husband was busy practicing his photography so while I waited for him at one point I just sat on a rock near a garden rivulet and watch the dragonflies that were flying around the flowers. I closed my eyes, focused on my breathing and listened to the water. It was lovely.

We would have stayed longer but it was starting to get a bit more crowded and warming up a lot more so we came back home and enjoyed a delicious corn and nectarine tabbouleh salad for lunch. I think this will become a go to salad during the summer.

We are both taking a few days off from work this week so we’ll see what else we get up to. It is supposed to rain most of the week but just to know we can enjoy some down time is great.

Now the books, I finally finished The Sixth Extinction and the last two chapters were great. It may have taken me a long time to finish but am so glad I read this book. I also read, Shadow on the Fens by Joy Ellis, Infinite Country by Patricia Engle, Fresh Water for Flowers by Valerie Perrin, and Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian. I really enjoyed all of my books and will tell you more about them soon.

I’m excited about 10 Books for Summer and I also made a few book purchases in May so I’ll tell you about those in my next post. I hope you had a great month and would love to hear about your summer reading plans.