I took 1 box of books to the auction house yesterday. Donated 2 boxes to a paperback bookstore. Sorted out 5 boxes for the book dealer to look at mid October.
I have 5 more boxes in the house sorted out for the bookdealer as well and I have a plan for what happens after that.
Hopefully, I’ll be out of the book business by Halloween — we’ll see!
There are 12 boxes of books in the car. A piece of artwork is on ebay, consigned with a friend. Have another piece, connected to the artist, will mail it to my friend as an add on, tomorrow.
Have quoted about 20 books to a customer, he’ll get back to me and I’ll ship those off too.
Brought home 11 boxes last night. Went thru them. Started organizing the “keep” boxes. The flea market boxes are going in the attic. There’s a box of magazines for DH to go through. (He told me what he wanted to keep and I went thru the box Weds. 10 minutes) There’s also 12 boxes in the car to go back to the storage and the take it to the dump pile is overflowing. The books there will be taken to the swap shop. Thirteen new boxes came back from the storage too.
ALPHABETICS
B –BOOKS – Keep going! Spent at least 2 hours at the storage and house sorting through the books.
G –
L –
Q – QUOTE – Books to friends. At least 12. Some of those were general questions to bookseller friends. (10 minutes, Tues – Weds.)
V –
[x][x][x][x]||[x][x][x][x]|| (20 minutes added below)
Other Work
Culls: 30 books donated to libraries. (10 minutes)
Used/Found a New Home:
[x][x][][]|| minutes uncounted)
11
14
Part of the items I found in the boxes yesterday were Fall decorations. I had 3 cards of small ones priced to resell and 2 larger scarecrow pillow hanger things. A neighbor, who’s a teacher is taking the pillow things for her classroom. The cards of small pieces are staged to go to the antique store.
I quoted reference books this morning: 1 five volume set and 3 other books.
When I started in the book business, there were several hoops you had to go through you don’t now. One was finding a mentor or the information about what made a book potentially valuable. Another was acquiring reference material, it was published in small quantities and expensive. The reference books I’m selling are most of my core collection of reference materials. I’m not selling books for a living any more, I have no reason to keep most of the reference books.
–+–
My car is full, I need to take it to the storage this morning and pick up another load of boxes.
ALPHABETICS
Today I’m resetting back to day 15. If you’re not sure why, please read the last post, it’s explained there!
A – ATTIC – Get the flea market boxes into the attic. Pull something OUT of the attic too!
F – FIND – More items to cull! (30 min)
K – KITCHEN – Keep it clean. One thing I tend to do when I’m hyper-busy, like now, is let maintenances slide. This is a challenge to myself to not let that happen this time. The dishwasher is partly emptied, it needs to be completely emptied and the new dirty dishes put in it before I leave, for example. (5 minutes) Do the same thing after I make dinner!
P – PUT – The package in the mail. I have a package almost ready to go to a friend with 5 books in it. (5 minutes)
U – UP – the ante. That is, shift, if possible, into an even higher gear going through the boxes here. The sale is Saturday!
Z – RANDOM – My day job. I have a specific task to do for the current book we’re working on, I need to spend time on it as well as getting ready for the book sale I’m having this weekend!
[x][x][][]||[][][][]|| (10 minutes uncounted)
Other Work
Culls: 2 scarecrow decoration pillow things, books quoted out, 5 books to a friend, 12 books set aside to donate to the library, 2 paper mache pumpkin things, a knapsack,
Used/Found a New Home: 1 mailer, tape, labels to ship the books,
[][][][]||
12,
15
I was gone all day Friday and until evening on Saturday. Because of that, although Friday was supposed to be day 15 and of my 90 day countdown, I will make Monday September 16 the new day 15 and continue the countdown from there. I was driving for several hours to get to meetings.
Work intervened. If you have a problem with that, well you can do differently if you set yourself a 90 day challenge like I have, but although I don’t work a 9-5 day job, I do work. Like any job, it requires a certain amount of time.
Today, Sunday, has been insanely busy. I’ve been, with DH’s help, moving boxes o’ stuff around and storing things at full speed.
More than 2 boxes of books went out of here in the past 2 days, that’s more than 100 volumes. There’s a few more staged for the dump’s swap shop, but I gave some away Friday, some Saturday, and DH took books to the dump’s swap shop today (Sunday).
I quoted some books to a customer. Made arrangements with a bookdealer friend to take some of the books if I have them. (They wanted a specific author.)
Culls: 100+ books
Used/Found a New Home:
15, 14, 13
ALPHABETICS
B – BOOKS – Continue the book cull I started yesterday. There are 4 boxes in the car to go to the storage, need to double that quantity before I go to the storage! 1st complete 11:44 a.m., 2nd 12:13, 3rd 1:45 (box of culls for dump 12:13 too), 4th will have to be done tonight. I”m out of time! (1:52 pm, 3 hours)
G – GARDEN – Start fall clean up. Do whatever raking is still needed to get the ground bare, before fall.
L – GARDEN – Continue weeding and other clean up .
Q – QUALITY – Go through my clothes. What needs to be replaced or repaired? Culls?
V – RANDOM – Order wood.
[x][x][x][x]||[x][x][x][x]|| (1 hour uncounted)
OTHER WORK
Someone is buying 2 books I uncovered yesterday. They’re in a mailer to be mailed today.
Culls: 2 books,
Used/Found a New Home: 2 book sleeves, 1 mailer
[][][][]||
19
Have some items to put in the mail today. Have some reading to do to catch up for the day job. Also, of course the regular cleaning and culling!
ALPHABETICS
A – ANOTHER PIECE – Work more on the clear the counters of food project. I got the 2nd batch of jalapenos dealt with (the newer ones). Time noted on Friday’s tally because I’d used it to tally the older jalapenos. I still have stewed tomatoes to finish up, the skins to deal with and the other peppers!
F – FIND A PLACE – to put away more of the stuff I pulled out next to the bed!
K – KITCHEN CLEAN UP – The kitchen has been used a lot lately and not cleaned as throughly as it might be. The things on the floor were tidied and the floor swept. (5 minutes). The stove top and grates were cleaned (5 minutes) The counters and sink area need a general tidy and cleaning.
P – PANTRY SHELVES – Need a general tidy. The shallow shelves were done first thing this morning. (5 minutes). Still need to do the deep shelves.
U – UPSTAIRS BOOKS – I have a lot of boxes here to go through for the book sale in a couple of weeks. This is where I will count getting those boxes looked at and the culls ready to go. 3 boxes in my car of paperbacks (3.26 cu ft cleared, approx 150 books. 1 box of hardcovers, 2 hours.
Z – RANDOM – Put the sheets in the wash and then continue the under bed cleaning I started a while back. I got 25% of the space under the bed cleaned, need to make more progress on this!
[x][x][x][x]||[x][x][x][x]|| (15 minutes uncounted)
Other Work
I got things ready to mail this morning. Counted the time on the day when I assigned that task last week. I needed address confirmations for both addresses. I added 2 books going out, so the packages will be mailed on Tuesday.
Pulled things out on my side of the bed looking for something for DH (found it in the office instead !). That generated culls (noted below), things to put away and a major onset of sniffles due to dust!
Cleaned the top of the stove.
Culls: a book, cassette, papers, many more books,
Used/Found a New Home: A mailing box, bubble wrap, most of a sheet of fancy wrapping paper, a book,a pin, a card,
20
7 Levels 