...Hi, my name is Melissa and I am a bibliophile...

Ok, I'll admit it.  I am a bibliophile. 

I am a complete addict when it comes to books.  I am horrible.  It makes my husband crazy.  He cannot understand how it is that no matter how many hundreds of books I have, I ALWAYS WANT MORE!!!

Sad books that no longer live at my house

That is what made this weekend incredibly difficult and even somewhat painful for me. 

We were going through some adjustments in the arrangements of the house because having our two girls who are nearly eight years apart share a bedroom just isn't working out.  This meant I needed to retire my beautiful book room (aka the office) and hand it over to my older daughter.

More sweethearts currently homeless

That meant that I had to find a new home in my house for the three bookcases that were screeching beneath the weight of too many volumes.  There was a lot of groaning as we removed the books from the shelves.

One of the small bookcases stayed in the room to house Aubrey's collection of stories and a bunch more that were now vagrants, one shelf was beyond repair after too many years of dedicated service and had to be retired, and the third shelf is still eeking out an existence in the hall.

I moved what I could fit to the two living room bookshelves and filled up the bookshelf in the boy's bedroom, but there were just too many.

This brought me to the really hard part. Josh told  me (in a kind but firm husbandly tone) I needed to go through the books and get rid of some of them.

WHAT!!

Does he realize what he was asking!  This is torture.  I have spend years amassing the hundreds of beautiful tales that now live with my family.  From classics to new fads to picture books and everything in between, I love my books. 

These guys didn't even get a box...is that torture or what

I love Aesop's Fables that I remember reading in my grandmother's kitchen when I was young.  It was one of the only kid's books she had.  I used to read stories in the Reader's Digest because I couldn't stand to read nothing (some of the jokes in those things are no good for ten year olds...oh well).  I love reading Junie B. Jones and Amelia Bedelia with my little ones for a good laugh.  "Tuesday's With Morrie," "Twilight," Anything Jane Austen, "Phantom of the Opera," don't even get me started...I can't stop.

So, I nearly cried as my husband packed two huge diaper boxes loaded with my beauties that didn't make the cut and carted them to D.I. to abandon them.  Hopefully someone will love them as much as I have.  I lost just over 200 books.  Heartache!

Thankfully, there are hundreds of favorites left.  Sadly, there are no empty bookshelves available. 

I'll have to work on that.