Hello! I have been so busy and I’ve been wanting to update my blog but well, you know how I am – or you should – I can’t stand boxes and clutter. Especially boxes all around me in the front room. (Still need to come up with a cool name for this room.) I’ve had a lot of boxes come in so that means I’ve been busy. Busy SPSing. You know, sorting/pricing/shelving. Getting books up on the shelves and keeping the room sort-of respectable-like. I do have to write that currently I am surrounded with boxes of books: french, children, spirituality, over-sized art and wildlife, and at my feet…well, I started a pile I’ve set aside for me to read. It is Saturday and I just want a little break.

I have a lot to write about! One thing, the book I highlighted in my last post…sold! I was sad but yet I knew it was going to a great home so I was excited. Mixed emotions. It sold because the woman who purchased it read my blog and came in to look at and hold the book. I admitted I tucked the book away – sure it was on a shelf but one had to look for it. She was excited it was still here. I hope the lucky recipient enjoys it as much as she and I do.

The Vermont History Expo was held in Tunbridge several weekends ago and on that Sunday I went down to help out in the VABA booth along with some of my fav VT used bookstore owners. In the few hours that we were all together we had great conversations ranging from customer habits (Yes, all good! Ok, mostly.), to how we really feel about used books (we love them, of course!), what sells and what doesn’t, and we threw in some ghost stories to make it all interesting. Unfortunately I cannot upload the photos I took that day. My laptop faded out early last week. It really just faded out. Now I am using a new-to-me Mac that my daughter gave me. Ugh! Going from a PC to an Apple is a very difficult thing. For me. I’m not complaining because her husband is pulling out my files and transferring to another new-to-me laptop. So I am patiently waiting to receive that computer. When I receive it then I’ll post those images and get on with my postings.

I’m constantly asked what I read. Well, I’ve recently started reading VT women authors: Kathryn Davis,  Sue Halpern and Suzi Wizowaty to name a few. Of course Dorothy Canfield Fisher is who I’ll be going to next. Then onto one of the nicest woman around (yes, a local author), Julia Alvarez. Plus in-between I have been reading books on books or bookstores: Ulin’s, “The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time” and in the middle of Margaret Hard’s “A Memory of Vermont: Our Life in the Johnny Appleseed Bookshop.” And to really mix it up I’m almost done with a May Sarton book, “Shadow of a Man,” to which I’m most grateful to one of my amazing customers for making the author suggestion.

So sorting, pricing, shelving (constantly) and throw in cleaning the books as they come out of the boxes, reading, embroidering I’ve been keeping busy. Note I didn’t mention cleaning my house….yeah….