The local library has a once a week book sale - paper backs $.50, hardbacks $1 OR a bag for $3. I usually go for the bag. Normally most of the stuff ends up back at the library. But at this clearing out I had so many and Goodwill took them so I just dumped them at Goodwill.

If the books don't sell at the library I think they take them to be recycled. There's a sign that says they don't take Textbooks, Smelly/Moldy Books or Reader's Digest Condensed books.

And one of the grocery stores has a book sale to benefit a local charity (it changes ever so often). They might get the rejects from the library because there are some really odd things. Like General Hospital tie in books from the 60s. I wanted to buy those but I told myself I just couldn't.

And the library was giving away almost a whole set of Sweet Valley High (because no one was buying them) and part of me wanted to bring them home for nostalgia but I resisted.

Congrats to the Glam fam!

I'ma guess that none of those people criticizing you for having too many books were Buffistas. Also, been in my house almost a year, still got a couple of boxes to unpack and most of the unpacked boxes in the shed for recycling.

D is here. We are each on our laptops, alternating playing songs for each other. Of course, I'm playing him Corb Lund right now.

javachik, you are the sweetest. Thank you, friend! I actually don't think I posted here about it, but I could have sworn I had. I blame lack of sleep and pregnancy brain.

I think you must have because I feel like I knew. Huh.

Yesterday, Ryan's childcare/kindergarten's Show and Tell featured the letter D. He brought in some of his dinosaurs, and introduced the other children to Triceratops, Brachiosaurus and Parasaurolophus. On the drive home, for reasons that escape me, he kept repeating to himself "Dilophosaurus, Dilophosaurus".

I'm counting yesterday as a parenting win.

I think you must have because I feel like I knew. Huh.

It's possible I may have missed it, but I specifically remember the planning for trying and the details around those complications....and then waiting to see if the squiggle "took"!

Liese, it is so bright out that I cast clearly delineated shadows when I just walked outside. The stars are muddled from clouds and, I am guessing, humidity but the moon is just bright. And my parents have a telescope they apparently don't use so it gets to come live with me. I am shocked and happy. Partially shocked because they have a telescope? When? But it's awesome that I will be able to use it. So I'm going to focus on that and have myself a telescope.

Of everything, the stars really make the happiest here. Being able to see my dad and be here for my family is (waaaaaaaay) more important but the thing that just randomly, physically makes me happy in this house, way out here, are the stars. It's one thing that the PNW could never give me, the immense sky filled with stars that I grew up with...

On the drive home, for reasons that escape me, he kept repeating to himself "Dilophosaurus, Dilophosaurus".

Because it's AWESOME.

Because it's AWESOME.

He has a toy Dilophosaurus in his dinosaur menagerie, which is itself quite nifty. Nonetheless, we haven't really talked about it and I've only mentioned its name a few times in passing. It's probably just as well we don't swear particularly, given the way this boy soaks up vocabulary.

Aww, Cass, that's great! Yay for telescope! What kind is it?

I love the skies so much. A few days ago we went out because the Apollo 11 site was close to the edge of the lighted bit of the moon and thus easy to find. It's just so *neat*! And I have wallpaper on my laptop that's a picture from Mars! Mars! How cool is the universe? And how cool is it that I live in a time where I can see and experience so much of it. Science!

Congratulations, GC and family!

Ryan is constantly amazing and pretty darn adorable.

Cass, I'm happy for you that you have your stars back.

We landed in PNW...three years ago, in November. We just got our dining room together last year. And managed to finish the new project a couple of weeks ago. The third *big* project? The wall of shelves across the width of the house, the end wall of the living room that faces the street. Till that's done? The family photos, the bibelots, and the *books* are still in boxes. Three.years.

Despair not, fellow owners of boxed books. You are not alone, and things do change.