So, it starts with the fact that Carol and I like to read.  On a lot of different topics.  Yes, we both read science fiction and fantasy for fun, but we're just as likely to read  history or political commentary.  (Bought a t-shirt last month, which reads "History Buff:  I'd find you far more interesting if you were dead.")   And we do genealogy research too, and have bought a lot of references over the years for that.  Not to mention the pagan and magical texts.  And then there's the books for her embroidery and the other SCA-related stuff, and the textbooks for the M.Div she's pursuing in her copious free time.  And the 1943 edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica.  The problem is, after reading these books, we tend to keep them.  Because we might want to reread them some day.  Or consult them again.  Anything else I can toss into a midden without a second thought.  But not books...

And then there's that "years" bit.  Come this June, we'll have been living on the farm 27 years.  Seems amazing when I stop to think about it.  Half of my life near enough.  The problem, he said knowingly, is that a pair of happy bibliophiles can accumulate a LOT of books in 27 years.  Our house has one bookcase for each of those years.  And we're in the process of moving from northern Tennessee to Huntsville, AL.   And books are heavy, and movers charge you by the pound/kilogram...

So, we decided to move most of the books ourselves.  I drive a pickup truck, and it's only a three hour drive, with no time-zone changes and minimal traffic issues.  Every time I drive up to see her, I can haul a load of stuff back.  Seven standard 1.5 cu-ft bookboxes of miltary history, (and that's after we dontated at least that much to the library at Fort Campbell a number of years ago.)  13 bookboxes of religious, magical, philosophical and pagan texts, (excluding the books she's still using for her M.Div, of course.)  12 boxes of genealogy papers and references.  14 boxes of SF&F, and that's after we decided that 40% of the stuff on those shelves weren't worth keeping and were set aside to be offered to used book dealers.  (The discards haven't been boxed yet, but I'd estimate it as needing another 7-8 boxes.) And we haven't even begun to attack the five full-sized bookcases of paperbacks, or the two cases of cookbooks in the kitchen, or the Brittanica.

And in the meantime the boxes are stacked eight feet high, four wide, and two rows deep in the storage locker in Huntsville, we're working on making that three deep, and there's more to come.

And my back is killing me. 

The only saving grace is that the locker company provides a very nice cart to help you schlep your stuff from the front of the building back to your locker.  I have a lot of real nice things to say about whoever it was that invented the wheel.  Really good it idea that was, man.  If you ever get to Huntsville I'll buy you a beer or twelve.

And my back is killing me.