My day started late because I woke up later than usual. It's almost 10:00 A.M when I woke up, and I'm really hungry at that time. After eating, I did my usual routine, which involved finishing my house chores. Since it's almost noon when I did them, I finished them later this afternoon. When I'm finally free of them, I decide to rest for a while, and then I proceed to the main course of my day—my time with my books. Currently, I'm finishing Dazai's Schoolgirl and I'm not in a hurry to finish it. It's just a short novel, yet I feel the need to absorb it so that I can give a meaningful review about it in the future. Not a page was left unhighlighted, and now and then, I also write some notes on my reactions to certain lines that struck me—and I really enjoy it.
After reading some of its pages, I was distracted by something again. I was gazing absentmindedly somewhere when a clump of dust accumulating on our bookshelf caught my attention. It's been months or even a year since I last cleaned it, so upon seeing those, I was convinced that I should clean them. The first thing I did was to get the books out of the shelf, and I know I shouldn't be surprised, but I was shocked by how dusty the shelves were. Plus, there are cobwebs above the books and I can't help but sneeze a lot after I get all the books out there. To avoid an incoming runny nose, I put on my facemask, and then I continued what I started.
Wiping it clean was quite tedious because there were some stubborn dirt that needed tough scrubbing. It took me more than a couple of trips to the sink to wash the cloth I'm using to wipe the shelves. It was so dirty that I scrubbed it again and again until I was satisfied with how it looked. I usually don't like wiping stuff because I don't have enough patience to do so. Moreover, I'm quite meticulous in wiping things really clean. I don't know if it's just me, but it bugs me when I clean something and it doesn't turn out completely clean at the end. So I clean it again until I'm satisfied with it.
Of course, some dirt can't be removed, but I still try removing it anyway. If it doesn't, I have no choice but to let it stay, and that happened earlier. Moving on from that, I finished cleaning the shelves just before 3:00. That's why I proceeded to the part I quite dreaded—wiping the books individually. I already shared how little my patience is, so upon seeing how many piles of books I need to wipe, I somehow hesitated whether I should wipe them individually. Anyway, my honorable part won, and so I went with my first decision and I wipe them one by one. The first pile got finished before 4:00, so I decided to take a break and grab some snacks. While munching my banana chips, I also read some books, and reading them really brings nostalgia!
When my break is over, I continued wiping them, and after what seems like forever, I finally finished wiping them all. I neatly stack and arrange them according to their genres, and also along the way, I sneak in some little readings again hehe. I already have read almost all of them (except for the 2 non-fiction and 1 fiction that have a heavy political theme), so naturally, while doing so, I remembered the memories when I read them for the first time. By the way, I didn't purchase all of these books; rather, most of them were given to me by my aunt. She's not fond of them because they're just given by her ex-girlfriend, so when they finally separated—months after that, she gave them to us. I'm not happy they separated, but I'm elated that she gave these books to us.
Especially those Edward Eager books! Those really hold some core memories of my younger years in high school. I even made a book report about them in my seventh grade. I really like them because they're fantasy books, and some characters are the same age as mine that time, so I definitely relate well with them. Their magical world became my escape during my dull Saturday afternoons before which is why I can't forget about them. Further, there are also picture books—one of the first ones I read. I already read them a lot of times by now, but still I was tempted earlier to read—and I did!
It's already 5:00 P.M. when I finished reading arranging them. I'm now down to the last part, which wasn't essential, but I felt the need to. To distinguish the books I've reviewed, I put a sticker on their spines, light pink for the ones I reviewed last year and light blue for the ones I reviewed this year. It's nice seeing that I already reviewed a considerable number of them, but I'm planning to review more of them this year. We're half past this year, so I'm not sure if I can, but I'll try. After placing the last stacks of books on their shelf, I'm finally done! They now look neat and organized, and I'm really satisfied with what I've done today.
How about you, fellow book lovers—have you cleaned your shelves already for this year? Or you haven't done yet? Well, if you still haven't and it's already dusty, then maybe this blog is your sign to clean them all! That would be all for today, bookworms, I really hope that you enjoyed my sharing.
See ya!
All the pictures used were taken by yours truly, ridgette. While the GIFs were made in imageflip.