Getting Rid of Clutter. Sort of...

You may know that my daughter is home again. She finished her schooling and decided to return to the North East while she does some soul-searching and job hunting. I'm so happy to have her home. I'm not so happy about the three years worth of stuff she brought home. Almost every room in our house is cluttered again. So we decided to start weeding out some of her things and make her a little money at the same time. Ebay to the rescue!

If you've ever sold anything on Ebay, you probably know how time-consuming the whole process can be. I try to list 3-5 items every evening. You must take photos and enter as much information you feel is relevant to the prospective bidder, set a price, weigh and measure the item in an appropriate shipping envelope or box and then wait for millions of people to stumble across your item. 

Since I'm such an obsessive type of person, I find myself frequently checking my Ebay listings for watchers and bidders. At least it keeps me from stalking my e-mail for manuscript acceptance notifications. Unfortunately, with all the Ebaying going on, I haven't submitted many manuscripts. But, (famous last words here), once the clutter is more manageable maybe I'll be more productive. Maybe.

The thing is--I've been finding these awesome books on Ebay, just calling out my name. Like this children's book I picked up for $5.00.

 This book belonged to a little girl named Deborah. It was printed in 1908 and cost 50 cents!

 Look at the beautiful illustrations!

And this set of books for $9.99 was a steal!

This book belonged to Edna in 1896!

This one belonged to Gerald. He received the book as a prize in 1926. 

And my favorite--also belonged to Edna in 1901. Look at that cover!

I love that children wrote their names in these books. I like to imagine that they held them in their little hands and were transported to new lands as they read the stories. 

I think of them as 'Rescue Books.' Some people rescue dogs and cats, I like to rescue old books. They're thick and heavy, and some of them are falling apart, but they smell GLORIOUS! 

What's that you say? I'm supposed to be getting rid of stuff, not acquiring more? Yes, yes. I'm limiting myself. Well, I'm trying to anyway. Besides, I have a whole shelf in my bookcase that hold those books quite nicely. So, if they have a place, they aren't clutter. Right?

Do you buy or sell on Ebay? What do you like to 'Rescue?'