Tackle It Tuesday - Cookbook Shelves

Ok, it's been several weeks since I've attempted Tackle It Tuesday. Now I'm back and I'm going to try and tackle something every week. There is certainly always something around here that needs tackling.

This week I decided to tackle the book shelves in my dining room. They had become a catch all for the assorted stuff that comes into the house. As you can see in the picture, the top shelf and the top of the bookcase are very piled up with "stuff." The second shelf contains my cookbooks. The bottom two shelves (not pictured) contain some of my daughter's books. I didn't include them in the picture because those are her shelves and I decided not to include them in this tackle.

I started by going through my cookbooks and selecting several of them to get rid of. I posted about my plan to do this yesterday. I will say that it feels good to be getting rid of some more unused cookbooks. I plan to take these to the used bookstore later this month.

Next I cleared off the top shelf and the top of the bookcase. I sorted through everything there and either put it back if it belonged on the bookcase or moved it to where it belonged. Of course I also dusted off the bookcase. Believe me, it needed it.

You can see that there are quite a few less cookbooks. The little pile on the right of the cookbook shelf are printouts of recipes I want to try and some smaller cookbooks. The top shelf is nice and empty now. It seems a little too empty, but I'm sure I will figure out something to do with the space. Maybe I just need to get used to empty.

I am very happy with my newly cleaned bookshelves. It is nice to not have a pile of "stuff" sitting there reminding you of unfinished projects every day. Now we just need to work on keeping it cleaned. That, as always, is easier said then done.

To see more tackles, head over to 5 Minutes For Mom. I love checking out other people's tackles. Sometimes you can get some ideas for things that will work for yourself.