First things first...

It's been a little over a week since we arrived in Poland, but the time has simply flown by. Today is Sunday, and I can scarcely believe that it has been a whole week since last Sunday, which seems as if it were just a couple of days ago.

We have been astonishingly busy, which is to be expected. The house is dirty, there is clutter everywhere, and we have 14 trunks to unpack. Where am I going to put all this stuff? We moved into our house here just a few months before we went back to the States last year, and we didn't have the time or money then to organize and purchase the kind of storage we needed.

The very first things we purchased upon arrival last week were bookcases. Seven of them, as a matter of fact. When we first moved into the house, I dreamed of these bookcases, but we couldn't afford them at the time. Thanks to our generous friends, we were able to get these (quite inexpensive, actually) very necessary items. After the cases were assembled by 15yo J., we unpacked only the books we had brought back from the States. Those books filled almost three of the seven. Oh dear.

I had double-stacked and crammed books into our existing cases last year, and when I un-doubled them, we filled three more cases. Oh dear.

I found two trunks full of books I never had space to unpack when we first moved in last year. Oh dear.

And than I remembered that we MAILED FOUR BOXES OF BOOKS TO OURSELVES before we left the states. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

And our co-workers have a box of books I mailed earlier, waiting until we are more settled to give it to us.

What was I thinking?

Where am I going to put all these books? It's a certainty that they aren't all going to fit on the one remaining bookshelf of the original seven. I would happily buy another case or two...if I had a place to put them. I greatly fear that there is nothing left for me but that task dreaded by book-collectors everywhere--culling. I know that there are some books on our shelves that aren't worthy of my precious shelf space, and so I shall be ruthless, and get rid of those less-worthy books. But right now I don't have time to do that, and so...we are surrounded by books, books, and more books.

It's pretty nice, actually.

During our year in the states, I purchased many books (obviously), and most of them were for our homeschooling endeavors. But not all of them. Some of them I bought for my very own personal reading and enjoyment, and I exercised great restraint and forebearance, and did not read them immediately. I saved them to read here, where I don't have access to many books in English. (There are some sources...but I'll blog about that another time.)

Here's a sampling of what I brought back for myself. It is by no means complete, but it is exemplary of my eclectic taste in reading material:

_Mr. Darcy's Daughters_, by Elizabeth Aston

_Saving Fish From Drowning_, by Amy Tan

_The Chosen_ (and 3 other titles), by Chaim Potok

_Winter Solstice_, by Rosamund Pilcher

_84, Charing Cross Road_, by Helen Hanff

_The Gifts of the Jews_, by Thomas Cahill

_The Consolation of Philosophy_, by Boethius

_Over the Gate_, by Miss Read

_Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?_, by Harold Bloom

_Two Sides to a Teacher's Desk_, by Max S. Marshall

_The Compete Father Brown_, by G.K. Chesterton

_The Compete Book of Tatting_, by Rebecca Jones

_The Orange Girl_, by Jostein Gaarder

_Light From Heaven_, by Jan Karon

_I Never Met a Houseplant I Didn't Like_, by Jerry Baker


And that is just the first armful. I may have over-indulged. A little. But at least I shall have reading material for many months to come, if I can ever find the time to sit and read amidst all this cleaning, laundry, unpacking, renewing acquaintences, and keeping up with all the blogs I like to read.

I'm very generous with my books, though. And if you live in Poland and find yourself in need of something to read, feel free to come over and browse.