Busy doins', but not stitchin' much

When last we left off, I was stitching like a mad person, adding new projects left and right, and I think I might have stitched myself out for a while. I worked a bit more on Belle of Bonaventure, going from here:

To just a bit further here:

Before switching back to Merida, which I left off here:

And, although I was gung-ho because I think she has the potential to be the fastest finish (probably before the end of the year), I very quickly hit a dead end with stitching altogether and stopped here:

Some of it has been headache related, our weather has been tornadoes one day, freezing temps the next, but some of it has just been burnout. I think I pushed the whole "new starts before Leap Year" thing a bit too far.

But I haven't been just sitting on my rear (well, not only sitting on my rear), I've started spring cleaning for the first time in YEARS and I've also started cataloging my book collection, which turns out, is a lot more of a massive undertaking than I thought it would be. They say you don't really have a book collection unless you have a 1000 books, which I knew I had, but actually cataloging those books isn't as easy as you'd think it would be, even with a nifty app that just scans barcodes and pulls up the info for you. Especially when you're old like me and a lot of your books are older than ISBN numbers (I believe it stands for the International Standard of Book Numbers, but don't quote me on that) and you have nothing to scan. I've had a lot of books where the info is wrong, or I have to add the proper picture, or I've had to just manually enter it altogether. Then there is the issue of removing the books from the shelves, cleaning them, and reorganizing (which needed to be done anyway). I've even managed to find some missing movies, which, for some reason, I had forgotten I had put with their respective books years ago. They are now back happily in their movie locations, leaving more room in the bookshelves (except for special shelves that are movie and TV themed, like Twilight, Firefly, Once Upon A Time, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Outlander, a whole shelf of Harry Potter, etc.)

I've learned I have WAY more books on Scottish History, Art History, Cathedrals, ghosts, witches, vampires, Jane Austen fan-fiction type books, leatherbound classics, and young adult fiction and WAY less on English history, horror, romance, and Classical Literature than I thought I had. Might need to balance that out more (which means I'll probably end up buying more books, not offloading some). I'm in the mid 650's now and I've got the main four bookshelves in the living room done, but I still have a ton more books in the living room to do, at least another 150 or so. Then there is my bedroom (which maybe only live about 100) and the duck room (where all the Disney books are, but it's a MUCH harder get to area and probably at least another 300-400 books). I don't have as much as I thought, but I should hit 1000 easily enough.

But, all in all, every single bone in my body hurts, my wrists are killing me from the carpal tunnel, and I might take tonight off (although I'm scared to do that because I'm not known for finishing things if I don't push through). When all is said and done, if I do finish, it will be SO nice having a catalog of my books. It will at least keep me from buying duplicates in the future! And, if this all works out, I might get a couple other of their apps, like the movie one and the music one. The book app I bought (which was only $4.99) was Book Buddy, and so far, no issues. I can back it up to iCloud and share it between my iPad and my iPhone. Hopefully, after all this work, I don't loose the backup. That would suck.

It's also a trial run for cataloging my Disney collection, which I should have done YEARS ago, but have been putting off for obvious reasons. I bought software to do that years ago as well, but the software is now obsolete (and I never even used it). That was frustrating. It is now a subscription thing, which I literally hate how everything is going to a subscription service where you have to pay per month to use something. Who can afford $5/mo here and $10/mo there for this and that. By the time you add it all up, it's $100's per month for all kinds of things and it's ridiculous! I'd rather just buy software or programs when I need them and upgrade when I need to, not pay per month for something I might use once per year! It's why I don't ever work on my pictures, because I can't bring myself to pay for Lightroom or Photoshop! But I digress.

For the near future, my stitching is on hold, at least until I get these books cataloged and my house cleaned. I'ved scheduled the weekend of the eclipse off, but I'm not sure I'm even going to watch it. I live in the direct path of it, but everyone and their cousin is going to be in our town because of it, so I'd rather just stay in the house. That's four days of good cleaning if I can psych myself up for it. I might go out for a bit, I have the special eclipse glasses, just in case. We'll see. If I do stitch though, you'll be the first to know!