Our New Bookshelf

Right after getting married, my wife and I immediately transferred to where we are living now. We only had 1 day to pack our things and I was so surprised with how much stuff I had. I was more surprised with the TONS of stuff she had. People say that you won't know how much stuff you have unless you pack them all up. They were right.

One thing that my wife and I have in common is that we both like reading books. We both have lots of books and we continue to buy books whenever we feel like it. One of our gimmicks is spending time at a Powerbooks store and just read and sometimes have coffee.

Before moving in, we bought some stuff for the house: living room set, dining set, a bed, a ref, kitchen counter, a small cabinet, a tv rack and a cabinet/drawer. When we arranged everything, we realized that we needed a bookshelf for all our books. Havng spent all that money for one day, we decided to buy a bookshelf a bit later. We just placed all our books in the top shelves of our cabinets. Some are still in boxes (even today).

"Later" turned into weeks, months and years. No bookshelf and our books are still in our cabinets. Until that one fateful day when we found out that we had TERMITES in one of our cabinets. Termites love books. They eat books for breakfast, lunch, merienda and dinner. Those f*&@ing little critters! Most of our good books were severely damaged. You can only enjoy them if you like playing "fill in the blanks". That was a sad day for us. We had to throw most of the books away. Included is our collection of The Lord of The Rings and some of my wife's favorite novels.

After cleaning all the mess, we decided to look for a bookshelf for the rest of our books. It took us a while because most of the bookshelves that we've seen were a bit expensive and besides, we needed compact type of shelf so it would fit in our apartment.

We've been eyeing a particular bookshelf from a garage sale in our condo/compound. We liked it because it was mostly made of iron, looks old/antique-like and we think it has character. We've visited the garage sale twice before finally buying it last Sunday.

Jan: "Bam, tawaran mo a . . ."

Bam: " Sige, ako bahala, tanong mo kung magkano . . ."

Jan: "Manang, magkano po itong bookshelf?"

Manang: "1.5K yan e."

Bam: "Last price na po ba yan?"

Manang: "Magkano ba gusto nyo?"

Bam: "1k"

Manang: "1k?"

Jan: "Sige na Manang, bibili pa kami ng pintura para dyan, papaayos pa namin"

Manang: "Sabagay. Sige 1K."

Bam: "800 nalang kasi bibili pa ko ng pintura"

Manang: "Di 1K. 1.5K nga talaga yan e"

Syet. Di lumusot. Ok lang. Dapat pala 800 na unang tawad e.

We thought 1k was fair so we bought it. We had a problem though. How in the world can we get the bookshelf to our unit on the 4th floor? It was made of iron so it was so heavy and we didn't have an elevator in our building, unlike on the other two buildings next to ours.

Bam: "Paano ko naman aakyat 'tong punyetang 'to?"

Jan: "Buhatin mo nalang"

Bam: "Ikaw kaya? Ang bigat nito o!" I said while attempting to lift it by myself. "Papatulong nalang ako sa mga boys dun"

Luckily, one of the katiwalas in our compound was there and we asked him to help carry the very HEAVY bookshelf. He agreed and started to carry it all the way to our building.

Jan: "Huy tulungan mo si manong, nakakahiya mas malaki ka pa dyan!"

Bam: "Kaya naman nya e"

Jan: "Ano ka ba?"

Bam: "Manong teka lang!" I shouted but he didn't turn back so we just followed him to our building.

Jan: "Kala ko ba mabigat?

Bam: "Mabigat naman talaga e! (Peksman, mabigat talaga!)"

So we met him at the ground floor and I said that I'll help him bring the HEAVY bookshelf up stairs. The guy was cathing his breath which proved that the thing was heavy. We went up the stairs and finally got to our unit.

Bam: "Boss, pang yosi, o." We gave him P40 (I think).

Manong: "Salamat, Sir."

I was so excited that I started to clean the shelf immediately. There was some grease on the top shelf so I guess that it was used in the kitchen by its previous owner. It took me around 30 mins to clean the whole thing. It was so dirty that cloth I used to clean it turned black.

I got all our books and arranged them on out new old bookshelf. Some of our books are still in boxes so I just got whatever was in our cabinets.

Here it is:

Our bookshelf with its cousin the magazine rack. I arranged everything. OK ba?

Our current reads:Chronicles of Narnia and Paulo Coehlo books

Mostly my books

The business books and pocket books. Good thing we have another set of The Lord of The Rings! I don't know where some of my Anne Rice books are though . . .

Even Sophie likes our new books shelf. May bago syang sasampahan hehe!

I swear, simple things like this makes me happy sometimes. :D

P.S. Mabigat talaga yung shelf. Kahit payat yun, bakal talaga. :D