My Library

I think my library is finally at its endgame. There will probably be tweaks to the plants and random things on the shelves in the future, but I think it's set up exactly the way I want it and has all the shelves it is going to get. My last piece came in the mail today and it's a painted sign that says Library. I got it from a shop on Etsy and I love it. LOL I had a gap on the wall and needed to fill it and now it's perfect.

Don't mind the snow outside. It's coming down like...well I don't even know. It's been snowing since sometime last night and hasn't stopped. I'm guessing another 6-8 inches where it's laying. It's pretty wet. 

Look at that empty shelf space, though. :) Plus, a couple stacks are being purged, I just haven't done it yet. 

I've got a picture of Anne and Diana, a quote from Jane Austen (both also from Etsy), and JW Waterhouse's The Lady of Shalott on my walls. All literary references. A comfy chair and foot rest. Minky blanket. Plants. I especially love the teacup plants I have scattered about. Yeah, I'm pretty happy with it. I foresee some happy evenings spent there in the future. 

Where are you Spring?

Ah Spring! How we love you. I'm sorry for all the allergy sufferers out there. I don't know if this weather pattern makes it better or worse. My biggest annoyance with spring is the little bugs that try and come in my house. Haven't had that yet this year. I guess that's one good thing. 

Yesterday, I woke up to basically a blizzard outside. Once it stopped snowing, it was kind of a nice, wet  day. My nephew had spent the night so we could keep watching Attack on Titan and we waited until the roads were cleared before I sent him home. So we got the entire of season 1 finished. 

Then this morning I woke up to another 5 inches or so. I decided today was a good day to work from home. And maybe file my taxes. 

The current view outside my window. And it's still coming down. LOL I'm wondering who prayed the reservoirs would fill up in just one winter? And yet, it's still quite pretty. It truly hasn't gotten warm or dry enough for most signs of spring to show up. Maybe next week? I have a few days off so it would be nice to have a tiny bit of sunshine. Just saying. 

Grrrrrrrrr

I'm kind of unhappy with myself right now. LOL I get things in my head and get so impatient. It's a stupid thing. While setting up my new bookshelf, I broke my one small bookshelf. It's fine and still works but I didn't want it broken. So I hurried up and bought myself a new, small bookshelf. I finally set it up last night and I don't like it. It's nice and it looks fine, but it doesn't fit the books like my other one did. And now I realize that I could have gotten a smaller bookshelf that exactly matches my big ones in exactly the sizes that I wanted. I'm making myself be patient and go home and re-measure everything again before I make any more decisions that cost me more money. But I'm probably going to get other new bookshelves and give the currents ones to family. My library is one room where I make it exactly how I want, down to the blanket I use. 

I guess in other book news, I'm doing a pretty good job with my reading goals so far this year. I have read  books in every category except childhood favorites. Already, I've read some fun and interesting things and I feel like it's going to be a much better reading year than last year was. I'm excited to keep going. 

Birthday Month

Wow, this month has flown. Hard to believe it's almost over. I spent a week of it in Charlotte, NC for work. It was a nice trip and Charlotte was in the 60's so it felt like spring. Then I came home to cold and snow storms. Oh well... it is technically still winter. 

I took some time off work around my birthday which was nice. I made it to SL to go to a few book stores. This year I let myself buy anything that even sounded interesting so a few of the books I bought I had never even heard of. 

Then on President's day I was looking at my library and didn't know where to put the new books, and decided I could fit one more of the thin Billy bookshelves from Ikea in there. So my nephew and I made a quick trip to Ikea and I picked it up. I'm very happy with that purchase and now I have empty bookshelf space! Let's see how long it takes me to fill it up.

And the other morning I woke up to have a very pretty view out my window. Fresh fallen snow is really beautiful. Of course, now the wind has blown and its all crusty and gross. But soon to be covered again with fresh snow, if the weather reports are correct. 

I'm planning on a relaxing weekend. I have a few projects I wanted to finish in February so I better get started on them. I'm still not in the mood to spend much money so I don't feel like shopping. I am very happy with my books and impulse bookshelf and I think I'll just stick with that. 

Hello February

Birthday shopping month is here! And since I’m still trying to keep my goal of not buying stuff just to have more “stuff” (books, excepted) I don’t really have much I want to buy myself. I do plan on going on a book buying trip to local-ish indie booksellers but I know I won’t buy that many books. I need a new black skirt, but in that case the old one will go. It’s possible I will get myself a new phone. I’m into year 3 with my current and the battery has really started to die quickly. Still undecided on that one. One of my favorite things to buy is bath/body/perfumes but I’m not even in the mood for that right now. My shelves are full and I just don’t want to add more to it.

I have gotten a little bit of my home clutter picked up and took some things (old office chair being one of the things) to be donated. I’d like to keep the momentum going. There are spots that I’ve cleaned up and look so nice right now. I’ve noticed other piles of things that are either out of the way or technically “put up” and I think I’d like to tackle those as well. It’s funny how much lighter I feel with even a little bit of mess gone. So yeah, if I can keep this going for even half the year I’ll save myself some money and be much more in control of the clutter. I’m kind of liking the idea. 

2023 Reading Challenge

I don’t usually set actual reading goals for the year. I set a number of books on the Goodreads reading challenge only because it’s an easy way to see my books at a glance. This year I put 78 for 1.5 books a week. I truly don’t care if I hit that number or not, but generally reading 78 books in a year is not much of a challenge for me. Although, it is more than I read last year…

Some years I have done reading bingo cards and those are always kind of fun and mix things up a bit. This year I created my own challenge just by thinking about what I like to read, getting out of my comfort zone, and also looking at my bookshelves. So here’s my reading challenge: 

7 Nonfiction: This is because I read 5 last year and wanted to increase that. Plus, I’ve found that there are so many truly interesting nonfiction books to choose from. 

3 Classics: LOL not sure about reading 3 but it’s supposed to be a challenge. I am allowing short stories in this section and I use a very loose definition about what I consider a classic.  

10 Books I already own - Paper copies: Because I can easily count double that sitting on my shelf. I really need to get to some of them.

6 Books I already own - Kindle version: Again because I have so many that I’ve purchased and never read. 

5 Diverse Authors: This one is authors of different color, nationality, or LBGTQ because I feel like I need to branch out more here and this is a reading challenge, after all.

5 Non-Romance: Meaning there is no romance in them, not even a small side story. I added this because romance or romance-ish is always my top genre and I’m trying to read outside that. I’d like these to be mostly fiction (as opposed to non-fiction, which seems too easy) again, just to get out of my comfort zone.

5 Childhood favorites: I’ve got 3 shelves completely full of childhood books. Looking at them, I can see some that had such a huge influence on my life. Some are the same old, battered copies I used to read and others I bought later, but I used to check out from the library over and over again. I thought maybe I could revisit a few of them. 

No book can be in more than one category so this will take up half of the 78 books and still leaves lots of room for falling back on favorite genres and comfort reading. I’m hoping this helps get me out of my reading slump. It’s already been kind of fun to think about books that fit each category. Plus, the first book I finished this year will fit for a kindle book I already own. I had been meaning to read it for quite a while and I finally did!

Happy New Year 2023 Style

Happy New Year indeed. I was only up at midnight last night because of fireworks going off in the street behind my house. I’ve been sick again and while I didn’t feel too terrible, I stayed home and tried to go to bed before midnight. Today is a lazy Sunday while I try to rest and get completely better. It’s raining/sleeting/snowing anyway so a nice day to be home. I’m actually sitting in my library with a blanket, hot drink, and stack of books which = rainy day perfection.

I’m not much of a goal setter and I never make new year’s resolutions but I do like feeling that a new year is a fresh start. I like the idea of Janus, the 2 faced god, looking both backwards and into the future, endings and beginnings. I also like making lists and crossing things off my lists. So here’s a (guilt-free) list of things I would like to do this year. 

• Get rid of the clutter piles; make a place for everything or donate/recycle/throw it out
• Finish the rag wreaths and tied blankets
• Take some trips and do things with my vacation days rather than stay home - I have ideas!!
• Get out of my book slump; try reading in genres I don’t normally to shake things up
• Play the piano more often
• Listen to podcasts on my drive home; there are so many I want to try
• Pay off my car loan
• Change my direct deposit so I’m saving a little more each month