interior design while dealing with all my junk

I've struggled with arranging my furniture in my very long and very narrow room. The furniture had migrated around the room about four time since I first inhabited it about a year ago. It doesn't help that I've slowly been adding more furniture to the space so it makes arranging it all the harder. I think I have finally found the magic configuration though and I have finally started decorating. (Now if only I had somewhere to put all my totes). I made a design plan and set up a to do list. My colors are black, white, grey, yellow, and orange with a pop of green here and there. It's become an adventure to find creative ways of making furniture within my budget work.

So this is my desk, which I worked on today. It is the perfect size for my space. The desk I got from Salvation's Army Store and it cost me 60 dollars. The chair is a hand me down. It comes from a set of four that my parents bought when they were first married 30 odd years ago. It used to be green. I spray painted it black and reupholstered it with a bright coordinating fabric. The chair cost me only 10 dollars in total. For organization, I rounded up some glass gars and a shoe box.

 I'm rather proud of my first project.

Mountains of books in a seven inch device.

I own a Nook Color. It's a tablet reader by Barnes and Noble, and I love it. It goes everywhere with me and because of it my average number of books that I buy has drastically gone up. My physical library hasn't expanded much though, which makes the bibliophile in my a little sad. I still love reading a physical book. The smell of new books is still one of my favorite scents, but the convenience of the Nook is awesome. I live in a house with three laptops, three iPods and two iPads, so I'm no stranger to technology. There are some things that I like about the iPad better than the nook, the main things being the camera. I wouldn't trade though. The Nook is half the size of the iPad and fits in all of my purses. It has wifi so I can use it at home and at wifi hot spots. It now has Netflix! (I use my XBox 360 more for this though). Anyway. I love my Nook and on many occasions, when I've finished a book late at night I've opened up the shop and bought another one. It's too easy. So about all those books, for the past two years I have set a goal of a certain number of books that I want to read within that year. I have met and passed those goals both times so this year I added ten more books and so far am right on track. I feel like I have been doing nothing but reading lately and I've noticed that as I've gotten older my choice in books has changed. Lately I find myself devouring non-fiction. I was one of those girls in my teens that if it wasn't fantasy, I didn't want to read it. Just two days ago I finished "Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void" by Mary Roach. Yesterday I finished "Barefoot in Baghdad" by Manal Omar. I don't know if I got sick of repeating plots or the unbelievalbe amount of sex in modern adult fiction, but I can tell you that my next two books are non-fiction as well. Don't get me wrong. I love a good novel, and sometimes even I bad one and read both more than Non-fiction, but our world is filled with unbelievable stories and I've only just scratched the surface. If your not a non-fiction fan, give it a try. It is general worth it. For an update on what I've read so far this year here is the list. Snow: A Retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves-Lynn, Tracy; YA Fiction The Merchant's Daughter-Dickerson, Melanie: YA Fiction Salt: A World History-Kurlansky, Mark; Non-Fiction Beauty Queens-Bray, Libba; YA Fiction Touch of Power (Healer, #1)-Snyder, Maria V.; YA Fiction The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt-Morris, Edmund; Non-Fiction The Twentieth Wife-Sundaresan, Indu; Fiction Becoming Charlemagne:Europe,Baghdad, and the Empires of A.D. 800-Sypeck Jeff; Non-Fiction Shadows in Flight-Card, Orson Scott; Science-Fiction Midnight in Austenland-Shannon Hale; Fiction Lola and the Boy Next Door-Perkins, Stephanie; YA Fiction Darcy's Voyage-Louise, Kara; Fiction How to Dance with a Duke-Collins,Manda; Fiction The Earl's Bargian-Bolen, Cheryl; Fiction Year of Wonders:A Novel of the Plague-Brooks, Geraldine; Fiction In the Devil's Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Food-Allen, Stewart Lee; Non-Fiction The Know-it-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World-Jacobs,A.J.; Non-Fiction Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World-Ostler, Nicholas; Non-Fiction The Marriage Bargain-Probst, Jennifer; Fiction Maid to Be Mine: A REgency Cinderella Story-O'Keefe, K.L.; Fiction The Ugly Duckling Debutante-Van Dyken, Rachel; Fiction Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void-Roach, Mary; Non-Fiction Barefoot in Baghdad-Omar, Manal M.; Non-Fiction If you want to keep track of my books or see what I've read in the past, check out my goodreads.com account.

reorganizing

For the second time this year I moved my room around. It's a full days work especially when I move things from one side of the room to the other. My room is 8ft wide and about 24 ft long. It is an interesting feat to have all my stuff in my room and not have it looking like piles of mess. Slowly though I've been buying myself furniture and improvising so that I can have a place for everything. I'm also in the process of finishing decorating. This will include some DIY projects that I will make sure to add when I do them. They will include a wall decoration, a headboard, and a desk. I'm excited to get started with them.

Rita Wilson's reaction from WDYTYA

School, again

So i have these weird dreams that I've gone back to high school even though in my dream I'm exactly who I am in real life. It's always interesting to remember the conversations I dream up with those high school students who say that I can't do something when I tell them that I'm a not a high school student. Anyway... So I've gone back to school. Not high school, but college. I'm almost done with my second week of classes, and must say that I am enjoying myself. I feel empowered. I'm taking Accounting which I thought would be hard but isn't so far. I'm glad but we'll see how the semester progresses. I'm also taking Public Speaking, which is easy but tedious.

I've already started into my yearly goal of book reading. This year I've upped it from fifty books to sixty since I've achieved that number the last two years. I've finished five books. Four were fiction and one was non-fiction.

The first, Salt, was a history of salt and the way it affected the world and advances in technology affected it. It contained a lot of recipes for odd dishes and storage uses that aren't much used or even heard of by the modern population. It was very informative and sometimes entertaining. Be prepared for a lot of talk about salting fish.

The second, Beauty Queens, by Libba Bray, was very unexpected for me. I thought that it might be Lord of the Flies or Hunger Games in nature of it's survival aspect, but it was more about the image that society was protraying to girls and how these girl were supposed to act because of it. It was almost a revolutionary cry. I enjoyed it's sarcastic ads and dialogue. A surprising joy.

The third, The Merchant's Daughter, was a non-magical retelling of the Beauty and the Beast. It centers around a very devote culture of the middle ages. I enjoyed it's story telling and the self discovery that the Beauty goes through. An enjoyable read.

Another was Snow: A Retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I love fairy tales and the way different people imagine them. They was a well written enjoyable retelling.

The Fifth was A Touch of Power, by Maria V Snyder. She's one of my favorite authors. This was just as good as her other books. I can't wait until the next one comes out.

PS. These books were all read on my Nook Color. I love that little machine!

Christmas? Check.

Christmas seemed to sneak up on me this year, but since I prepared for it the week before today, it was great. The house was clean, my Sunday talk was written, and all the presents were wrapped. I never can sleep Christmas Eve though. I'm so excited to give my family their gifts and to see their reactions. Mom and Dad both were thoughtful and surprised each other with unexpected gifts; things they hadn't even thought of to ask for. Church was nice, but after have slept little the night before and giving a talk in church I was ready for it to be over. I've been tired most of today and was grateful to take a rather long nap. Dad and I put together a puzzle and he tried to guess the flavors of jelly beans that were a present from Keygen. It was funny to see his facial expressions. They weren't as good though as if he had been eating the Harry Potter variety. It was a great Christmas. Happy Birthday Jesus and Alexis!

The Awakening, By Kelley Armstrong

I haven't reviewed a book on here in a long time. It's not that I don't do it, I just forget to sopy it here after I review it on GoodReads.com.

The Awakening, by Kelley Armstrong, is the second in the Darkest Powers Trilogy. The story is told from the eyes of Chloe Saunders, who in book one found out that she isn't going crazy, she's just talking to ghosts and raising the dead. Not any easy thing to swallow, but while processing this she is also on the run for her life from the Edison Group, a orginization that has experimented on the these kids invitrio and is now trying to clean up their mess and keep the word from spreading. After escaping two of their compounds, Chloe and her group of supernaturals are finally on the move looking for help. Ensue chaos.

You know that you enjoy a book because at the end of it you complain to yourself that it was too short and you wanted more. Thank goodness this is a series or my rating would have been lower. Cliff hangers or ending a book in the middle of a story, are not my thing. The stakes are definitely higher in this installment, and a weird love triangle is forming that two points of the triangle are oblivious to. The first person is refreshing and not overly self-depricating which is appriciated. I'm looking forward to number three.