Anxious energy = bookshelf organization

One of the things in my house that always makes people say, "Holy crap, Sara!" are my bookshelves. It's my pride and joy. I'm not even kidding. 

I have a lot of people who come over to borrow books and I realized I'm always going from one side of the room to the next, and it's crazy. Olivia wants to read Young Adult and I have those all mixed around and it's just a mess. 

 See? 

So my solution was to spend the afternoon on New Year's Day and organize it all. 

 So that's what I did. I  made my own genre dividers for non-fiction and young adult because everything else is fiction. But now Olivia will know exactly what books are OK for her to read. I don't need her picking up Fifty Shades of Grey and asking me questions I'm not ready to answer. 

 I also had artwork and cute things friends had sent me and I thought now would be an OK time to finally hang them! The dot photo in the middle is from my blog reader, Bev and she makes the coolest pictures! 

 My two photo frames that are falling apart so I put them on the wall so they wouldn't get knocked over and break. I also found that cool wooden sign at a local funky junk store. 

But you want to see my after shelves, right?? 

 So these shelves are on the wall you can't see from the dining room area. I have a lot of my dirty romance novels on here, not all of them but the majority are over here. All of my Linda Howard books are on the very top. Oh- and you can see the hand drawn goat picture my Australian friend Jandy made me, the coffee mug Jackson made me and the maracas from my grandparent's trip to Mexico forever ago. 

 This is my large wall of books! You can't see my dividers well here but the bottom row and three quarters of the second row are my YA books, the rest of the shelf is non-fiction. The top three are fiction. Some are chick lit, some are romance, basically I have every genre covered here somewhere. 

I didn't take a picture of my third set of shelves because I'm still working that area out. It's my review books, my to-do basket, random things. I have to figure out a good way to manage it.

I've mentioned last year my goal was to read the things that have been on my shelf for awhile versus buying new books. I found the PERFECT motivation for that!

If you're interested in joining, head over to NovelKnight for challenge details. Every time you read a book published in 2017 or earlier, you get a point for your team (teams are randomly assigned). The team with the most points at specific points in the year are then eligible to win prizes! It'll be a good way to keep me accountable, get me to my 105 book goal for Goodreads, give you reviews, and justify my ridiculous amount of purchases. WIN for us all. 

When OCD and lack of patience come together.

So last week I decided that since I'm having Olivia's birthday party at our house, and this is likely the first time some friends are seeing our house, I have this really ridiculous vanity in which I cannot have things out of order. I just can't, I'm sorry, it's annoying and it drives everyone around me nuts, but I really cannot have things all over the place.

The largest problem was my office/scrapbook room. So last week I decided to just fuck it all, and re-do my room. I had purchased a really dark paint the Friday before on my own AND a light fixture because the light in here was terrible. And by terrible I mean that at it's brightest, it would pass for a seedy back room of a bar.

But this weekend? This weekend was the implementation of a rough plan in my head. Plus then it was really a go when I saw that Michael's had buy one, get one free scrapbook storage.

Which, anyone who knows me? Knows I love storage stuff. If we had a container store, I would probably just wet my panties walking in. It's probably best we don't have one because I don't want a reputation and all.

 So now as you walk in, this is to the left. I've moved two bookshelves in here and kept my two bathroom storage/canvas box storage pieces and put a few things on top.

 This is your view on the right. You'll notice Cardboard Robert has made a triumphant return. During the move Matt "accidentally" broke him. Well it's nothing a whole shit ton of tape can't fix.

 This is a better shot of my shelves and such. No, my floor is not that crooked but apparently I can't take pictures. This is only a very small fraction of my books so I'm trying to convince Matt to put huge shelves like he did at our old house so I can get rid of these. He wasn't very enthusiastic about it.

 My bulletin board. I have other things going up on here, obviously, but here are a few favorites I kept from my old scrapbook closet walls.

 The number one question I've gotten (from people who've seen pictures already) was WHY would I paint my walls so effing dark? Simple. I had to accommodate my most favorite picture in the whole wide world. It used to be in a room but there literally is nowhere to put it now, but I can't have this beauty shoved in a closet somewhere.... so I've painted and designed a room around it. The cool part is that after it's all said and done? This room is my personality barfed up in it. Perfect.

 Oooh... my new storage thingies. Well, some of them. I have a lot of stuff, but I don't like people being able to see the stuff, so I like the stuff hidden away. The only drawback is just when I was figuring out where stuff was, I've changed it up.

 This is the built in nook that was made for a TV that I am using as my scrapbook desk, separate from my working desk.

 Oh yes, and above my creative space? The picture my dear friend Shirley sent me. Yet another fun thing that came in the mail during my shitty few weeks. I kind of love this sign.

 And another picture of Robert, because why not? Standing next to a gorgeous print I bought off another blogger years ago. If I remember correctly, it's some place in Iceland. Gorgeous.

Oh yes and my desk. I have more friend photos to put up on my wall, but this one is my favorite. It's from my 30th birthday weekend in Chicago when my three favorite friends celebrated with me. It was such a memorable weekend that when I'm stressed out with life- I just look at that and it cheers me up.

So that's it, lambies. I have yet to get a futon for in here because I want a cozy spot to read, craft, and use as a spot for visitors to crash. AND mostly because I want to try my hand at making a pallet table. All in good time.

This is what happens when FarmTown takes over your life

Hi, my name is Sara and I'm a FarmTown Addict. I should also mention that I give in to peer pressure easily, which is why I'm a FarmTown Addict. (Greg- sole responsibility for this is on you. FYI). In case you live under a rock and don't know the fabulousness and stupidity that is FarmTown, consider yourself lucky. FarmTown is an application on FaceBook (find me "Sara Koceja Strand") in which you plant and harvest crops. Stupid, huh? Yah, well when you start raking in the dough and you expand your farm- it takes over your life. Suddenly, I can't do anything without checking my crops. GOD FOR FUCKING BID my crops "go to waste". That has happened once to my 3 fields of grapes and I was kicking myself for days. It will never happen again. I will alter my sleep schedule, ignore breaks at work all so I can harvest and/or plant.


Which is how this little "situation" happened. This was like two weekends ago now, Saturday night, and I'm home harvesting my crops because I'm a badass mo' fo' like that. I hear Matt dicking around in the back porch which is literally is big piece of shit and I get angry just being out there. It's a useless sack what with the door not really shutting, the single pane glass window (original to the 100+ y.o. house yall- this bitch is "vintage") and the closets that some idiot "handmade". OH- let's not forget the purple paint and the newspaper shoved into a hole in the wall which was then painted over. LIKE WE WOULDN'T NOTICE THAT.


Anyways- so he's banging away and installing the new door that someone generously gave to us. We've had that thing in the garage for a few weeks and he's just now doing it. So I'm thinking, "Jesus H. Christ- it takes a long time to put on a door." I'm harvesting- he's banging. About 4 hours later, after discovering I can make even MORE money buy working on other people's farm (to which I did for 4 hours. Again, I'm the coolest bitch you'll ever know), I decide to inspect his work because we all know husbands work MUCH better under intense micromanagement and "what the fuck are you doing" accusations. At least mine does. You should try it- work HAPPENS.

So I go out to the porch and immediately, I'm like, "What the fuck????". Matt is obviously nowhere to be seen. Nope- no new door just massive destruction. The ugly peel and stick tile is gone, so the floor is sticky, and an entire wall was ripped down to the studs. For no reason other than he felt like it. Need proof??

No more tile...just sticky floor

This is where the newspaper was. It's now gone, but you'll notice our new peep hole. I can stick my hand through the hole to shake people's hands BEFORE the come in. Nice.

Really, who needs a wall?

Look! Another peep hole. Wow- people could probably get a decent hand job through this one.

THEN, after witnessing the unconceivable destruction of my back porch with no plans or money to renovate it, I decide to go back to FarmTown. But then.... holy shit lambs!!! There are two massive piles of cake puke in the middle of my living room. At some point my cat decided to throw up a lot of stuff, and Matt made an attempt to clean it. You'll notice this attempt is code for "We just sprinkle some stuff on top, leave the jug there, and hope the puke fairies come to finish it up." Yah, guess what? I left it for him. I don't do puke. Not cat or kid puke. Neither. I'd hire out if I were alone. I've actually been known to call Matt at work to handle a puke situation.

And then here comes the mother fucking culprit trying to be all cute. Fuck you, Lenny. WHY must you eat everything??? There is not enough carpet cleaner in the world to keep up with you. YOU are the reason I can't have new carpet. Your puke is so toxic it bleaches the damn color out of everything. Are you some kind of freak??? I'm already spending $25 every two weeks on your prescription food. He apparently has allergies therefore we have to feed him special kibbles that smell puke ironically. This has led, I believe, to Lenny becoming bulimic. He binges and obviously purges. Frequently.

(Side Note: Is it just me or does it look like Lenny is bracing for a beating? I would never do that, but let me assure you- no cuddles for HIM that night. No sir. That punk had to sleep on the floor of my room. That's right- the floor with no carpet. Also- I totally dig the fact his front paws have thumbs. Creepy, but cute)

So in the end, my back porch is tore up and will be forever at this rate. The new back door is in which looks like shit since it's painted hunter green and it obviously clashes with the purple walls. Lenny still pukes, but at least he has the decency to not flaunt it in front of me now. And Matt did clean up the puke. After I "gently" reminded him after he got all settled and was almost asleep. That was strategic, believe me.