Home Sweet Home...Part 1

Yesterday, inspired by a good cleaning, I took some pictures of my 2nd bedroom, thinking it might be fun to show off my home on my blog. My 2nd bedroom is my catch-all room, as you'll see. It has many purposes, and while I don't spend a lot of time in there, I use it a lot. If that makes any sense whatsoever!

All pictures have been uploaded in small size--you can click on them to see a larger view.

When you walk in and look to the right, there's the window, the cat boxes, and an old school desk that my grandfather rescued from Sacramento City Unified years and years ago. You can see my paper shredder (I shred everything that has my name and address on it), my Mika poster and Snoopy rug, and my craft table. The current project sitting on it is my London Semester 1999 scrapbook. I'm taking it out of the old, disintegrating albums and putting it in a newer, better album.

  

Turning to the right, there's my big bookcase that I've been carting around for the last six or seven years. The top two shelves (and the top of the whole case itself) house part of my Snoopy collection. The bottom three shelves are books--recipe books, my collection of Peanuts books and other children's books (bought over the last 8 years of teaching) and on the bottom shelf, music books and sheet music (and a couple of photo albums. Next to the bookcase is my DVD rack. Keep turning to the right and there's my floor lamp and my piano. Above the piano is my Snoopy mug collection and that cute poster.

 

Next is the door. Oooohh, exciting! Directly across from the door to this room is the bathroom. The door between the bathroom and the 2nd bedroom is the Mistress Bedroom. Keep turning and there are the three lower bookcases I bought when I moved into this apartment (cheap Target bookcases work beautifully). I got the short bookcases thinking it would be really cool to line them up on one wall (now that I finally have my first 2-bedroom apartment) with Snoopy stuff on top and books on the bottom. It worked out very well, indeed, and when I don't have anything new to read I can often be found crawling around on the floor perusing my small library.

The closet has mirrored doors, which I only like because it means I have a full-length mirror to check out outfits in. I'm glad the Mistress bedroom doesn't have a mirrored closet door, as they kind of freak me out in a bedroom. On the floor you can see the kitty condo that never gets any use (though it did get some use by the Peanuts Gang in July).

In the closet, on the left-hand side, are boxes. The red boxes are all Christmas stuff. I'm not joking when I say, every year, that it looks like Santa and Charles Schulz threw up in my apartment. The green box is fall holidays. The large blue box is miscellanneous stuff that it's important to keep, like the original boxes and stuff I might someday need that came with my cell phone, my digital camera, etc. I also keep original boxes for some of the Snoopy collection items, as having the box makes the item more valuable. The smaller blue boxes are filled with Valentine's, St. Pattie's, and Easter stuff. The other side of my closet has my Christmas tree (big cardboard box), a box of stuff I'm selling on eBay, and another large box that currently houses my London Shrine while I use the baker's rack in the living room for Halloween decorations. The paper bag has some stuff for Goodwill in it.

Now, some up-close views of stuff. Above one of the litter boxes, a cute sign I bought in Rome a few years back.

A close-up of my Snoopy For President button, and an Obama button from 2008.

My American Harry Potter set, with a cute witch and spell book.

Richard from Keane's autograph, sitting in front of my British Harry Potter books. (Book 6 got returned to the shelf last night and Book 7 is currently being read.)

In my teens, I found these books and started collecting them. They were out-of-print and hard to find even then, and in college, I got rid of them. A couple years ago I started wanting to have them again. eBay is awesome. Thanks to that, I now have all but one book (which should be easy enough to find). Each book takes place in a different part of American History (Amanda is on the Oregon Trail, Elizabeth is during the Salem Witch Trials, Victoria experiences the Alamo, etc.) and usually ends up putting the heroine in the position of choosing between two loves. They're YA, so there's no sexy scenes, and while they can be a bit cheesy, I loved them as a kid and have fun re-reading them sometimes.

My Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich.

Some books about World War II, some Jon Krakauer books, and my biographies (Dale Earnhardt Jr., Robbie Williams, Ekaterina Gordeeva, Lauren Bacall, etc.).

Two of my favorite authors: Bill Bryson and Tony Horwitz.

Just outside this room, in my hallway, I have some cool posters. On one side, two Keane posters. The taxi poster was a recent eBay find. I absolutely love it. Across from those is a world map made out of a playable piece of music. I found this in Seattle a few years ago and it's been in many classrooms. Now it has a place of honor in my hallway.

 So that's the 2nd bedroom and my hallway. Maybe sometime I'll do my bedroom, kitchen, and living room. Maybe even the bathroom!

Home sweet home...