random: Michelle's Very Productive Sunday

I don't feel like writing a book review, but I wanted to talk about my day yesterday. I often have low energy due to a medical condition, so it's not unusual to be loved by anyone to spend an entire weekend just sitting on my couch watching Amazon Prime videos since I don't have the energy to run errands or clean. However, yesterday was a high energy day, and I was able to accomplish several things:

1. I washed all the dishes in the sink! Well, there's still a few things, but they're of the "this just needs a cursory wash" variety. I've been known to leave dirty dishes filled with water until interesting mold colonies grow in them. I don't believe in drying dishes by hand, so I put them in the dish rack to drip/air dry.
2. I filled my morning pillbox. This is not a big task but I've been known to neglect it. 
3. I organized and rearranged my bathroom counter! I had been procrastinating on crocheting a suitable hemp cord to hang a card catalog drawer on my wall in order to store some of my hair products. I had bought the drawer (it's not really a drawer for a card catalog since there are oval holes bored into each side and no iconic drawer pull/placard situation, but it is related to card catalogs in some way) at my school's library book sale...in Spring 2017. Yes, a year ago. On Friday I finished crocheting and braiding the hemp cord, then strung it through the drawer's holes and hung it from the Command hooks I'd stuck to the bathroom wall shortly after I bought the drawer last year. Then on Sunday, I removed almost everything from my bathroom counter, which you almost couldn't see through the mess, then put everything back in an orderly way. My hair products didn't end up fitting in the drawer due to the hemp cord having to go exactly through the middle to keep the drawer from tipping, so I filled it with smaller thinner things like my glasses cases and sample skin/hair care packets. I put most of my hair products in the shower organizer hung on the opposite wall. I had purchased a fancy oval engraved metal tray from Dollar Tree (it looks SO much more expensive than it is) to organize my bathroom counter in a pretty way, and I put my face products and most-used hair products in it. I also put things in drawers and wherever they are supposed to go, instead of letting them sit on my bathroom counter. I'm very pleased with how everything turned out!
4. I put away the folded clean clothes I had left sitting in my clothes hamper for weeks. Whenever my hamper is full, I take it to my parents' house to use their washer and dryer, then put the clean clothes in the hamper to bring them back to my place. When I leave the clothes there instead of putting them away, though, I don't have anywhere to put my dirty laundry and I end up heaping it on the ground where the hamper usually goes. My hamper is filled with dirty clothes now, so it looks like I'm going to have to repeat the process this weekend...
5. I sorted and put away many of the clothes that were lying on my bedroom floor. I still have to put away some pants and skirts, and figure out what to do with some sweater dresses that I can't really hang, but my floor is way cleaner than it was before. There are still clothes strewn on the floor of my other room, but baby steps...
6. I forgot to say that I made my bed before step #4 and 5, as I use it as a surface to sort my clothes before putting them away. 
7. I rearranged several furniture items in my bedroom. A few days ago I had decided that the location of one of my chests of drawers didn't work for me. I had placed it against the wall facing the window with a mirror on top so I could use it as a vanity and display my prettier makeup products, but my blinds let a lot of light out, and the mirror reflected it, doubling the amount of light keeping me awake at night (I prefer a pitch black room at night and have trouble sleeping when there's too much light). I moved my vanity (a different furniture piece which was below the window) over a few inches, removed everything from the top of the chest of drawers, cleared the path of any obstacles, then dragged the chest of drawers over to be next to the vanity. I then re-placed my vanity items on the chest (along with a lipstick organizer and acrylic makeup drawers organizer that had no home). It looks a bit packed there, as there are some other chests of drawers against the wall perpendicular to the vanity chest of drawers and my vanity, but I checked and all of them have drawer clearance. I had thought of dragging it back to the other room where it used to be, but I want to have as many of my clothes drawers together as possible. 
8. I moved all obstacles and rolled my hanging clothes rack over to where the chest of drawers used to be. It was previously against the middle wall in the other room, which is not load-bearing (and my bed is already against that wall, gritting teeth emoji), and I decided it made more sense to have it be by my closets (I have two tiny closets since my ceiling slopes down A-frame-style). Besides, the wall by my closets is load-bearing. I also went ahead and rearranged the clothes on the rack to be in a certain color order. There is enough room by the clothes rack to...
9. hang my Mexico shadowbox and put up command hooks to hang my Mexican purses. I did the Command picture hanging strip process for the shadowbox and stuck on the Command hooks for two of my purses (I have to wait until I can hang up the shadowbox in order to see where to hang the other purses). 
10. I also hung up a small mirror I'd bought from the cheap front section of Target (it has hearts all over it like my bedspread), a $1 wooden wall decor item that matches my other wall decor, another wall hanging decor item from Target's cheap section, and did the Command picture hanging strip process for a framed poster I hadn't put up (my VW Bug poster I've had since grade school. It doesn't match my room theme but I can't let it go). I also hung up my wooden Wonder Woman comic book cover art plaque thing over the vanity chest of drawers. I can't put the big mirror there since my ceiling slopes down.
11. I also rearranged the items on my other two chests of drawers, the ones I didn't move. I had several makeup organizing items on the floor, and after I moved the vanity chest of drawers to where it is now, I moved them to be on top of my left chest of drawers, moving the other items that had previously been there to the right chest of drawers. I now have almost all of my makeup organizers on that chest: 4 liquid lipsticks/lipglosses organizers, one compact organizer, 6 mini tin buckets/cups holding more lipglosses, and my big magnetic whiteboard that holds all of my Colourpop Super Shock Shadows (I glued/stuck magnets to the backs of them). My small magnetic whiteboard is on the right chest of drawers because I have a small mirror hanging on the wall next to the big whiteboard and I don't want to cover it up. I put more sticky magnets on the backs of some of my single eyeshadow compacts (and 2 small eyeshadow duos) and put them on the small whiteboard.
12. I filled my evening pillbox as well, another small talk I often neglect.

That is quite a lot! I know there's 11 bullet points but each one lists several smaller tasks. I still have tons of cleaning and organizing to do, but I feel like I've done so much. I'm pretty proud of myself for being able to do all that in one day, after getting up at noon!

Obligatory New Year's post

Tentative/vague list of New Year's Resolutions:
-lose weight/work out/be healthier/eat right etc. Because I am boring and just like everybody else, but mainly because I want to look good for my sister's wedding in May. Never let it be said I wasn't shallow!
-write more. I have a book of poetic forms that I've been meaning to go through and try to write each one. And I have a short story I've only written one sentence of, as well as other ideas I just think about and never write down. Maybe even try to publish something
-read the C.S. Lewis devotional my parents bought me as well as my Bible every day. I had been reading my Bible every day for several years, but all the grad school stuff just brought that to a creaking halt. But I will start up again.
-crochet/knit more. I have so much yarn and needles it isn't even funny
-use the craft stuff I have kicking around in storage containers/boxes
-make a sizeable dent in my to-read pile
-try to spend more time with my friends
-drive more so I'm not so bad at it

Anyway, here is an animated short of The Little Match Girl, set in Russia. I read it was made for a Fantastia movie they were making for 2006 but never finished. It's terribly sad but I always saw it as a New Year's story.

Bookshelf update and other things no one cares about

So I rearranged my books so they're ordered a bit better. I'm still not entirely satisfied with the way they are but my dad stashed some of my books elsewhere so I'll reorganize when I find them.
The top two shelves (fairy tales/myths/Arthurian and CSL) are the same, but the third shelf is now animals (anthropomorphic and otherwise), fantasy, and Old-Fashioned Books (this will be rearranged because I'm thinking of moving my Discworld books down there to make room for the other Gaiman books); the fourth shelf has poetry, Austen and mysteries; and the fifth has Dickens and girl/Old-Fashioned Books and other/modern.

Over three days into my spring break and I still haven't caught up with or even watched any of my TV shows. And I was just on Tumblr so I got kind of spoiled on some of them, especially Community. I need to go see The Hunger Games too, and I want to go see it with my best friend and my brother and his girlfriend (who is the one who introduced that series to us) and my dad and I doubt it will happen because it's too many schedules to coordinate. It's been just appointments and cleaning for me this week ever since I came home. Sigh.

El Año Viejo

The traditional songs about a new year beginning seem melancholy and seem to focus on friends (Auld Lange Syne, My Dear Acquaintance [A Happy New Year]). The only Spanish song I know of on the same subject seems happier and counting-my-blessings-y (it's a scientific term), but that may be because the rhythm is so danceable. (this version is the best I can find on YouTube. Viva Celia Cruz.)

Good things that happened in 2011:

• I survived my first year and the first quarter of my second year of grad school
• I started a great job
• I got my driver's license
• I read some great great books and saw some good movies
• I hung out with my friends
• I bought a new laptop
• And a Nook 
• I did some library volunteering in the summer
• My brother and I bought our parents a new desktop computer
• My parents sold our minivan
• My little brother started college
• My mom started a new job she likes
• My sister studied abroad in France and Argentina (she's there now)
• and just got engaged
• My best friend's little girl was born, as was my cousin's second child. Babies are the best
• Said bestie^ graduated from nursing school and passed her boards and is now an RN
• I started this blog
• I got involved with Change.org and learned that if a lot of people click-sign petitions, stuff actually happens. It's a start.
• Other stuff I can't remember (these items are just in the order I thought of them)

Bad things that happened in 2011:

• My paternal grandmother died.  This has been the hardest thing to come out of this year.
• We just learned that my step-great-grandmother passed away too. She was my grandmother's stepmother.
• Natural disasters all over the world of varying intensities and horribleness such as tsunamis, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes and wildfires
• Steve Jobs and Elizabeth Taylor died
• Political crap, such as awful and/or sexist laws and the way OccupyWhatever protestors were treated. You will never convince me that it is okay to pepper-spray an 80-something year old woman in the face.
• The State of Georgia killed Troy Davis
• My maternal grandmother has had some worrisome medical stuff happen. She fainted twice a few weeks ago.

I was a bit worried I'd have more stuff in the Bad section than the Good, but I'm glad that's not the case. I think 2011 was somewhat better than 2010, but it still was rather difficult in parts. Here's to hoping 2012 is great.

Number of books read in 2011: approximately 139