I found the most perfect end table EVER this morning online! I want one so badly, that it’s just killing me! And the whole thing is my friend, Julie’s, fault! Gosh! She is apparently nesting in honor of our friend, Eve, who’s due to give birth quite soon, because, she is cleaning out her whole entire house! (I sure hope she’s coming to Alabama next!)

Julie is going from room to room in her house, cleaning, organizing, and getting rid of stuff! She even had some child laborers helping her! Crazy, isn’t it? They don’t seem to upset by it, though - they rather look like they’re having fun, I’d say! Well, aside from all the sneezing, that is! I’m getting off the subject, though, aren’t I?

She is rearranging her house in this process and she will be left with this one empty spot next to her dining table that she would like to make into a comfortable reading corner. There’s nothing I like more than comfortable reading corners! I’ve dreamed of one for a long, long time. I almost had one in one of the houses we lived in - and it was going to be in my master bedroom! That was going to be so cool! We never got around to the remodel, though, before we moved out of that house. So Julie posted some pictures of the area she has to work with and asked for advice on what to put there. Upon reading her post, I went looking online for this certain kind of chair that my brother used to have that I thought would be perfect for her spot! I did find the chair ….only trouble is, I also found the most adorable table!! And if I know Julie, she was drooling when she saw it, too! Here, let me just show you….
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My friend, Loretta, pointed me in the direction of a very cool blog, Today’s Gizmos, Gadgets, and Tech, on which the blogger posted about some of the coolest bookshelves I’ve ever seen! If you live in a smaller house or apartment, but, you love to hold onto your oodles and oodles of books, this would be the perfect solution for you! And what a cool specialty for a builder, too! I bet my husband, Mark, could specialize in making these and make a pretty penny!

The bookcase is, quite literally, IN the staircase! Wow! I wonder, though, if that would make the stairs pretty steep…

Enough of my carrying on, go check out the post: Bookcase in the Stairs - and have a look around, the author has blogged about some pretty interesting stuff over there - like an electric skateboard, and even cooler - a hands free umbrella that wont’ flip inside out! That would be so awesome!

I love baking! I really haven’t done much baking since we moved, because, I just haven’t gotten comfortable in this kitchen. I think it’s not a very baker-friendly kitchen. You know how some kitchens just don’t have a very good set up?

There is another thing, too, though. My mixer is so lame, it’s not even funny! It is the one I got years and years ago. I probably got it as a wedding present fifteen years ago. It’s a little hand held jobbie, that has lost some of the parts.

I’ve always wanted one of those stand alone mixers, like the Hamilton Beach® Mixer. They are so cool and I would feel so official then - like my kitchen would be official, and my ‘housewifeyness’ would be official! Those things have 400 watts of power and can make nine dozen cookies! Wow!

I like the Hamilton Beach® Stand Mixer over some of the KitchenAid models, as I’ve read that the KitchenAid ones are too big, too heavy, and too noisy.

And the Eclectrics® Mixer comes in a gorgeous Moroccan Red that would look so good in my kitchen with my burgundy cabinets. They also have a beautiful UltraMarine (blue) that would be good to get in case we decided to redo the kitchen.

The more I read about these things and look at their pictures, the more I want one! It’s so funny, but, there are two things that I’ve always wanted to make my kitchen official - a stainless steel fridge/freezer set and a stand alone mixer! I doubt I’ll get the fridge any time soon, but, I can surely dream for the mixer!

Oh, cool! It also has a quick-release tilt-up head. I always thought that getting the bowl out could prove to be dangerous for a ‘Lucy Ricardo’ like myself! Ha! Now I don’t even have to worry about that! That is awesome!

And I’ll just bet that a lot of my bookwormy friends out there like to bake, too! Sound off and let me know if you like baking as much as you like books! (Well, ok, almost as much as you like books!)

It can be especially painful on a Monday morning. Everyone is groggy and grumpy and it is a wonder they make it to their buses on time. It can be painful in other ways, too, though. Sammie was getting her breakfast this morning and scratched herself on our old cabinet hardware! This stuff is awful - it must be the original hardware that was put in the house when it was built in the early 60’s. It has these two prongs inside each cabinet door that stick out, waiting to pounce - and scratch your precious skin! We are slowly making changes to this house, and that is one change that I (and Sammie!) will be glad to see made!

GO READ A BOOK!

I have always wanted a cozy, comfortable corner all my own for reading and relaxing. I blame my mother’s dear friend, Patricia. You see, she and her husband have this lounge-y type room that is part of their master bedroom and I used to think that was the coolest thing, even as a kid. And as a grown-up, I’ve always wanted one for myself. We almost built one in one of our houses, but, you know as well as I do that contractors don’t work very much on their own homes. That plan was out the window like so many others! Well, now I have a corner that could be used for just this purpose. I don’t have a whole separate room, but, I do have a corner of my office. And my office, is, after all, my favorite room in the house. It’s the one part of the house that is all mine and I have a nice, empty corner in it that is going to be just great when I get done with it. I have to get some boxes out of the way and I’m going to find a nice, comfy chair to put there. And I think I will get a floor lamp, unless I can actually fit a small end table there. I will need to change out these curtains in here, because they are completely awful. It’s really just a sheer under-curtain, and it is falling off of the wall. That just won’t do. I might like some wood blinds in here, because I would like more versatility with the amount of light in here. On days when I have a headache and just want to cozy up in my chair with a good book, I’ll want it a bit dark in here, except over the book, of course. But that is what the floor lamp will take care of. I think I might get a shaggy rug for under the chair, too. Oh! You know what I could do! If I have enough room, I could put a dog bed next to the chair, and then when I cozy up in here, Lucky can, too! This is sounding better by the minute!

GO READ A BOOK!

We moved to Alabama last summer, and ever since then, half of my books have had to stay in boxes! What, I ask you, could be more sad, for a Mama Bookworm?

I know I had more bookshelves than I do now, and somehow I think I got swindled out of a couple by the Daddy Bookworm! I know that for one of them, he brought me home a big curio cabinet and said that I could put my angels and my trucks in it if I would give him one of the bookshelves. How he got the other one, I don’t know! He’s just sneaky, I guess! And we couldn’t even bring the curio cabinet with us - it wouldn’t fit on the UHaul truck, so we stuck it in our front yard the day before we moved, and sold it!

So here I am stuck with only two bookshelves, half my books in boxes, and my precious angels and awesome trucks in a box, too!

I was checking out some Studio RTA Furniture, and it is very cool, but, also very expensive! I better start saving up!

GO READ A BOOK!

It is so sad, but, my living room is empty. Truly empty. My ‘office’ is in what is supposed to be the dining room, and right behind me is the living room. So all day I sit here at this desk with an empty room behind me. There was a rhyme to my husband’s reason, of setting up the ‘living room’ in the basement, when we first moved here, but, now, I’m not so sure. We are planning a major remodel upstairs, and he thought it would be better to just go ahead and set up the living room downstairs so that when we were ready to start the remodel, it would be easier to get started. It just is taking us longer to actually get started than we thought it would. So I sit next to this big empty room all day. I am so tempted to just buy some furniture for it, because it is really driving me crazy! I’ve been ‘window-shopping’ (read:internet shopping) some Powell furniture, but, I know I can’t really afford it.

GO READ A BOOK!

We recently moved into a new home, and along with needing a few things for my home office, we also need some other home furniture. We moved over 700 miles away, and our kitchen table wouldn’t fit on the moving truck. Isn’t that sad? It really was for me, because that table had been in my life for a very long time and I really, really liked it. It was very special to me. I think for my office, however, I might just need another table and an easy chair. We’ll just have to take baby steps fixing this place up! Sometimes baby steps are the hardest steps to take!

GO READ A BOOK!

My Very Own Mail is a business that is run out of my home, in my makeshift office, that is really supposed to be the formal dining room. I have a lot of plans for it, too. I know some of the things that I need to more easily run the business, and I know some of the things that I want, but, I can’t quite get a picture of it in my mind. I know that I need some special shelving. I need those little paper shelves like teachers have in their classrooms, because I use so much assorted color paper. And I need a table or desk that stays empty on top, for assembling the packages. I do already have drawers for all of the crafts and goodies and my business paperwork, but, I think I need a few more of those to really keep it organized. And the thing I really want to do is paint at least one wall, if not more, purple! Yes - purple! It is my room, office - and I know for a fact I won’t be able to win anyone over on a purple wall anywhere else in the house! And for just this little tiny room, the painting costs won’t be bad at all!

GO READ A BOOK!