My Little Happiness

I have an obsession with colors. I love them. Seeing bright colors as a regular thing keeps me, in a way, sane. And in my quest to become more organized, I realized I could incorporate this love of mine!

So,I went to Office Depot with the intent of finding ways to be more organized. I realized I wanted paper clips, magnets, push pins, etc - normal "office supplies" - and then I saw their assortment of brightly multi-colored things. I just about died. Seriously. And they sell these boxes - Really Useful Boxes, to be exact - that are just perfect for organization.

So now I have what I've been thinking of as my boxes of happiness and my shelves of happiness.

I have three types of pens - some really nice multicolored ones that I got a few years ago and fell in love with, some multicolored gel pens, and my typical go-to pen (all in black). I have more Sharpies than I know what to do with. I have lots of dry erase markers.

I have piles of sticky notes. I have office supplies in all colors of the rainbow!

Just glancing at my shelf makes me happy and giggly; partially because I know where everything is, and partially because it's just so darn colorful!

This was something so simple, but it's impacted me so much already. I wonder what else a little color and organization will improve in my life?

Happiness is: Books

http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141040356,00.htmlNote: Images link to Anthropologie sales pages.

I've mentioned before my not-so-secret love affair with books. I've had it mostly under control for the last little while - since my last book-buying binge I've been very careful when I've gone into bookstores, and I've only bought anything with Tene's go-ahead. In the meantime my GoodReads list has grown to absurd lengths (I will take pictures of books that look interesting while I'm in a bookstore. Then when I get home I'll look up the title, and decide if it's something I might enjoy at some future time or not. If it is, I put it on the list, if it isn't, I simply forget about it) - but I haven't bought anything, and window shopping for books has been quite fun!

But then there's these, which I swear Anthropologie is selling just to taunt me.

Right now they're only offering five titles (although the Penguin website has all the others) - Wuthering Heights, Sense and Sensibility, Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, and The Sonnets and A Lover's Complaint (the image includes The Picture of Dorian Grey, but that isn't available through the Anthropologie website, while lacking The Sonnets and Little Women; I believe the image is out of date). They also have classic children's titles available - six of them - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Anne of Green Gables, The Wind in the Willows, The Secret Garden, and Peter Pan.

Now, I only have some interest in reading six of these titles - two of the classics (Sense and Sensibility and Little Women) and four of the children's classics (Robin Hood, Wind in the Willows, Secret Garden, and Peter Pan), because I haven't read those yet. But, I want to own all of the books - and the ones on Penguin's website that aren't for sale on Anthropologie. Because they're simply beautiful editions. I'll never read Wuthering Heights again - I hated it the first time, I'm sure I'd hate it again - but the binding and cover are simply to die for, for a bibliophile like me. They're simply lovely and I want to have them on my bookshelf.

I know all of this goes back to something very basic in me - I want to be the kind of person who I associate as owning a lot of books - and who I would associate with owning classic novels. Someone cultured and refined and all of that. It also feeds my desire to be surrounded by pretty things - even if they're not exactly useful pretty things. So far I've kept myself from buying any of these wonderful books - but I think about having them all on my shelf, looking so great next to each other ... and I have to say it's hard not to pull out my debit card and charge the lot of them.