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So without further adieu, I present to you: Where the Magic Happens

I said you couldn’t pay me. That I’m not stupid and it will never happen – well let me clarify – I am not accepting money for what I am about to show you, although if anyone wants to hand me that thousand dollars I mentioned, again, I won’t refuse you. I present to you, nonetheless, my bedroom, aka, where the magic happens. I’d like you to join me in ohhing and aahhing over every moment. Last week the gate was closed, off limits. Today, the gate is opening:

So first on the list was underneath the bed. I was just as surprised as you are in this, as I had no idea whatsover what would be under there. And given the state of the majority of my room, I knew I could find absolutely anything under there. So imagine my surprise…

Just about nothing! Almost everything you see here is literally on the other side of the bed. The sole contents underneath the entire queen sized bed are a piece of cardboard, one slipper and a plastic bag. I am still in shock that it could be that clean and happy to know where that slipper ended up.

Okay, so that wasn’t so bad. But what’s on top of my dresser had me humming and hawing – do people want to see my deodorant and spare change? Probably not, but one thing on my dresser I think we’ll all enjoy seeing, and he’s never been shown here at all, surprisingly. So here is the most important thing on my dresser, our pet hamster, Freddy:

Isn’t he just adorable? He’s named after the hamster in the book I, Freddy by Dietlof Reiche, for those of you who don’t normally read children’s books for your own sheer enjoyment, Freddy is a remarkable hamster who learns to read and eventually write, too, via a computer – it’s a pretty cute book and my hamster, I think, is pretty cute, too. Say hello Freddy!

[everyone can assume Freddy said hello – in truth, he’s not much of a social butterfly – pretty shy and a bit of a lone ranger type, but we love him anyway.]

What’s in my dresser you ask? Well clothes obviously. I’d like to tell you they are tidy, neatly folded clothes, but I’d be lying – they are half hearted, once folded articles of clothing that eventally just get shoved here and there. But it’s real life, so here you go. You can see here one of my favorite sweaters, a black silk tank top on top of a tan blouse, next to a grey tee shirt that I recently bought at Target for next to nothing – fun, huh? Yeah in the dresser doesn’t seem to be a great photo op to me…

And now for the night stand – one of my favorite parts of my room despite the slight disarray (you should see the floor around it – it isn’t even decent for photograph, never mind real life or no.

I love the warm yellow glow of my lamp, love even more the yellow vase in the background with my, yes fake, orange flower display, that always looks gorgeous and never asks me for water. You can see next to the bed the book I just finished reading yesterday (and a few runners up beneath), my night light which turns on when husband looks REALLY sleepy and grumpy, a box of tissues and some q-tips for the inevitable nighttime annoyances that pop up, a child lock with no purpose whatsoever, a change jar, some lotion, and a box of I don’t remember, I think it was for sunburns… And of course my trash can – it’s a full sized kitchen trashcan, because apparently I produce a lot of trash.

Apparently we only have one actual picture hanging in our bedroom – this surprised me, I was sure I’d find more (how do I so barely know my own bedroom?). This painting was in my bedroom at my parent’s house, I rescued it from the house that was on our property before my dad built the current house (long story) and just love it – I don’t know it’s back story – where it came from and what it’s all about and I think that’s what I love most about it.

I also love the colors, the feelings of calm and chaos all at once, and admitting here and now that I am not an art critic by any means and have no idea what I’m talking about.

One of the things that I love about my bedroom, and this was a sad stretch for me, is the sheer quantity of books – this is one of two bookshelves in our bedroom (the other is in my closet but hidden by a mirror with no good place to hang…) and probably only equals one third of my book collection. I love to read. In no uncertain terms. It is my passion.

So my favorite bit of calm in the chaos of my bedroom is the comforting sight of books, books and more books. It may be a mess, it may be a disaster, but it is filled with my favorite things: my books and at night, my husband. So it’s home. Oh and my absolute favorite display of book-age, is this invisible bookshelf from the Container Store (one of my favorite places to dream about being organized) – we have a half dozen of these throughout the apartment, but this one is really fabulous in its display:

Okay, now I’ve gotten my jollies showing you all that I love, here’s one small example of why I hate my bedroom. Keep in mind, when I say small, I mean small – as in, just one example of chaos, sheer utter chaos that grows inside my bedroom like a nasty unforgiving mold of stuff.

At the top of the “pile” is an “oven” my husband and I made for my son out of  the cardboard box that our pots and pans set (a wonderful gift from my father) came in – it was a great project and well received by all the kiddos who came across is, but then my son went all Sylvia Plath and climbed inside, which didn’t hurt him but the oven is temporarily out of commission – dh says he can fix it, easily, but that was weeks ago. Maybe this post will inspire him to jump on that?

All the totes are simply assortments of our stuff that have no room for a “home” in our small, small apartment – or maybe we just have too much stuff – regardless, those are some of the things we cannot say goodbye or hello to just yet. Further down you will see the cute chairs we got for MLM and his friends – the table survived, but the chairs didn’t even last one day before he managed to break thim with all 29 pounds of his body weight. Let’s see, there’s the big container on wheels thing for MLM’s mega bloks that he cannot seem to “play nicely” with; one of the three assortments of “toys” that I divided into three piles to try and pare down the mess that was becoming the rest of our apartment but then found I had no good place to put piles 2 and 3, so they ended up in the pile we call our bedroom… and yeah, you get the idea. So, let’s move on, shall we? Forget about the disaster if you can, remember the books, the good good books, and now let’s look at what makes this bedroom unique to me and mine.

I’m just gonna make a wild guess and say probably not many of you keep a giant full grown man sized bicycle in your bedrooms, hanging in suspension from the wall. And just to add the absurdity, you can see how often it’s used given that we felt no fear in keeping our old iMac right underneath it – no danger of breakage there folks. I’m being mean – if I didn’t make dh so late every morning maybe he’d ride it so often and I honestly don’t mind the bike at all, I just find it amusing to see it there – doesn’t it look completely safe and not at all intimidating – it really sets the mood, people – I know, tmi. Moving on.

You said hello to my hamster, now say hello to Mr. Egg Shaped iMac – the poor little trooper who kept me in Mac until big beautiful arrived. He was a brave soul, we pushed him to the limit people and asked too much of him time and time again, but he rarely complained – just puttered along, adhering to our every whim, while silently. begging. to. be. put. to. sleep.

May he rest in piece. (get it? cause he’s made of pieces of computer parts – oh I crack me up! – get it? egg shaped? hahahaha…) … Yeah.

So, last up on order is a pic of what I wear to sleep, which is coincidentally, often what I wear during the day, after sleep. I had dh help me in taking this picture so you could really see me in all my sad real life glory. Please don’t judge. If I make it small enough, maybe I’ll look smaller?No, I don’t wear the bandana to bed – but I do put it on in the morning when I give up on hair for the day…

So that’s real life folks. Hope you enjoyed it – tune in next week to god only knows what horrors…