Busy, busy, busy!
Today I got things done! I feel like the first half of the Hyperbole and a Half cartoon “Why I’ll never be an adult” (you know the part where she cleans, banks and goes grocery shopping?) I did laundry, took out the trash, did the dishes, went to the post office, bank and even returned something to the store. Where’s my trophy?
I managed to get some more writing done, but everything has been very non-linear so it’s making it hard to pull it together into a chapter. =/ I did my drawing today, but I’m too lazy to go upstairs and scan it in right now.
I’m debating starting another story, which is stupid because I’ve got so many unfinished stories that have been going on for years. But it’s a story that I’ve had kicking around my head for just as long. Every once and a while I’d pull it out and noodle at it for a bit and then it would go back into the idea drawer. Now I’m thinking I might try it as a drabble series, which means uber short chapters. Drabbles are usually 100-300 words at most. It’d be an entirely different way to write then I normally do. Ponder, ponder, ponder…
Read MoreHappy New Year! Time to spring clean, or at least organize
I’m having a good year so far, how about all of you? ^_^ I went to a party at a friend’s last night and got to reconnect with a lot of people I hadn’t seen for a while. Then today I spent the day napping and reading manga. Totally unproductive but really really nice.
I did want to try to resurrect a couple of ideas I failed at last year. One being to draw something every day. The little bunny on this post was my drawing for today.
Now for a question for you manga/book people. Some of you might have seen my tweet/facebook status about my new shelves. The link will take you to a bad cellphone picture where the light from the windows make the shelves look ethereal and mystical.
Being that my friends are mostly book-nerds, I wasn’t surprised when one of the comments was about how I planned to organize the books in my new library. (It was also one of the first questions I got from both the person who installed them and the first person who saw them up.) I think everyone I know has a closet librarian in their heart.
Actually, of the three people who’ve asked one is currently a school librarian and the other a daughter of a librarian… so my source group might be a little slanted towards a book organizing bias.
But back to the question… how should I organize my books? Each shelf holds about 110 (115 if I really pack ‘em tight) of manga. I’m thinking that will organize them by author… but on my old bookcases I organized them by how long the series was and if it was a “complete” or on going series because it made it easier to shelve new books. I had two for “completed” series, two for series with 15 volumes or more that were on going, one for series that I have for series 14 or less, and one and a half for “one and two volumes so far” series (the other half of the one shelf were unread books with one shelf dedicated to volume 1s and the other for later volumes of ongoing series).
I know it sounds complicated, but since most of my books were double or triple stacked on the shelves it made it easier to have the long series together where I could layer the first 10 or 15 behind the newer volumes since I probably wouldn’t want to read them again and the series I was actively adding new books to all together so if I had to re-arrange to lend or add in new books I wasn’t having to move around the completed or big series.
This of course all refers to my manga collection, the lion’s share of my books. I don’t tend to horde “regular” books as much as manga because they’re easier to replace or find in a library.
With my new shelves, I should be able to put all my books out in one layer when the shelves are all done. The shelves up currently only hold about a third of my manga collection, but two other shelves are in progress making for 7 shelves on that wall with two of them being longer (going above and below the window) and 5 mini shelves for the other side of that window. That should allow me to put about half my manga collection up on one wall, which is plenty to start organizing and inventorying.
I really need to inventory, I’ve already found four duplicate volumes bought in the last couple of months because my book database isn’t up to date.
So how do you all organize your books? By title, by author, by genre, or size (either size of book or length of series)? I’ve tried all of those at various times with some problems each time, but I’m interested to hear other people’s takes on it. I know some of you out there have as big or bigger collections then I.
Read MoreSO excited! Finally SHELVES!
Well, almost. One of the cool things about being involved in fandom is that I’ve reaped some pretty awesome side benefits.
Because I wrote fanfiction, I got a fan named Dreaming0 who wandered over to my message board. Because I mentioned a local event we realized that we lived less then 15 minutes from each other. We became really good friends and she helped me when I moved in, even helping me paint a few rooms in my house. That’s a good friend!
Because I joined the Anime Syracuse anime club, I met Kiamarie. Because Kiamarie joined the staff of the event we plan, I found out that Kiamarie is made of awesome and win… and is a carpenter and all around handy-woman. She fixed a table from Africa (which has been broken for years, and was a gift from my very best friend, Shelly). And is going with me tomorrow to get the supplies to hang shelves in my soon to be library! I’m paying her, but she offered me a discount because I loan her anime. A carpenter who works for anime! Awesome. ^_^
I can’t wait to have all my books in one house and out of boxes where they can be easily read and shared!
Read MoreI updated my fanfiction!
Figured I’d lead off with a strong point. I posted the next chapter of Full Course, and for those that follow it can read it on Fanfiction.net.
I also was able to follow through with using another kitchen appliance, and tried out my rice cooker. It ended up being easier to use then I thought, though I made more rice then I meant to. I had rice and beans for dinner, I suspect I’ll be having rice and beans for lunch tomorrow too (and maybe dinner).
I also tried to cross off something that’s been on my house “to-do” list for over a year. Some might remember that when I bought my house the previous homeowners managed to lose the keys to the house. They managed to find the back door keys, and that’s how I’ve been entering and exiting the house for over a year now. Not a big deal since that’s where I park. But I’d kind of like to be able to use the front if I wanted to.
So today I took the door and deadbolt mechanims off my door and went down to Lowes to get a new bolt and lock. I specifically took the old one in so that I could get ones that fit for sure. The clerk got me one of the same brand and assured me that it would be an easy replace, and even walked me through the purchase.
However, the hole bored in the door to fit the locks are not big enough to fit the new locks, by about an inch. I managed (after calling my father to whine and have him come over) to get the old ones back on. Serious powertools (and more experience then we have) will be required to make this work. Or any other lockset work’; from my research the lock I purchased is standard and the holes in my door non-standard.
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