Not What I Thought It Would Be

Setting up house, that is. This whole not-having-a-job thing makes for having a lot of time to unpack things and sort them and decorate and fun stuff like that. Sadly, it does not come with a lot of money to buy shelves and such. Nor does it come with the instant enlightenment of what to do with this hodge-podge of stuff we have. Blargh.

And it really is quite a hodge-podge. Mostly . . . well, no I'll be honest . . . entirely . . . because of me. Luke is really in to Japan and Japanese culture . . . really in to it. Pretty much everything he has that falls under the huge umbrella I'm labelling "decor crape" (with an accent on that last e to make it sound all fancy and French-like) is of Japanese origin, or at least looks like it could be. My stuff? If someone were to attempt to be polite while descrbing my stuff, they would probably use the word "eclectic." I have, quite literally, a little bit of everything. Cutesy little plaques and pictures from Deseret Book, dozens upon dozens of loose photographs that I kept on my wall in college, innumerable little knick-knacs and curios, some I bought myself, some I inheiriteed from heaven-knows-where, some were gifts, and most I couldn't tell you which of those was the source for it. Plenty of Disney stuff, of course, because like any self-respecting CM (cast member) I probably spent a good 30% of what I made on either food at the parks or little trinkets - a Jolly Roger flag, a talking Jack the Monkey, a couple of princess posters, etc. And that's just the stuff I can shove into some sort of broad category. What am I supposed to do with all this stuff?

I've never really had this problem before. With every other place I've lived in since I graduated high school, I either had a (more or less) definite date that I would be moving out, or I just didn't have enough space to put out everything I wanted. So it either stayed packed up in the many plastic tubs I've accumulated in the last seven years, or stored in the closet of my old room. But this time, I'm here permanently . . . well, indefinitely, anyway . . . and the whole place is mine to decorate. No roommates to share wall space and shelf space with . . . I gotta admit, that kinda nice. Kinda really nice. And I'm kinda really enjoying it. However, I'm also sorta stuck.

When I decorated my college/Florida bedrooms, I can admit now, that they always lacked a certain "je ne sais quoi" that, actually, je sais: most people would probably call it taste. I would take everything I had for decoration, and cram them all into whatever space I had. No real theme or even plan . . . I just put everything out and on display. The results might be a little hard to envision, but perhaps this will help: no where was this sort of "whatever" decorating philosophy more evident than on my walls. Posters, photos, pictures, calender . . . I probably kept about a pound of that sticky tack stuff on my walls at all times, and the two best ways I ever heard to describe it were these - "it's like I walked into a ginat scrapbook" and "it's like a scrapbook exploded in here." Yep, that's my room.

I suppose that sort of thing was to be expected. Growing up, my room alwways had next to nothing on the walls. And what was there was always . . . let's just say "mother approved." Either pictures she probably had on her walls as a child, or something she liked and allowed on the walls. All matching the paint, and all very matchy-matchy with each other. And a lot of it were not things I would have chosen to put on my walls when I was six, much less as a teenager. So I guess the exploding scrapbook was only to be expected once I had complete and sole control over what went on my walls. And I've gotta say, there's something unendingly pleasing about shutting your bedroom door and revealing a pirate flag . . . like a token of a hidden wildside that nobody ever sees, or something. Good times.

So now, here I am. I have a tub-full of knick-knacks that I want to display somehow . . . but we've already used up all our limited shelf/table space. With Luke's help I'm keeping things limited to just a few things per space, and I have to say, what we have looks pretty good. It's just only about 15% of what we have between the two of us is out on display . . . grrrrrrrrrr. Why can't furnished apartments come complete with curio cabinets . . . or something like that?

On a similar note, I specifically had my bouquet made of silk flowers so I could keep it, but now I have no idea what to do with it or how to display it. Any suggestions?


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Luke and I found this one a little while back, and I got quite a giggle or three out of it. Rated PG-13 . . . ish . . . for language if you care about that sort of thing.