The Monica Closet & A Giveaway.

The Monica Closet is truly the bain of my existance. Yes, just like Monica from Friends, we too have a closet filled with all manner of crazy shit. An avalanche of boxes and purses and coats would fall on your head each time you'd reach for something. The sheer amount of crap on the floor was up to my thigh. The Dyson didn't fit. The extra leaf from the table didn't fit. The keyboard (in a giant case I might add) was sitting in our dining room for months. Classy, I know. Don't believe me? Take a look.



My mother just had a heart attack, I am sure. She has helped me clean out this closet already, though we didn't do NEAR enough weeding out or organizing because it was just a matter of months before it was filled again. Having a party and need to stash the pile of mail? Throw it in the closet. Your faux purses from the Bahamas? Throw them in the closet. Coats from high school? In the closet! Picnic basket? Old printer? You can see where this is going... Right there in the closet!

So my magnificent husband spent his very last day of vacation helping me tackle this fiasco. I did swear on my life to NEVER allow it to get to this point again. Our little helper monkey thinks that the closet is now his play area since... get this, he can WALK into it. It is like a room he just discovered. Get this, our Dyson, keyboard, extra table leaf, AND all three of us can fit in there and still move around! We installed shelves at the far end, which helped tremendously. Here are the afters.

OK, now on to the giveaway. I must admit, it's mostly because I have to apologize to you for being a total crap blogger and thanks for hanging in there and still checking in. I don't think I've talked in my blog before about Passion Parties, but I was a consultant not so long ago. When I decided to stay home with Finnegan a year ago, I also gave up the Passion Parties. Well I have two boxes FILLED with all manner of goodies for your fun bits that were in that closet and are not going back in. I have everything from toys to lotions and potions and books and bath stuff. So here is what you do... go to the Passion Parties site (not work safe!) and email me (mma128@gmail.com) with your top 5 wishlist items. Don't forget to tell me flavors if there are choices. If you have more than 5 favorites, send me two emails! If I have one or two or five of your favorites, they are yours! If not, try again with 5 other items! EASY. If you are local, you can pick them up. If you're out of town, I'll send them to you since I want them to go to a good home.

Honey, now you don't have to do that guest blog you've been threatening. I'm back.

Since Amy was giving me shit.

Check out my comments section in the this post. It reminded me I wanted to do an update about this post. So here it is, my quest for more non-fiction in the year 2009...

So far this year, I've been doing a lot of non-fiction reading. OK, "a lot" is a relative term. I've been doing "a lot" for someone who isn't in school and required to do a lot of reading. Anywho, here is the list so far. Not bad I think for two months of reading!

The Year of Living Biblically. This was a really good book and a quick read. It was meant to be a humor book, but I really didn't get that. The author, AJ Jacobs learned a lot from his year of following the Bible as literally as possible. And yes, I suppose the concept of following the Bible literally is a bit humorous in this day and age, but it was eye opening witnessing the transformation in the author from Day 1 until the end of the book. Read it.

Outliers. In all fairness, I was warned of the fuzzy research methods that Malcolm Gladwell uses in some of his books. I really wanted to love Outliers and the concept was really intriguing. I didn't hate the book, but I didn't love it either. I found some of his information intriguing and thought provoking, but others bordered on stereo-typing. I wasn't impressed although I am glad I read it.

I Love Everybody (And Other Atrocious Lies). I absolutely love Laurie Notaro. She is fucking HILARIOUS. This wasn't her best book, but it was still laugh out loud funny. She has such a knack for taking the mundane and turning it into something that makes you cringe, laugh, and almost pee your pants all at the same time. This book was also interesting for me because it covered the story of how her first book came about and how she felt as a writer during that time. I think all of her books are a must read, you will be glad you discovered her work. And OK, this was humor, but it is still non-fiction.

How To Win Friends & Influence People. I'm halfway through this book. Love it. It's something I am going to read slowly and savor. I may even read a book or two in between finishing this. I will say, at first it took some getting used to reading a book that was written essentially for business eons ago, before the Internet, before women were really taken seriously, back at a time when it was the good ole boys network.... and yet, it really is a timeless classic. I can see the relevancy to today's world and why it's consistently something that business students are required to read.

Naptime Is the New Happy Hour. I'm halfway through this one too. It's really funny and a light read. I read quite a few mommy blogs and this is kind of all of them rolled into one funny book. I'd recommend it for mom's of toddlers. The style is conducive to reading a bit, putting it down, and picking it up again later.

Next up on my list: The 5 Lessons A Millionaire Taught Me for Women. I absolutely love personal finance stuff. It's even better if it's an interesting read rather than something dry and textual. I should have this one done while we're on vacation.

The END of the Internet.

I feel like I've reached the end of the internet. Have you ever felt that way? I want some new stuff to peruse.

Post a comment and tell me what you recommend.

Myles turns ONE.

Happy 1st Birthday Myles!!