The last time I let you inside my apartment, you really seemed to like it.
And I’m nothing if not accommodating and/or conscious of your voyeuristic needs, Internet!
(Also, am stretched beyond my limits and have no time to write deep, insightful blog posts.)
So today I invite you to take a peek inside my bedroom.
Internet, allow me to introduce you to my bedside table. Otherwise known as a night stand. Or Additional Book Shelving, clearly.
This is the view I have of my bedside table when I am sleeping. Or, you know, just lying there. Because if I WERE sleeping, I wouldn’t see anything except the inside of my own eyelids and possibly a shirtless Tim Riggins making me cheesecake. (Man, I WISH I dreamed about Tim Riggins. Or cheesecake.)
There’s my nice IKEA lamp on the left there… My Giant Stack O’Books… The little heart-shaped picture of me and my husband… The photo of my mom as a child… And the little Portuguese jewelry dish my husband brought me from, well, Portugal (what, did you expect me to say Thailand?). (Also, why does the word “Portuguese” have two Us in it?)
Of course, that’s only what you can see from THIS angle.
Here is the full frontal view.
Yes, I just typed “full frontal.”
My nightstand is cute, no? It was part of a matching set of bedroom furniture my husband and I bought when we first moved here for residency.
There’s a matching nightstand for my husband’s side of the bed. (His is topped by electronics – a Kindle, an iPod, an iPad, an alarm clock, and his phone – and a puzzle book, in case you were curious.) Also part of our bedroom ensemble is a tall, skinny “lingerie chest” in which I store t-shirts and folded sheets and other such non-lingerie items. There’s a matching dresser and mirror, filled entirely with my clothing. (My husband has a separate dresser in the closet.) And there’s the piece de resistance: the beautiful sleigh bed.
All of the items are made of solid wood of some sort, which is one reason we loved them. None of the cheap out-it-together-yourself Target-brand particle-board stuff we’d been using for the past umpteen years.
I’ve heard on HGTV that you shouldn’t be too matchy-matchy in your furniture selection. But I am not savvy enough to pair non-matchy items and have them look like anything other than a poorly-planned yard sale. Plus, this set of bedroom furniture was RIDICULOUSLY cheap.
Anyway, now you can see just how cluttered well-organized my nightstand is.
Let’s take a closer look!
This is the right side of the nightstand.
You’ll notice that I have a glass of water sitting precariously close to the edge. But! It’s on a coaster!
There’s a pad of paper and a pen, for late night snippets of poetry that come to me in between dreams of Tim Riggins nightmares about work. Sometimes the late night snippets are good and useable. Other times, they are mysterious. Such as this scribble: “If ever my own grandmother.”
Um. What now? I admit I like the rhythm of the phrasing… but I have NO EARTHLY IDEA what it’s supposed to mean.
In the back row, there’s that photo of my husband and me. I blurred out our faces and we look even creepier than we normally do. (We’re REALLY creepy.)
In any case, I love that photo. We’re sitting on the couch in my dorm room back in college. We’re both wearing sweatshirts. My hair is pulled back. We’re comfortable and loungy. And we’re deliciously, deliriously happy. I hope we’re always always always like that.
The frame I’m not so crazy about. It’s a remnant from my college days and I frankly think it’s tacky. BUT the photo is cut into the shape of a heart to fit the frame, so I can’t very well re-frame it. Thus, it stays on my nightstand.
Next to that is the photo of my mother as a child. I’m not sure why I love it so much. But I do!
You’ll also see my Word-a-Day calendar.
For years, my husband and I would receive Something-a-Day calendars for Christmas gifts. Or we’d buy them for ourselves. He usually learns a language. This year, he does a daily Sudoku puzzle. I, on the other hand, prefer learning new words.
Except… I suck at Word-a-Day calendars.
As you can see, this is not only stuck on January 22…
… It’s also stuck on January 22 of 2010. As in last year. As in, I didn’t even make it ONE MONTH before I had to wave the white flag of Something-a-Day surrender.
Every once in a while, I will rip off a page and learn a new word. I think I changed it to “revenant” about six weeks ago. No, wait, maybe that was in January of this year? I can’t remember. In any case, despite the fact that the word before “revenant” was on the calendar for MONTHS, I cannot remember what it was.
At this pace, I’ll be done with my Word-a-Day calendar by 2179. And I will know zero words.
My lack of Word-a-Day stick-to-it-iveness is depressing me. So let’s take a closer look at the little jewelry dish my husband gave me.
As you can see, it doesn’t really hold jewelry. This is because I now have a big beautiful Pottery Barn (I think) jewelry box with a hinged lid and drawers and little compartments for rings and such. It was a gift from my in-laws in 2009. And it holds all of my costume necklaces and bracelets. I keep my (very limited supply of) nicer jewelry elsewhere because I am paranoid.
So, instead of jewelry, the dish holds my bedside essentials.
Namely:
– A small bottle of OPI lotion for my dry hands. I got it for free as a Christmas gift from one of the girls in my book club. (I suppose if I say it was a gift, I don’t need to have the whole “for free” thing in there now do I.)
– A tube of Burt’s Bees chapstick – critical for my chapped lips.
– Two hair ties, because I usually have my hair up in a ponytail when I drop into bed. But I do not like sleeping with my hair up. So I put the hair ties in the dish for safekeeping. (They disappear easily.)
Now let’s take a look at the floor in front of my nightstand.
There’s the infamous Taking Charge of Your Fertility. Someday, when I’m more mature, I will read it again. Until then, it may sit on my floor.
Under it is some sort of trashy magazine. Glamour or Marie Claire, I’m not sure and I’m too lazy to go into the other room and look. Whenever I read those kinds of magazines (which is about twice a year), I fold down the pages of interesting tidbits I want to remember. And then I save the magazine, so I can go through it again and remember the tidbits. And then I get busy and eventually throw the magazine away, un-examined. It’s a flawed plan.
This little exploration of my nightstand is revealing more about my personal failings than I anticipated.
That white machine in the foreground is my noise machine.
My parents got it for me a couple of years ago and I LOVE it. It has multiple settings of soothing sounds. The ocean. A distant thunderstorm. (Those are my favorites.) A babbling brook. A country evening. And you can add or remove additional sounds – like a buoy clanging, a loon calling, a frog frog-sounding.
Without this bad boy, I would NEVER sleep.
Last, but certainly not least, is my Giant Stack O’Books.
Normally, they are stacked all willy-nilly on my nightstand. But I turned them all around just for you!
My husband and I are both book multitaskers. We normally read at least two books at a time.
Sometimes, my husband will get exasperated by my Giant Stack O’Books, and he’ll thin them out and put away the ones I’m not reading or am done reading or am simply “reading.”
I have read bits and pieces of the majority of the books: Lisa Scottoline’s Look Again; The Culture Code by Clotaire Rapaille; The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson; and My Life in and Scientific Advertising by Claude “The Great” Hopkins. I’ve actually read that last one before, but it’s a book I keep beside my bed and pick up now and again for inspiration and writing reminders.
I want to finish Culture Code and Finkler, but I haven’t felt motivated to do so. Look Again and the only book in the stack I am not going to name… I am keeping on my nightstand because I HATE to leave a book unfinished. But… I have a short attention span my time is valuable, so I have a hard time forcing myself to read something I am not enjoying.
—SHORT TANGENT—
Last year was one of my worst years EVER for unfinished books. I swear, every other book I picked up was utter dreck. (I don’t think “dreck” is really a word, but I heard it on Top Model and liked it’s snappy onomatopoeia-ishness.) (I totally spelled onomatopoeia correctly the first time! No spellcheck needed!)
Among the books I picked up and promptly put down last year? The Anthologist, which I had super high hopes for. The Last Song, which I was biased against from the beginning, but forced to try because it was a book club pick. And Beat the Reaper which received enthusiastic reviews from my husband, but didn’t quite capture my attention.
This year, I’ve had better luck. But not stellar.
—END TANGENT—
The book I’m currently reading – Amy Tan’s The Hundred Secret Senses – is on top. Under that is the book I just finished – Jeannette Walls’s Half Broke Horses (which I LOVED. Best book I’ve read this year.). Why haven’t I put Horses away? Oh, I suppose it’s because my husband normally does the book re-shelving. He enjoys it so, and I would never want to strip him of his book re-shelving happiness.
I haven’t read John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces yet. Nor have I started The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. But I’m looking forward to both. Hopefully they won’t wind up in the “meh” column.
Well Internet, there you have it. A very up-close-and-personal look at one of the most private areas of my home. I hope you enjoyed it!
What do you have on your nightstand?
You have a lot of books! A few years ago I actually read a lot… then the internet came along and robbed me of my free time. Anyway, in my nighstand I have: a book by Umberto Eco which was given to me as a Christmas gift. I started reading it promptly and then stopped because I didn’t find it very interesting, but I keep it there so I see it everyday and maybe I’ll pick it up again. I also have my glasses, hair clips, and spare change. Oh and moisturizing cream. That’s it!
AH! I love your nightstand! When I joined Russ and moved lto Erie I brough up my dark wood sleigh bed and matching nightstand – I was getting tired of a “meh” just mattress/box spring set up. I still have the matching dresser piece at home, there is sadly no room for it in our apartment now 🙁
I do the EXACT same thing with those magazines. Russ always tells me they are a waste of money and I counter him every time in the check-out line, but after I’ve read the entire thing front-to-back in less than 3 hours, I realize it’s true.
Thanks for sharing your list of books!! I’m marking down several of them (copy cat) and will be checking out amazon to make a few purchases 🙂
I love your one-a-day calendar and love more that you don’t use it! Ha! That’s so something that I would do. Oh, well, you are ambitious and there’s nothing wrong with that!
My nighttable has: tissues, nasal spray (sexy, I know. Allergies are so, so fun), Bible, glass of water, face cream, lamp. No pictures, but occasionally, other things make an appearance. Misplaced sunglasses! Water bottle from the gym! It is a fun hodgepodge indeed.
I’m kind of impressed with your ability to multi-read. I’m a one book at a time kinda girl.
I am reading Half Baked (again), by Alexa Stevenson, who was a blog friend before she was a published book author. (And I highly recommend it, it is hilarious. And not about subjects that you would think would be hilarious.)
But I don’t usually keep books on my nightstand because I don’t usually read in bed. (Now I usually read while I am eating. I know, you aren’t supposed to do that, but when else do they want me to read?) On my nightstand, I have a clock, Elizabeth’s baby monitor, a pen and paper (which currently contains our grocery list), my chapstick, and a lot of dog hair. The dog hair isn’t supposed to be there though. I keep dusting it off but it keeps coming back. I blame the dog for this.
My clock, my Body Shop Lip Scuff (LOVE IT), a coaster for the occasional drink and my lucite lamp from Target. We have matching lamps and chests of drawers, I’m trying to find the perfect nightstand to replace my home made wood shelf type thing I have now. Sometimes I also have my previous days’ earrings, and on the shelves below I have an entire series of books by R.A.Salvatore that I just cannot get into, so I let them sit there. I’ve convinced myself I will read them someday…but it’s possible I’m lying to myself.
I have one question: Do you take the noise machine with you when you travel?
My nightstand is full of books too. I’ve tried to put them all away nicely, but I just can’t sleep in a room without books 🙂
I loved Half Broke Horses too- SO good!
And thanks for indulging my unhealthy obsession with peeking inside other people’s homes. I love it!
We have those same night stands and yes I loved how affordable they were. We got them after Dr. Love and I got married since they matched my dresser and sleigh bed nearly perfectly, so yeah I have matchy matchy bedroom furniture too for the same reason that I wanted it to look cohesive and not like hand me down furniture from a yard sale…we have that look in the “guest room.”
On my nightstand is a lamp, an alarm clock, my nook, a little silver gravy boat thing that I put my rings and watch in at night, and a coaster with my glass of water (which I just happened to knock over it a sleepy haze yesterday morning spilling water everywhere. 🙁
Love all the books you have on your nightstand! I do that too, except I always knock them over when I reach for my glass of water in the middle of the night.
Heres where I leave you a totally douche comment to say that dreck is a Yiddish word, means, like, gunk, dirt, etc. Ex.: When I’m sick, I always complain about the dreck coming out of my nose.
Woo! Yiddish lesson of the day!
I too, hate to leave a book unfinished! Even when they are tedious to read I make myself read and power through – something about being a “quitter” i just can’t live with.
With that said – I started A Confederacy of Dunces 3 times before I was able to finish it. I LOVED IT!! We love New Orleans, and I am familiar with so many of the places but the begining is slow.
Confession – I bought it on CD and listened to it on a LONG roadtrip 🙂
I have nothing but a lamp on my bedside table, because my children like to use it as a launching pad into my bed in the mornings.
I have tried to read Confederacy of Dunces twice now, because my father speaks so highly of that book, that it is SOOOO FUNNY…but I have not been able to get past the first twenty pages. Eh.
Amen to the white noise maker. We normally just have a fan running in our bedroom, but since it’s apparently spring – despite the fact that it’s still not warm – the birds outside begin chirping around 4.30am. If I happen to wake up, they are so noisy that it is impossible to fall back asleep. They’re like an alarm clock that I can’t turn off. I then lay there, thinking about how much I would adore to shoot all of the stupid, chirpy, happy annoying little birdies.
Enter: white noise iPhone app. Bliss. I don’t think I’m ever going back.
Right, so my nightstand? Books – tons on the bottom shelf. Lamp. Clock. Coaster. Boring.
I love seeing pictures of other people’s houses…..especially people I don’t know in real life! I am also impressed with your ability to read more than one book at a time. I wouldn’t be able to keep it straight.
I also need noise to sleep, but I use a humidifier in the winter and an air conditioner in the summer (both loud) rather than an actual sound machine. I also make sure my kids have white noise (in the form of air filters on high, humidifiers, and/or air conditioners) and when we travel, we bring the air filters with us.
I have the same problem with sleeping at night. If I have something in my life causing me stress, even good stress, like something new I am excited about trying, but that takes a lot of thought, I will lie awake at night thinking about it and making plans, or reliving something or whatever. I just can’t turn off my brain. I often need to take Tylenol PM (or I am sure any sleep aid would work) to be able to fall asleep and stay asleep. It sucks.
What a fun post! 🙂 Love all your books. I have stacks all over my room, but my nightstand usually has the current read, lotion, about 50 ponytail holders and a phone charger.
: )
I have that same lamp from Ikea on my nightstand! When we moved into our house in December I went back for another one so my husband’s side could have a lamp that matched, and they didn’t have it anymore. They had a variation that is just different enough to not match. Boo Ikea.
This is so intimate…are we really ‘there’ yet? I don’t know about you, but I’ve always felt very weird being in someone else’s bedroom because somehow it is this sacred space. And here you are, broadcasting yours on the internet (I did mine too don’t worry). I feel like we know each other so well now.
I have all my books in the drawers of my nightstand. My nightstand is so plain and boring – alarm clock, a few perfumes, lamp, and usually a bottle of water. Plain right?!
You are so brave to allow us inside your bedroom. I can’t offer up pictures of my bedside area because it’s quite ridiculously messy.
ha-ha! We have almost identical night stands, and I think I have the same bowl. However, because I am old I don’t have to read Take Charge Of Your Fertility:) I am way way past that.
I am a new reader, and you are incredibly brave to allow us into your bedroom. My side of my bed is just so messy stacked with books, and the remote, and my Ipad, and my phone, and and and.
I will be back, your journal gives off fun energy.
I like the idea of a little dish to hold your bedtime essentials like chapstick and hair bands… I need to implement that. Thanks!
We have a huge sleigh bed and 2 dressers and 2 nightstands in our bedroom and they are match…..Obviously our bedroom is very large.
I keep my jewelry box on my nightstand, I have Febreze on the floor because I spray my sheets and pillowcase every morning due to cat hair that flies around the house. I don’t read in bed. I have to put my glasses inside the drawer on the nightstand so the cats (we have 3) don’t knock them on the floor.
I read Half Broke Horses and loved it. I also read her previous book which was about her own childhood…it was heartbreakingly good.
It’s comforting to know that I’m not the ONLY person that starts multiple books at one time….and sometimes never finishes them.
My goal this year is to finish all the books I have in my home that I’ve either started or hoped to start. The ones I love, I will keep. The ones I didn’t care for I will give away 🙂