Monday loves books . . . and office supplies . . . and craft things . . .

Hello, girls! It's Monday!

Short blog from me this week -- my students perform on Saturday, and I'm up to my ears in waiting craft projects also known as all the props I have to construct in the next five days. I've found I develop a strange need to explain myself to the cashier at Ben Franklin's when I hit this point in show mode. I don't want her to make her own conclusions about the fake bird, bag of stones, plastic vegetables, three pieces of foam core, and black masking tape. You know how it is.

But that leads nicely into this week's topic. Where do I avoid going when I'm poor because I know I'll spend money? Places like Ben Franklin's. Or Michael's. Or Hobby Lobby. Craft stores are my undoing. Because fabric paint's only 99 cents a tube and scrapbook paper's only 59 cents a page and stickers are only $1.49 a sheet, and before you know it, I've spent $50.

The same can be said of office supply stores. You've all seen the pictures of my Neville Notebook. My planner is just as colorful. When Sharpie came out with their eight color highlighter set, I thought I was made. I soon discovered that eight isn't nearly enough, so when the 10-color set came out the next year, I bought that, too, despite having eight colors in common. I just needed the extra two, you know? I do all my longhand writing in spiral notebooks or college-ruled composition books (which are ridiculously hard to find, by the way), I'm insanely picky about my pencils, and I'm in love with black Pilot .07 ballpoint pens. And yes, hello, my nerd is showing.

But my real undoing when I am poor? Bookstores. If I had all the money in the world or no self-discipline, I could drop two hundred dollars in a bookstore without even thinking about it. I mean, my relatively small two-bedroom apartment? One of those bedrooms is our library. Three bookcases. All full. 85% my books, 15% the boyfriend's, best estimate, and I think I'm being generous. There are just so many books that I want!

Speaking of which, I hit my year goal of 125 books a few days ago. Chase then said, "You could get to 150 before the end of the year if you worked at it." To which I said, "Challenge accepted, sir."

So we'll see how that goes.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I've got eight more tombstones to make.

. . . yeah, don't ask.