Well, ya know I had to participate in this one! If you want to do this one, please let me know in the comments so that I can read what you have to say! Officially, I dub that Brittany and Amy have to do this one, but anyone can join in!

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback? Trade paperback. Hardbacks are too big and mass markets are too small - I like to be able to read with the book in one hand, between my thumb and pinkie.

Amazon or brick and mortar? AMAZON!!! The prices are soooo much cheaper, plus I can do all the wishlist/recommendation stuff. Also, I have been known to walk out of a bookstore with 2 overflowing bags of books . . . when I hadn’t intended to buy any . . .

Barnes & Noble or Borders? Barnes and Noble - love the atmosphere, and the selection is better.

Bookmark or dogear? Bookmark bookmark bookmark!!! My mom makes beautiful bookmarks out of beads and ribbon, and now I can’t live without mine!

Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random? At the moment they are all just sort of grouped by genre, but that is because I have a severe lack of a good bookcase. When I get a good bookcase for my next apartment, I’m probably gonna go all out and file them by their Dewey numbers, so that’s genre, then author alpha.

Keep, throw away, or sell? Keep books that I really really loved, and then the ones that I don’t I TRADE!!! All of my books that are not sentimental for me are listed at Bookcrossing.com (which I highly recommend all readers use), and then I trade either with other BCers or on PaperBackSwap.com. This means that I have spent significantly less money on books in the past 6 months or so, and my wallet thanks me for that.

Keep dustjacket or toss it? I keep it - even though they’re annoying, they look nice, and they’re part of the book!

Read with dustjacket or remove it? Like I said, they’re annoying! I always manage to rip them if I read with them on, so off they go!

Short story or novel? Novel! Though give me some Edgar Allan Poe and I’ll be happy all afternoon.

Collection (short stories by same author) or anthology (short stories by different authors)? Collection. I often find that anthologies are too disjointed for me.

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket? Oooooooo, LOVE Harry Potter! Though, to be fair, I haven’t read Lemony Snicket, only saw the movie, so that’s on the TBR list.

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks? I am soooo horrible about this. I stop reading when I get tired, though often I get invigorated by reading, so I don’t get tired . . . which means I read until the book is done, even if that’s at 4:30AM.

“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”? Neither. How about “there was a shoe sale at Barney’s” . . .

Buy or Borrow? Buy. Another thing I’m really bad at. I really really want that book to be MINE. Getting to the point where I’m OK with trading for “new” books took a while (yeah, OCD much?), but I feel like they are mine, so it’s OK. Sometimes I borrow from my mom, but let’s be honest, I feel like I partially own all of her stuff, and visa versa, ya know?

New or used? New or traded. I rarely buy used (unless it’s a textbook - then we’ve reached a different area altogether).

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse? I like to browse, but if I’m buying chick lit off of Amazon (which I rarely do anymore), the reader reviews are helpful. Since those are all pretty mindless anyways, the opinions tend to lead you in the right direction.

Tidy ending or cliffhanger? I usually want a tidy ending. I know it may be more intellectual to let you figure it out yourself at the end, but I’m reading for pleasure - indulge me.

Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading? Nighttime. If I read in the day I feel like I should be doing something else, and then I can’t enjoy it as much. Though I do tend to read in certain places - airports/airplanes, coffeeshops, when I get my hair highlighted (I’m sure they love how untalkative I am) . . .

Stand-alone or series? It depends on the series. I usually go for stand-alones because there aren’t many good series in the genres that I like to read.

Favorite series? While now it’s probably Harry Potter, I probably would need to say Baby-Sitters Club is my all time favorite . . . that series changed my life.

Favorite children’s book? What a difficult question! I don’t think I can answer this one . . . it requires some serious soul-searching . . .

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard? Don’t really have much to contribute to this one. I really like Thomas Hardy books, and if you’re not an English major, you may not have heard of him . . .

Favorite books read last year? Last year wasn’t too hot for reading - I was reading for class, and then I was on reading burnout.

Favorite books of all time? Ahhhhh! Another one that I don’t know how to answer! Mmmm, let’s go with Baby-Sitters Club, a collection of Edgar Allan Poe, Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks, and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

Least favorite book you finished last year? Had to be one of those awful things I read last year for my pre-1700 World civ class . . .

What are you reading right now? Just finished Loose Lips: A Novel by Claire Berlinski last night!

What are you reading next? The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Hat Tip: Shannon @ Rocks In My Dryer

I looooove Blue Man Group (saw them twice in NYC), so I had to share this!

As I looked back on my previous WFMW posts, I realized that I had not posted one of my absolutely favorite things on the internet - Bookcrossing.com!

Bookcrossing is a wonderful site, especially for book lovers like me (and many of my blog readers ;-))! I’ll try to explain it as best I can, but you really should pop on over to the site and check it out yourself.

Let’s say I have a book (haha, understatement). I finished reading this book, and I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t completely earth-shattering, so I don’t necessarily want to keep it here on my bookshelf taking up precious real estate. I register the book on Bookcrossing.com. In doing this, the book is assigned a number (which I either write into the cover, or use a sticker to put it in - this seems more effective), and I write up my opinion of the book on the website, rating it with 1-10 stars. This book is now added to my virtual bookshelf. I can do several things with it. If I give it to a friend, then they can go online, see what I wrote, and make their own review. Now it’s on their bookshelf. Or, I could take the book and place it strategically on a table in Starbucks. By doing this, I’ve released the book into the wild, and whoever happens to pick it up becomes the new owner. Or I could go to an online trading site like PaperBackSwap.com and trade my book for another book, thereby passing my journaled book on to a new owner. There are tons of possibilities!

Why do this? Why not! You’re recycling books, and it’s really interesting to see where your books have gone. Some of my books are floating around in other countries, and I’m seeing lots of people with different opinions of the books that I read. I released a lot of books when we were on vacation in Europe, so that was really cool.

Bookcrossing also has a big community online. There are forums, groups, all sorts of ways to participate and communicate with other book lovers. There are lots of books that I have read that I never would have read had it not been for Bookcrossing, and I’ve found some great new authors!

I’m more than happy to answer any questions - I joined about a year before I actually started participating because it seemed like too much work, but once I got going, it has snowballed into something I have enjoyed so much.

Bookcrossing.com? Works for me!

Before I get started, let me say that this was a massive undertaking, haha! What started out as a “I’ll get rid of some t-shirts and put things into plastic bins” turned into me getting rid of 2/3 of my wardrobe and a closet that is basically half empty now, LOL! It also led to me going through all my desk drawers, dresser drawers, and my smaller storage cabinet. I have gone through my entire room, and now I feel like I have minimal work to be done to get the entire room as organized as that dang closet! So, let the process begin!

After taking scary before pictures, I took the overflowing crate of textbooks and the foot and a half stack of binders and handouts and sorted through them. I’m not in school anymore, so I was able to get rid of all but one or two textbooks and I condensed all the papers and stuff into one binder - not bad, LOL! Next, I moved my bookcase (and all the stacks of books) out of the closet and into my room next to my other bookcase. As you can see, I know what my next project is going to be - the book situation is a problem, LOL!

Since I moved my bookcase out, I then had to do something with those boxes that were previously in the bookcase’s new home. The ones that are related to my business I moved into storage - it’s so nice not to have those sitting there everyday staring at me. Instead I get all my wonderful books. Yay!

The two boxes on the bottom, however, had to go into the closet where the bookcase was. One of them is work-related stuff to which I need regular access, and the other is a box of all my techno-stuff . . . the manuals, the software CDs, the spare cables, etc. This was a nightmare, and while it was a contained nightmare in its fun little box I knew that there was some serious organizing to be had:

More on this in a bit - first I needed to assess the closet situation as a whole.

When I moved the books out of the closet they had cobwebs all over them, so I knew that I needed to pull EVERYTHING out of the closet and give the closet itself some cleaning. There wasn’t enough room in my bedroom to pull everything out, so I had to put it all in the living room:

What a nightmare! Well, at least it made sorting through things easier - it was all pulled out, so I could actually see what I owned!

I sorted through my shoes and was able to get it down to one pair per cubbyhole, and I’m gonna go with the replacement theory on this one - from now on, if I want a pair of shoes, I have to get rid of a pair of shoes!

Then I went through my clothes. I didn’t do a huge overhaul at this time, I just pulled out things that I knew I would never wear - some knit tops, a few things that I know will never look good on me, regardless of weightloss, and several sorority t-shirts that I know I won’t wear anymore. I also sorted through all my sweaters, and quickly assessed that I would need a better system for keeping them organized. This rack seemed like a great organizing solution!

I sorted through my purses and was able to get rid of half! I took the remaining purses and put them in the crate that used to have all the textbooks in it. Not the most attractive storage container, but it was the right size, and I already owned it, LOL! No sense in spending money if I don’t need to! And it’s so nice to have them in a container since they are higher up - I don’t have to pull down 80 bazillion things to find what I’m looking for, I just take down the crate, pick out the purse I want, and put the crate back into its nice little home!

NOW I was able to get to that large box of techno-stuff! I carefully sorted things in to piles - cables, software, manuals, etc. I was amazed at how much had accumulated! I was able to get rid of over half of the cords (because honestly, we have cable internet, and we use a wireless router - I didn’t need all the telephone and ethernet cables that seem to come with every new computer product), some of the old software that I don’t use anymore, and some old telephones (we have Vonage now). There were also a ton of backup disks that are obsolete now that I have an external hard drive that does regular backups. Imagine my surprise when not only was I able to condense the tech stuff, but I was able to fit it all into a box that was HALF the size of the previous box!!!

Talk about gaining some space! I knew I’d have more room, but if you had told me that I would be able to put it all into that small box, I would have just laughed at you! In this case, yay for being wrong!

Now that the majority of the STUFF was organized it was time to get down and dirty with the clothes. About once a year I sort through my clothes and get rid of things, but it usually amounts to a few shirts, a pair of jeans, and a sweater or two. This time, as I pulled everything out and looked at each individual piece, I thought hard about when was the last time I wore it. How it looks when it’s on my body. If the color is a good color for me. I used the principles that I’ve learned from a recent discovery, MissusSmartyPants, LOL!

MissusSmartyPants is a clothing consultant - you send her a picture of yourself and she helps you figure out what clothes will fit you the best. I am amazed at how right she is. She has detailed directions for what are the essential wardrobe basics and on how to do a true, thorough closet purge. By using her methods I was able to get rid of almost 2/3 of the clothes in my closet . . . and still feel like I’m able to dress well every day! I came to realize that I only wear 1/3 to 1/2 of my clothes on a regular basis anyways . . . the rest are just sitting there reminding me of one particular occasion, or of a thinner weight. Her recommendations have also helped me to figure out what styles and cuts of clothing work the best for me, so I know that in the future when I go shopping I will be able to buy clothes that will fit me well, look great on me, and get worn on a regular basis! I let a couple of my friends sort through my clothes and take what they wanted, and the rest I am giving to our housekeeper (see #6). The rest of my giveaway things went in 2 carloads to Goodwill.

Yay for not only getting rid of all that unnecessary clothing, but having things organized in a way that I know I will use them! I also read on her website a tip from another client - I’ve taken all my clothes for this time of the year and grouped them together. Then I turned all the hangers around so that the hook is going the opposite direction on the rack. Then, as I wear things I will put the hook back the way it’s supposed to be. At the end of the season I’ll be able to see what I DIDN’T wear because the hook will still be backwards. If I know what I haven’t worn, then I know what I should consider getting rid of. Sounds brilliant to me!

With all the clothes weeded through, all the junk sorted through and organized (or in a different home) I was able to see the greatest asset of all - the closet itself. I have a huge closet. I always knew this, but I didn’t know what to do with it. I got the lightbulb changed so that I can see EVERYTHING (you’ll note the light is out in my before picture). I looked around and thought about my daily process to figure out what I wanted to change to make my life easier.

Now that I’ve been trying to exercise regularly, I realized it would be nice to have my workout clothes in my dresser that is in my room. It’s near my bed, and it would be so much easier to just pull something out of there. In order to do that though, I’d have to clear a drawer. As I looked, I realized that I had more than half a drawer dedicated to bathing suits! When I was living in Florida, that would have made sense, but here in North Carolina (in November, nonetheless) that seems like a waste of space. Since my closet was all cleared out, I was able to see that there was space higher up on the shelf where I could put the bathing suits. I bought a few small containers to use on that space - they’re small and lightweight, so they’re easy to pull down.

I got one for the bathing suits, one for my scarves and gloves, etc. Sooo much better than the “where is such and such . . .” organizational method I had going on before! And while the containers aren’t exactly the most attractive bins, they’re the right size, and I’m the only one going to be seeing them, so I don’t mind their color! Go Deacs!

And so, for the grand finale, the after pictures of my closet:

As you can see, the clothing is clearly organized according to type and color, as well as the occasion in which I would wear it. It is MUCH easier to see what I have, and since the floor is clear, I can walk in there and actually look at things. I’m actually using the double hanging rack now, so I can use the other hanging racks for things like the storage of sweaters. Ideally I would like to have a double clothes rack with the bottom rack being shorter so that I can hang the longer dresses and things with the other clothes, but since I’m in an apartment I can’t change the racks around This will work until I move next summer, and hopefully I’ll move into a place that will let me change the racks around to the way I like them.

I’ve used the shelf between the racks for my games since I don’t use them too much and I don’t need regular access. On the left side of the closet I’m only using half of the length of the closet for clothes, so on the other half of the shelf I have put those 2 boxes (work stuff and techno-stuff) and my spare pillows (boo for lack of linen closet), and on the floor I have put all my luggage. It’s all waaaaay more accessible than it was. You can see the spare sheets sitting next to the blue crate with my purses, and on the very top are my scarves, boots, etc. - things I don’t need to get to that often. I think using that high up space was key for me.

As far as the rest of the closet goes, it’s fairly empty except for my shoes. I was excited that I can put my exercise ball in there and it’s not in the way! The rest of the shelves are empty. When I am at my parents’ home for Christmas I plan to get all of the things out of my closet there and bring them back here, and those shelves will be used for storage. It will be much more helpful to my mom, because then she can use that closet at home instead of my things taking up all the good space when I am rarely there anymore anyways.

So the closet is clean, ridiculously functional, and ready for growth! All in all, I think I did pretty good :). Thanks for challenging me Laura!