Writing, Getting Organized, and Libib!

It's been awhile! I apologize for that. I've been enjoying some essential me time over the last few days. It was much needed and appreciated!


Over that time I have dusted off my beautiful journal. I have had it for a few years now and keeping meaning to write in it more. Unfortunately, it seems as though I clean, or add books to the nightstand, and it gets 'lost,' forgotten for months at a time. Since writing down my thoughts and feelings of the day, as well as my ambitions for the following day, I have noticed remembered how cathartic writing can be. I love writing! It's like having your best friend with you whenever you need them, and you can tell them absolutely anything. Keeping a journal you can do that, and actually tell the journal anything. It isn't there to judge you. It's sole purpose is to give you the space to release all of the pent up emotions you have stored away throughout the day, or week, or month, or forever. Here is the next journal I have my eye on, when/if I get through this one. I love the style. My only wish is that it were refillable.



My motivation has been more obvious since I started writing again. I have actually wanted to get more done. Like the awful catchall built-in bookcase in our living room. I conquered that nightmare this weekend! I am so pleased with how it turned out, and I have more ideas to add some crafty bits to stand out. It is now my Amber's Book Stop Corner. Filled with all my Usborne books, plushies, learning materials, and whatnot. It also helped me to organize the books that were previously held there. Sorting between what we plan to read this year, what we have already read, books to get rid of, books to loan, and just move books that were unnecessary to another bookcase. I packed up our movie memorabilia from the top shelf, that was sad, and stored it away for our next home. I really hope there is more space for those items to be displayed without seeming out of place. 



Movies! We have a serious addiction to movies. I know, I said we have an addiction to books, but it's the same for movies at our house. We love books, movies, and board games! That's why we had to figure out our movie organization deal, quick. Being military there is only so much weight for household goods they will pay for when moving you to another duty location. Yes, you can go over and pay the extra, but who wants to do that? 
Those DVD and Blu-Ray cases take up so much room! When we were nearing 1000 movies, you read that right: 1000 movies, we decided the two bookcases we purchased just for our movies needed to be downsized. We still own the bookcases, they actually house books these days. Shocker, right? We bought a couple DVD binders, big ones, and initially had them all nicely alphabetized and separated from kids movies. That ended quickly. It's a nice idea, in theory, but it's too much work when you buy another movie to have to reorganize the whole movie binder to squeeze in a new title. 

From image search for https://www.libib.com/

Libib to the rescue!


Have you heard of them? I know they have been around for a little while, I only discovered their awesomeness last year. I know friends who use it to keep tabs on what books they have, so as not to buy another copy. I, too, am guilty of this. Guess what? You can also scan, or manually type in, your movies, music, and games too! Libib is a handy tool for anyone who has a ton of books, movies, music, or all three. How does this save us with the movie binder issue? Well, it doesn't help with getting things organized. Suffice it to say I just find an empty slot in the binder and stick the new movie there. Whatever letter section that may be. Libib helps in the sense that I can whip out my phone, or hop on the website at my desk, bring up my list and see what I have. Then at least I know we have it, somewhere. The job of finding the movie normally gets delegated to one of the kiddos. And, at least now we know what we have, at the touch of an app, so we aren't stuck with three copies of Finding Nemo. Don't laugh, at one point we actually HAD three copies of that movie. As wonderful as it is, we didn't need three. 


Not all of our movies are in the DVD binder. Several of our series collections, horror movies, and comic book movies are still in their cases sitting with pride on an easy to reach shelf. Oh, and my Harry Potter movies, and our Star Wars collection. There are just certain ones I can't bring myself to store in the binders. 


If you are looking to get your content organized, I can't say enough good things about Libib! Best of all, it's free! You can pay $5 a month for the pro service, but just for your normal, run of the mill collections, the free service is perfect. You can make notes on your titles also. Loaned a book or movie to someone? Make a note on Libib. This way you know who to bug if they don't return it in a timely fashion. 


So, what did we do with all of our empty DVD cases? At the time we just set them out for the recycling. I have a small stack of them now, after adding movies to the binders, and I'm perusing Pinterest to see if any fun crafts catch my eye.


Anyone have any fun ideas using up the old cases? 



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