Disclaimer: Up till today, I hated decorating... and I especially hated blogs about decorating. (Sorry, ladies who love to decorate and then love to blog about it.)

But, I spent a lot of time and energy (and money) on my living room this week and this is "where my treasure is" right now, so I am blogging about it!!!

I finally organized my book shelves! I've had them (and I've just been shoving stuff up on them) for about a year now. I purchased these shelves "exclusively" for home school books, but since we don't have that many books "exclusively" for homeschooling, the shelves are still somewhat empty of home school books, for now. But, at this point in our journey, we need as many baskets for toys as we do shelves for home school books, so this is really working for us!

And we got a new coffee table... with more baskets!

I'm not sure how I ever lived without this thing! The little shelves hold all my piles and both our laptops perfectly, the baskets hold my doo-dads like pens, notes pads, stamps, blank CDs, my digital camera, phone charger, hair brush, you know, all the stuff I want/need to have close at hand. We "do school" sitting on the couch half the time anyway, since Norah and I read together so often, so I need storage right where we sit.

We also created some custom artwork this week! This is my favorite part...

I chose the theme "Animals at the Zoo."

Norah chose the animals she wanted to draw: an elephant, lion, zebra and a giraffe. Did you know a giraffe's horns are called "ossicones?" Neither did I. But Norah did!

She said something like, "I am going to draw his ossicones grey..." and my head almost spun around. Ossicones?! She knows stuff I don't know all the time now. She soaks up ten times more than I do from the books and videos we use.

Anyway, back to the post about decorating... I'd look up images for Norah to base drawings off of and then she'd go to work, eagerly.

She finished four out of the five drawings in less than an hour!

When I pointed out to her that we were "almost done," she reminded me that there were two more picture frames like this one under the couch, not-so-subtly hinting that she'd be willing to fill those up with drawings, too.

Note: These frames have also been neglected for over a year, like my book shelves. Did I mention that I (usually) hate decorating?

But, I have to admit... I love how this room makes me feel now! So, there may be a change in the air...