Bookcase Showcase: Scattered Laura from Scattered Figaments

 Today's Bookcase Showcase guest post is by Scattered Laura from Scattered Figaments

I went back to work this week (I'm a teacher in mourning for the summer holidays), and after just two days my desk is groaning under the weight of books, desperate-to-be-filed paperwork, notebooks, stickers and hastily scribbled notes-to-self. These latter are a particular indication of my muddled madness. They read like fortune cookies or vague advice from a spiritual guru. This week's gems include:

"Values and Philosophy  are in the bottom of the schoolbag"

"The curly tree needs thumbprints and leaves"

"Bumblebee is still missing - needed a holiday?"

Now I  know what I mean. But to the more sensible eye, these are surely the writings of a mad woman. I'm sure there are plenty who would agree with that conclusion. 

If my desk is a mess, then my handbag is confused chaos. There are books, notebooks, pens, a purse, contacts, deodorant, makeup, loose change, more scribbled notes, sunglasses, bottled water, chewing gum... all of which are fairly sensible things to have in a handbag, right? But then there's the other stuff. The stuff which can only be filed as "Misc". Those bits and pieces which just make me look a bit peculiar whenever I should succumb to my own clumsiness and drop the handbag. Such things include, seashells, fake blood capsules, a pair of odd socks, 2 tennis balls, leg wax strips, a bandage, a miniature bottle of Penderyn, a bag of assorted beads, seven buttons (none of which match), a full box of coffee-mate, a bottle of Lysterine, 2 empty glasses cases, coloured pencils and a partridge in a pear tree. 

Yesterday morning I spent a good chunk of time fishing around in the disarray of the handbag, trying to grasp a pair of sunglasses. There are at least THREE pairs in there: I know it, the bag knows it, the sunglasses know it. But we all play the "I wonder if they're in here" game every time. Finding what I'm actually looking for in my handbag always makes me feel like I've accomplished something wonderful. 

I live with my chaotic mind and, despite the day-to-day complications it throws at me, we usually get along famously. It adds a nice element of "randomness" to my days. But still, it's nice to have just one teeny-tiny part of my life that is predictable, uncomplicated and so-not-me! And that's where my bookshelves come into it.

Take a look at that picture! If well-organised bookshelves are symbolic of a well-organised mind, then you might be fooled into thinking that I'm the kind of girl who always knows what she's meant to be doing and where she's meant to be doing it. [I wonder how many of you snickered at the phrase "doing it"...? Go on, admit it!] This little corner of my home is the one in which I can sit and pretend, just for a moment, that I am not a complete and utter scatterbrained nutter. My little study is my haven. I think I might have to frame this picture and put it on my desk in work, just to remind myself that I actually have the capacity for organisation. Saying that...in less than a week the picture would be buried under left-over balls of bluetack and post-its asking such sage questions as "Are there marshmallows in the ladybird?" * 

Welcome to my head!

*Again, this note exists and makes perfect sense to me.