How Much Is Too Much?

I have a lot of stuff! It is all good stuff, but there is a lot of it. In the past month I have really gone to town and "gathered" lots of new art supplies, books, and music. What is about these things that I can never seem to get enough of? I am so in love with books, music, vintage photographs, scrapbook paper, and rubber stamps!!! Above are two stamps that Jane brought back for me from her trip to Red Lead in St. Louis. Aren't they gorgeous?
About three weeks ago Jane and I had to go to a party downtown. Well, lo and behold, there was a scrapbook store on the way to the party. Well, actually we worked it out so there were four stores along the way! Anyway, we found these new papers by Tres Jolie. Aren't they tres beautiful???

Remeber the wonderful quilt store from a few posts ago? Well, my Mom and I went back last weekend for a few things. I bought a little bit of this wonderful alphabet fabric. I love alphabet anything.
Now for a typical Mike and Laura story. It was last Monday, Memorial Day. We drove up to Evanston (about 45 minutes away from us) to see a movie that was only playing there. First stop was Barnes and Noble, then Borders, and then we decided to keep going to bookstores instead of seeing the movie! I got the above two great magazines at B&N. I bought the totally rocking Van Halen CD at Half-Price books which is a great used bookstore chain that is just starting to come into the Chicago area.

Speaking of books, here are the books I got on Monday. They all look very interesting. I wrote down a ton of other titles that look very good too.

Book Note: Remember the previous post where I was going to read The Next Thing on My List. I could not make it through the book. It was just too light. I still think the author is a very good writer, but I just could not keep going. I am currently reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, the author of The Kite Runner. It is SO GOOD! I cannot put it down. I am really learning alot about Afghanistan and really love the main characters. In fact, I am really feeling upset about all the horrible things that were going on there and probably still are. I need to educate myself about the current happenings there.

As we were browsing I found tons of books I wanted to read. I wanted to buy 20 books and be shipped off to a cabin by a lake for the entire summer!! Anyway, here are some of the books I put on my list:

Ivy Briefs:The Tale of a Neurotic Law Student

Casting with a Fragile Thread: A Story of Sisters and Africa

The Sun Farmer

Incendiary Circumstances by Amitav Ghosh

Sharon and My Mother-In-Law: Ramallah Diaries

The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones

If Today Be Sweet by Thrity Umrigar

A Life Less Ordinary by Baby Halder

By the way, Mike found a great website. It is called LaLa. It is a CD trading site! You list all of your CDs and then you make a list of CDs that you want, and then you trade with people. It is $1.75 per trade, but so worth it! If you sign up mention that I sent you and I might get a t-shirt.