The life of an OCP librarian

Both hubby and I are insistent that there is only one correct way to put toilet paper on the roll (with the paper feeding up over the top).  So, of course all of our rolls of tp are always inserted the correct way.   From what I’ve read in personality books, I think there are many other people who share this trait.  However, hubby and I take it to a whole new level–we “fix” the tp at other people’s houses!  Granted, I’m fairly certain we haven’t done it anyplace but our respective parents’ houses, but still, I highly doubt there are very many other tp fairies in the world!

Today, we hung 9 pictures in our bedroom. In the process, I had 3 pictures on the wall that were part of a set of 5, and made the comment that “hey, these could work as is.” Hubby’s response: “Only if you switch the two bottom ones so that the individual pictures of us are above and below the picture of the two of us, making them symmetrical.” My response: “I’m so glad I’m married to you.” (AKA, that was exactly what I had been thinking :)

We put the two leaves into our dining room table for Christmas. What was I most excited about? Suddenly, all the wood grain lines in the table matched!

Once upon a time, I thought all closets were organized like mine. Now, after visiting enough people to know otherwise–I have realized that I really do have an OCP closet. In my closet, all the clothes are lined up by type (sweater, t-shirt, skirt), and then by type or color of material. I also refuse to use any hangers but plastic ones, and they are all a similar style hanger. For the maternity clothes I used and for my husband’s clothes, I use a bigger version of the plastic hangers, so it makes it easy to know where the hangers belong.

I have decided that even if some of them would deny it, all good librarians have at least some OCP tendencies. My favorite example of this was in a class I took in graduate school (and yes, you have to have a master’s degree to be a librarian!) In the class, the professor was attempting to teach us something about statistics, and passed out a handful of M&M’s to each student. As the class went by, it was extremely amusing to look around the room. Pretty much every single person had done something creative and organizational with their M&M’s. We had a few pretty designs, a few just sorted by color, and a few in fancy geometric patterns. Of course, no one was actually eating the candy–it was far more enjoyable to organize it!

Recently, our family has moved into a new house.   Now that all the painting and unpacking is done, we move on to a new time-consuming project–hanging pictures.  Since both my hubby and I are OCP, this has to be done perfectly!  So, out comes the tape measure, yard stick, levels (yes, that’s plural), pencil, hammer, and picture hooks.   (Oh, yeah, and the pictures too.)  First, we have to determine which wall in a room should hold the picture.  Then, we have to take into account anything else interfering with the symmetry of the wall (light switch, curtains, etc.), along with the total number of pictures to be put up on the wall.  Now the measuring stage.  We measure the height and width of the wall, the height and width of the picture, the height and width of the baby (oh wait, wrong blog).  Then we make markings on the wall that (hopefully) determine the place the picture should be hung.  This gets especially fun when a picture requires multiple hooks, and generally requires David and I to each have three hands.   Once the hook is in place, then the leveling process begins.  We have a regular level and a special picture hanging level, and both may be used when hanging each picture.  Finally, we step back and admire the picture, but not for long–we’ve still got 25 more pictures to hang!

Last week, hubby and I decided we would put up a pegboard in our garage to organize the dozens of cables sitting around our house, along with anything else we could find. When we went to buy the pegboard at Menards (great store!), we were informed it came in two sizes: 2′ x 4′ and 4′ x 4′. We wanted to put up about 6′ x 4′. So, did we save a little money (like $ .50) and buy one of each size and combine them? Nope. That wouldn’t be symmetrical, so we bought three 2′ x 4′ sheets. (The smaller sheets were also much easier to fit in the truck too :)

My next post will be about hanging pictures, and also applies to the process of hanging the pegboard.

My office looks like pretty much anyone else’s office.  It’s got a desk, with a computer, some pictures, and some organizational stuff.  It’s got a file cabinet, a bookshelf, and a corkboard.  The office was inherited from someone else, along with the corkboard and some push-pins.  What was one of the first things I did after moving into the office?  Color-coordinate the push-pins and line them up so that they were all neat and tidy.  Sadly, there weren’t even numbers of the push-pins to align, which has bothered me to this day.  Perhaps today is the day to remove the extra push-pins!

Once upon a time, my husband described me as being OCP (an Obsessive-Compulsive Perfectionist).  I have known that this is true for some time, but suddenly, I realized that people might actually enjoy hearing about all the random things I do as a result of this personality trait.  Hence, a new blog is born, in which I will attempt to detail the things I do that often even amuse me.