When I'm Not Reading #3: The Collector by Joy of Joyousreads

When I’m Not Reading talks about things that we do when we’re not bent over a book. Us, booknerds, we’re a dedicated bunch. We live and breath books. But we also have lives outside books and it’s fun to talk about it from time to time, in between our bookish discussions. If you want to be featured, email or tweet me!

For this edition of When I’m Not Reading, Joy of Joyousreads dropped by to share what she does when she’s not occupied with a book.

Joy and I met in person in March when she visited her family in the Philippines.She's just as awesome as she is online and I'm truly honored to be one of her blogger friends. :) (Sorry for the orange-y photo!)

Met the awesome @Joyousreads today. Her son's so cute and bibo and the food at Apag Maragle is good. #happiness ☺️ pic.twitter.com/irRECz5Kly

— Joy Sallegue (@akoposijoy) March 19, 2015

Make sure to drop by her blog (totally worth your time, I tell you) or follow her on Instagram!

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I had to laugh when I got an email from Joy. I mean, the concept seems preposterous, to be honest. I was thinking, what do you mean, “when I’m not reading”? I had to sit and contemplate on what else I do besides being buried in a book. I’ve mentioned this before that I’m not the most interesting person in the universe. Because I have an obsessive personality, I tend to stick to what I know, enjoy, and love. And I give my tenacious fervor in whatever endeavor I’m currently obsessing about. Sometimes, it works out in my favor; and sometimes, I sit there and think, wow. How boring am I?

Besides reading, I love decorating. Because I suck at painting or anything that requires manual labor, for that matter, I find people to do those things for me (a.k.a. friends and relatives). Last fall, I tackled my living room (I victimized my youngest brother. The poor sod.).  It wasn’t that big of a job, mind you. But since it involved my library, I spent a lot of time unshelving and shelving my books.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="430"] Living Room: Before and After[/caption]

If you’ve been a visitor of the blog, you will note that I love photography. Now besides taking pictures of my kids and books, I have this obsession with sunrise and sunsets.



I write poetry. Handwritten ones, typewritten ones, and black out poetry. If you follow me on Instagram, you would also notice that I haven’t posted any in the last little while. Unfortunately, inspiration has long since dried up. But I’ve amassed quite a few (like, a couple of hundreds at least).



We travel a lot, but we’re not world travelers. Mostly, we stick to the United States of America. Every year, we go on pilgrimage to San Diego, California and Las Vegas, Nevada. We also go see the Kings of Leon once a year. It doesn’t matter where they play. San Diego, because we’re huge football fans and we’re avid Chargers followers. Las Vegas, not because we’re gamblers, but because husband and I has this thing to work our way through all the hotels on the strip. Needless to say, we are collectors of hotel room keys, concerts and sporting event tickets.


I’ve recently become a wannabe hipster. Vinyl is coming back in full force. When I saw the $50 player on Amazon (that lasted about 2.5 days), I had to have it. The thing broke. So my husband bought me a decent one. I’ve slowly been collecting records. I must admit that the best part about collecting is the hunting itself. As much as buying them new is the more convenient way to go, I like going to flea markets and thrift stores to find them. I don’t have much, but it’s growing.


So there you have it, a bit of an insight to my life outside of reading. I don’t have any other significant interests, unfortunately. But I’m happy to share, anyway.

Thanks for having me, Joy!

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First off, that living room is LOVELY. Don't you agree, folks? And I love sunrise and sunsets, too. It's just so hard to wake up early to catch the sunrise but I try. And Ed, Tay-Tay and Hozier in vinyl? I'm so jealous!

What do you think of Joy's various collections? And what do you do when you're not reading?