My OCD-ness

I had made a comment about being OCD in Seana's blog when I offered to loan her some books. I really get anal about my books. Actually, it's anything that comes in a set or series. I cannot stand when a glass or plate from a set gets broke. It bothers me to the point that I will go buy another set, and never use the incomplete set again. For a while, I was this way about my flatware, too. I would actually count the spoons and forks when putting them away after washing them. If one was missing, I would not do anything else until I found the missing item.
When I find an author or recording artist that I enjoy, I usually end up buying all of their works. Even if some are not to my taste. And in the case of books, they all have to be either hard cover or paperback copies. Right now, I have the complete works of Carol O'Connell, and it is driving me crazy that my copy of her latest book is hard cover, and the rest are paperback. I couldn't wait to read the book until they released the paperback version. It is out in paperback now, and I will be buying it. Also, the second most recent one, I have in both paperback and hard cover. I will be giving away the two hard cover copies. Otherwise, I will be tempted to get all of her novels in the hard cover. It really bothers me that my copies of the first two Harry Potter novels are paperback and the rest are hard cover.

I try to keep my paperbacks sorted by genre and alphabetically by author, then by release date. I have run out of room where I store them, and now they are all stacked up in no kind of order. This bugs me. I think I have found some shelving solution at Wal-Mart (that's right, I shop at Wal-Mart, and I am not ashamed!). I can't decide if I want to buy the item I found, because while it will work, it's not really what I want. So, do I spend the money on this, or wait until I find and can afford, what I really want? (Which is a bookcase or two - preferably a rustic, southwestern look to them.)

Way back, when I was a teenager and until shortly after I got married, I had a massive collection of albums. I kept them sorted by genre, artist and release date, too. I also maintained a list. I didn't have a computer back then, so I had to use a manual typewriter to keep this list. So, every so often I would have to re-type it. And then if I found that I omitted one record, or didn't have it in the right location on the list, I would start all over.

It manifests itself when I do laundry or dishes, too. It really makes me crazy for me to spend my time cleaning, getting all the dishes done, and then someone come in and get a glass and get a drink. When I'm doing laundry, I will go put on my nightclothes, so I can wash whatever I was wearing, so that ALL the clothes are clean. I think that's part of why I don't clean my house that often, because if it can't be 100% spotless, it bugs me. It's either all or nothing. If I'm going to clean, then everything has to be clean. Otherwise, I won't do any.

Once I start organizing something, it all has to be just so. When I worked in medical records at the nursing home, all the papers had to be lined up just so in the file. They had to be straight, and you had to be able to see the label of each file.