Spring Dust Bunnies

It's been a Spring Cleaning kind of week. 

the cat loved the new box

I finally got around to purchasing the printer/copier for the piano studio. (Thank you, Sam's Club for saving me $30 off of the Walmart/Amazon price.) 

That, of course, led to rearranging book shelves, which led to dusting, which led to sorting out necessary versus unnecessary items. 

This sorting process somehow managed to get me into our bedroom closets which was a much dirtier experience than I care to admit. Nearly two year's worth of dust bunnies, dirt and cat hair make a gross hour. BUT I finally conquered the luggage-storage and shoe problem we'd been having, so yay. Plus, Samantha (my American Girl doll) and Sally (my 22? year old, well-loved doll), their accessories, and a tea set have also found a new and improved home. Rather than being stored in a very un-sturdy cardboard box, they now have a safe place in that un-used extra-large luggage. There they shall wait for my own little girls. (Yes, prayerfully.) 

While going through our extensive 1990s/early-2000s Christian music cd collection, we decided to purchase a 128 Capacity CD Wallet.< src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=ado0a-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B004Q88TE6" /> We have all of our music on both of our computers, plus on an external hard drive so we almost got rid of all 120 of our cds. But this case will allow us to save space by getting rid of the cd cases (don't hate us, please) AND use the cds in a (future) vehicle that will (hopefully) have a cd player. (Our poor Civic is awesome, but has not one "luxury.")

In the midst of this media organization it occurred to me to perform a similar operation on my workout dvd collection. I extracted all 6 Jillian Michaels, 4 Bob Harper, 2 Holy Yoga, and 3 - 10 Minute Solution workout dvds and transferred them to a now-unused cd case. This is very exciting to me for 3 reasons:

1. I don't have to be slightly embarrassed to have guests see the large collection of fitness videos I own. 
2. Our tv stand is now much less cluttered.
3. Whenever I go on a trip, instead of choosing one or two workouts to bring along, I can grab the whole collection.

Last night at 9:00pm (super late for me to be starting a project), I decided it was time to make one of my visions a reality. Ever since our visit to Chris & Katie's Chicago home in December I had been wanting to emulate the way Katie had their board games stacked on a bookshelf right by their dining room table. Perhaps my beloved, but unused set of bookshelves could be re-purposed into a board game display. Besides a moment of exuding extremely poor judgment,* my plan worked out wonderfully. I am thrilled to have our games out in the open for guests to see and use, rather than digging through a very high closet shelf. Plus, my favorite bookshelves get to be utilized again! (Thanks again, mom and dad, for the thrifting find five years ago!)

*I realized, yet again, how much I am becoming my mother and my grandmother, as I attempted to carry a terribly heavy set of bookshelves up the basement stairs by myself. (I can't tell you how many times I've "gotten after" them for trying to move or carry a piece of furniture without help.) To top it off, I didn't even bother to clear the clutter from the staircase. Brilliant, Mel. 

The spare bedroom is now becoming the pre-yard-sale sorting ground. We'll see what comes of that. Now that I don't have to downsize for the foreseeable future, I won't be needing to have the Mother of All Yard Sales.

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