Trust me, Somara made progress inside those boxes.
Now that we got those damned colds behind us (mine was over Memorial Day, Somara’s the following weekend), we seriously pushed forward on Operation: Alexandria. What really helped was being exhausted the day before. I think we both feel asleep pretty early the Saturday evening before: usually I conk out while watching a relaxing movie at the recommendation of my doctor. (I’ve seen The Princess Bride so many times I’m now changing up the routine with The Muppet Movie; I don’t think all the great cameos will put my mind on the hunt before bed.) The unplanned, additional rest got converted by me completing the weekend chores ahead of the weekly breakfast with friends at Einstein’s.
The future wall for our music, once the desk is cleared, disassembled, moved and the carpeting is replaced.
After we caught up with our friends and said our goodbyes for the week, we hit our first stop, The Container Store. One of the biggest obstacles to making any true, lasting headway on my former office was the enormous collection of D&D miniatures. Going with the alphabetical order strategy needed additional plastic storage boxes because some creatures are listed in the Monster Manual by their race or category, not their individual name or type. I know, who cares! I’m just going this organizational route to make it easier for my fellow DMs to ask for particular monsters to borrow, come overto the house and then they can seek them out with less assistance from me. As expected, CS had a sale happening with a certain brand of shelving Somara wanted in the kitchen. One disorganized space at a time was my rebuttal. We’ll see though. It will depend upon how long the stuff is discounted. I had less difficulty convincing her on buying new external displays for our MacBooks an hour later; a story/review I will get to later in the week or month.
Not a bad system, once it gets rolling. Just only 2000+ more to go.
Then came the next destination which raised our dedication to this, Floors & Decors. Several days ago, we received a sales flyer in the mail from them with great offers on options to replace the awful wall-to-wall carpeting our house had included when it was built. True hardwood floors are too expensive, besides the house is only 1300 square feet. It’s a starter home for a couple or superapartment with bachelors/bachelorettes. The $1.79/square foot bamboo special was what piqued our interest. We lucked out too. Due to its popularity we scored the last seven packages at a mere $286. One box covers 20.5 square feet (1.9 square meters for those of you in Europe) and we went with the library’s measurements being a perfect rectangle so we’d have spare pieces; I figure we’ll need more to compensate our initial miscalculations.
Now bamboo is one of the few products I expect to come from China. How green or eco-friendly it really is may continue to be a mystery. Pandas like to eat it and I know it grows rapidly yet I have a sinking feeling I contributed to the growth of the Gobi Desert because their corrupt government would rather make a buck than replenish the forrest. We also gave a piece to the cats to get them acquainted with it. I’m sure they didn’t hear a word I said about not urinating on this when we install it. Somara thinks the cats will make the library their favorite room during the Summer so they can lie down on this type of flooring.
286 bucks of bamboo you'll either see in our library or Craigslist.
While Somara tackled the library by clearing it of legacy papers, I assembled all the 12 x 18 x 6 boxes we kept from our 2001 move/storage shed days (when we talked about moving to Phoenix). Then I proceeded to put away my CD collection so the two shelves can join the armada of other containers. I feel short pretty quickly. We’re going back to CS due to a raincheck on something else bought in advance anyway. Now I have throw on another dozen of these darned packages. Once I exhausted the CD boxes, I re-stacked what we achieved in previous weeks as shown below:
Not bad. I’m gradually trying cover up (or block) the window and the accompanying west wall. Eventually I must clear off the adjacent table with all its clutter. Heck, I may be able to install one of those awesome ViewSonics we scored at Costco in the interim.
I definitely felt a great sense of accomplishment during our third and final hour of working on Alexandria even though my assignment is getting the other room cleared to store stuff. Today, I should have a progress report to give Dr. Custer to show I regained the momentum illness (temporarily) robbed from me on a major source of my anxiety. I’ll close with this picture of my barren CD shelves to illustrate my need to purchase another dozen boxes.
I plan to post either next week if we achieve more or in a couple just to touch base.
