squeezing the balloon

Hi internet.  How’re ya doin’?  Good.

This past weekend Sharaun and I decided we’d use Saturday as a “spring cleaning” day.  With the new baby on the way I suppose we are both getting a little “nesty.”  The plan goes like this: 1) clean out our 3rd bedroom, which is currently serving as Keaton’s “toy room,” 2) get a new “big girl” bedroom set for Keaton, complete with bed, dresser and some more storage in the way of bookshelves and likely a toychest or something, 3) move Keaton’s existing convertible crib/bed and changing-table/dresser into the now empty toy room.  As the toy room is currently bursting, however, we practiced the art of reduction quite liberally first before any of this musical furniture business could begin.

What’s more, there are things in the toy room that aren’t toys (at least not Keaton’s toys) which’ll need a new home.  Take for example dad’s Pac Man cabinet… or the bookshelf full of books and CDs and DVDs… all that had to go somewhere.  The plan for this was also multi-phase.  Again we began by simplifying and donating everything we could part with from the bookshelf, including the bookshelf itself, and old Wal Mart job we’d had since moving here.  After that the Pac Man machine moves into the family room, where it fits almost-like-it-was-planned tucked away into a little cubby intended for an in-wall entertainment cabinet.  Problem is there’s currently a huge old-school tube TV in there right now, so that’ll have to go.  That means dad gets to get a new slim, small HDTV which’ll get mounted above the cabinet (a nice bonus).  Alongside both the Pac Man machine and TV will go some shelves to hold the few books, DVDs and CDs we’ve deemed keepers.  The homeless tube TV and it’s cheap Wal Mart stand also go to charity.

In our modest home any “cleaning” that doesn’t involve a good deal of stuff-elimination is something like squeezing a balloon: you might reduce the size of the part you’re focused on but you’re really just moving the problem around and inflating another part.  And to you “Dave you’re gonna break down and buy a bigger house” naysayers I’m happy to say that my focus (stubbornness) on not up-sizing to accommodate a collection of things we don’t really need (not counting the new baby) remained strong even throughout the trying exercise of finding places to put more things than we have places for.  Shockingly, for the time being Sharaun shares my staying-put mentality – also in the face of the same “where are we going to put this?!” frustration.

I mean, I’ve been so successful at sticking to my guns on things like this in the past… what could go wrong?

Goodnight.

Also written on this day...

• spritz - 2019
• north wind today - 2009
• monday AV club (sans V) - 2008
• that's no lie - 2006
• please don't add me to the axis - 2004