So. The menu isn't ready for this week. I have vague ideas about what K. and I will be eating (A. leaves town Tuesday afternoon and returns Friday night) but they're still in my head. I'll shake them loose after I'm closer to being done with stage one of the "Fix the Living Room" project.
Today has been spent listening to a Rambo festival (I now have all the Rambo movies!! *squee*) while I figured out what to do with all the stuff that was on the old desk and has been (and is still currently) piled atop the dining room table (and, um, under it) since last night.
We went from a 60 inch wide computer desk with a hutch (over 15 years old so it wasn't designed for a tower set up) to a computer armoire that's just about 35 inches wide and 54 inches tall. It gives us more room in the living room (step two is the six foot tall, 72-inch wide entertainment center which will give us even more room) and I love the armoire idea. I love having the computer and printer out of sight when it's not in use (which, admittedly, isn't that often *laughs* but it DOES happen from time to time). I love having more room in the living room for furniture to sit on (that's step three). The problem comes from the fact that I use roughly 90 to 95% of the stuff on the former desk on a semi-regular to regular basis.
But! But!! I have ideas!!
I don't actually sit at the desk to write, though I do have to sit there to print. (My printer and laptop don't play nice together so I have to print off the backup files on my flash drive.) The desk is where I sometimes pay bills and where K. has monitored access to the internet (one of the big reasons we keep that computer; I won't allow my 11- almost 12-year-old to have internet access in her room). As I said, it's were I sit to print and, really, a lot of my household files are still on the computer on the desk because A. bought me my laptop for me to write on and I really do keep resisting the urge to transfer AAAALL my household files to it (though I did transfer over the most important ones). Seeing as how I don't sit at the desk to write, there's no point in all my writing-related office supplies (reference books, note cards, sticky notes, blahblahblah) hogging up space at the desk. All that stuff needs to find a new home closer to where I'm prone to doing actual research: at the dining room table where I can spread things out. There are two book cases (each at least twenty years old so they're the BIG cases that are so hard to find today) by the dining room table. Surely I can give up at least ONE shelf worth of books to make room for my writing-related office supplies, right? If I'm really lucky, I can clear two shelves and make room for some of my "writer's block/brain freeze toys", too, but since not all the books on the shelves belong to me, I can't make that call. Well, actually I sort of can since A.'s already gone through the partial shelf of his books and that leaves, um, mine. (I'm a book hog... )
The papers that were in the file drawers... eesh. I don't know yet. The old desk had two deep file drawers that held a lot of random research material and general paperwork (not to mention my stationary, my writer's block toys, and other stuff). The new desk has one small drawer under the printer shelf that's both wide and tall enough to hold some hanging files, but it's only deep enough to hold maybe a dozen. I think it's deep enough to hold all the household financial files. Maybe. The rest of the stuff...? I don't know. I'll be spending this week while A. is out of town sorting through and re-evaluating a lot of my stuff. I do have a free-standing two-drawer file cabinet (that's old and needs to be replaced, too) that holds files now. If I do this right, I may be able to dedicate one drawer of that to my research and the other drawer to general household files that don't go in the desk (bills in desk, manuals and such in filing cabinet). Right now it's all speculation, though. I've got a lot of stuff to sort out. Before I start sorting though, I need to work on clearing some space on the bookcases... something I hadn't anticipated doing until much further down the line.
And in the middle of all this "life renovation" chaos, life goes on. K. gets out of school for the summer on Wednesday. A. leaves town Tuesday afternoon and doesn't come home until Friday night. My tomatoes are growing. The pepper plants are dying. And so on and so forth.
And eventually, I'll get the menu made and posted. Eventually. Maybe. Right now, I just want to curl up in a blanket and listen to the night.
Today has been spent listening to a Rambo festival (I now have all the Rambo movies!! *squee*) while I figured out what to do with all the stuff that was on the old desk and has been (and is still currently) piled atop the dining room table (and, um, under it) since last night.
We went from a 60 inch wide computer desk with a hutch (over 15 years old so it wasn't designed for a tower set up) to a computer armoire that's just about 35 inches wide and 54 inches tall. It gives us more room in the living room (step two is the six foot tall, 72-inch wide entertainment center which will give us even more room) and I love the armoire idea. I love having the computer and printer out of sight when it's not in use (which, admittedly, isn't that often *laughs* but it DOES happen from time to time). I love having more room in the living room for furniture to sit on (that's step three). The problem comes from the fact that I use roughly 90 to 95% of the stuff on the former desk on a semi-regular to regular basis.
But! But!! I have ideas!!
I don't actually sit at the desk to write, though I do have to sit there to print. (My printer and laptop don't play nice together so I have to print off the backup files on my flash drive.) The desk is where I sometimes pay bills and where K. has monitored access to the internet (one of the big reasons we keep that computer; I won't allow my 11- almost 12-year-old to have internet access in her room). As I said, it's were I sit to print and, really, a lot of my household files are still on the computer on the desk because A. bought me my laptop for me to write on and I really do keep resisting the urge to transfer AAAALL my household files to it (though I did transfer over the most important ones). Seeing as how I don't sit at the desk to write, there's no point in all my writing-related office supplies (reference books, note cards, sticky notes, blahblahblah) hogging up space at the desk. All that stuff needs to find a new home closer to where I'm prone to doing actual research: at the dining room table where I can spread things out. There are two book cases (each at least twenty years old so they're the BIG cases that are so hard to find today) by the dining room table. Surely I can give up at least ONE shelf worth of books to make room for my writing-related office supplies, right? If I'm really lucky, I can clear two shelves and make room for some of my "writer's block/brain freeze toys", too, but since not all the books on the shelves belong to me, I can't make that call. Well, actually I sort of can since A.'s already gone through the partial shelf of his books and that leaves, um, mine. (I'm a book hog... )
The papers that were in the file drawers... eesh. I don't know yet. The old desk had two deep file drawers that held a lot of random research material and general paperwork (not to mention my stationary, my writer's block toys, and other stuff). The new desk has one small drawer under the printer shelf that's both wide and tall enough to hold some hanging files, but it's only deep enough to hold maybe a dozen. I think it's deep enough to hold all the household financial files. Maybe. The rest of the stuff...? I don't know. I'll be spending this week while A. is out of town sorting through and re-evaluating a lot of my stuff. I do have a free-standing two-drawer file cabinet (that's old and needs to be replaced, too) that holds files now. If I do this right, I may be able to dedicate one drawer of that to my research and the other drawer to general household files that don't go in the desk (bills in desk, manuals and such in filing cabinet). Right now it's all speculation, though. I've got a lot of stuff to sort out. Before I start sorting though, I need to work on clearing some space on the bookcases... something I hadn't anticipated doing until much further down the line.
And in the middle of all this "life renovation" chaos, life goes on. K. gets out of school for the summer on Wednesday. A. leaves town Tuesday afternoon and doesn't come home until Friday night. My tomatoes are growing. The pepper plants are dying. And so on and so forth.
And eventually, I'll get the menu made and posted. Eventually. Maybe. Right now, I just want to curl up in a blanket and listen to the night.
