Yes, it has been a long awaited announcement, but I am officially sitting at MY desk in MY office (urrr…piano room/craft room/computer room/whatever you want to call it today). There is nothing ON the desk except…well, things that should be there…my PC tower, the 20″ monitor, the keyboard, the mouse, the router, the network drive, a stack of papers (to take notes on in a minute), a pen (purple), and a 3-hole punch. Don’t ask why the 3-hole punch is here. I don’t know, it just is because I haven’t found a better place to put it YET.
There is still work to be done in this room, but it is coming together nicely. The carpet definitely needs to be vacuumed all the way around. Printers and scanners still need to be connected. Shelves still need to be organized. Pictures still need to be hung. Boxes still need to be gone through, etc. The fact is, however, that this room was once a trash heap and it is starting to look nice and inviting. Now if my kids will keep it that way is another story.
Since I have moved all of the piano books from near the piano except the 4-5 books they need for their weekly lessons and practice, this should help tremendously in this particular area of their trashing ability. In fact, I did not tell them where I put them. *evil laugh* I am not sure I will tell them at this point. The few books they have “should” fit into the piano bench itself. I haven’t tested this, so they might not.
Of course, keeping their computer area neat is a challenge all by itself. We’ll work on it.
I need to get a garbage can for in here – again. They managed to BREAK the last one we had. I am not entirely sure how they did it. I am not entirely sure I want to know how they did it. *scratching head* The fact is, there is no garbage can in here. Now I am not sure I want to encourage “trash” in here again at all. I am going to be realistic though, I do know it happens around computers for some reason. Maybe I’ll put a recycling bin in here instead. *grin* I was just appalled by the sheer amount of trash and food wrappers I was finding under their computer desk and around the piano. The part that really confuses me is that food is not allowed into this room. They simply aren’t supposed to have it in here. That, however, does not explain the empty Capri-Sun pouch and Slim-Jim box I found beside the piano this morning. This does not explain the numerous granola bar and cereal bar wrappers shoved behind the desk. It doesn’t even explain the raisins that were smashed into the carpet almost directly in the middle of the room. Heck, it doesn’t even explain the glob of dried, green chewing gum stuck on the stand of their monitor. Like I said, I am confused. In the past, I have gotten a lot of “not me” when inquiring about the wrappers, boxes, trash, etc. Well guess what, boys, “Not Me” does NOT live here!
I previously had been using 3 sets of these cheap, 4-Tier Heavy-Duty Plastic Shelves (in white) that I had gotten at Wal-mart. The website is showing them as being $14.44, but I did not pay more than $9.98 for them when I bought them a couple of years ago. They have been “good” over all. They do not hold a significant amount of weight as I have found. The shelves where I had computer and graphic design books between bookends have bowed under the weight of them. That’s OK, I have reassigned their duties. Since I now have the real bookcase along with the small bookcases (from college dorm room days) the books and their weight will not be an issue. Like I said, I had 3 of them in here. One is now assigned the duty of keeping charge of all computer peripherals – scanner and printers. This will be a nice change. Though I still need to find a longer USB printer cable (I am not sure if we have anymore here in the house, but I’ll look around. The other 2 sets of shelves went UP. I stacked them on top of each other, minus 1 shelf as I ran out of “legs”. Like I said, these things have been great over all. I can’t say that they have been perfect (remember the weight of the books issue?). However, I am liking the 2 stacked. I do need to find something the right height that is “solid” to anchor them in place (without putting holes in the wall) so that they won’t topple over. I don’t think it will be a problem, personally. They aren’t heavy and there won’t be a ton of weight on them. My biggest complaint about these shelving units, however, is that they just aren’t wide enough for the traditional Rubbermaid or Sterilite plastic storage tubs with lids. You can only get 1 across on the shelf. You can improvise. If you use a larger tub for projects and whatnot, you can get a shoebox sized tub shoved in there beside it. There is one particular type of tub that fits there side by side nicely and stack nicely as well. They are just a bit more expensive and I already had the tubs at the time I bought the shelving units. Live and learn, right? Anyway, I want to get some more of these Sterilite Showoff Boxes to eventually replace the Sterilite 20oz Storage Tubs that I currently have. I have 20qt, 12qt, and 6qt (shoebox) sizes. The Sterilite Showoff Boxes come in small, medium, large, and oval.
Indian giver am I
So yesterday after I had finished putting together my bookcase, Lance was playing with his cars on the open box on the floor. He said he needed some roads. I told him (absent minded as it was) that he could have the box and we would draw some roads on it. Sounded like a great activity to do together.
Then I came to my senses. I realized that the folds in the box lengthwise were perfect for creating more of the magazine file boxes albeit a bit narrower than the originals. I even laid the one that came unglued down on it and I could get SEVERAL out of this 72″ box. PERFECT!
So I was an Indian Giver yesterday. Shame on me! Sorry, Lance, you can’t have the box! It is MINE, all mine!
Of course as I was cleaning off some of the shelving units to move them around I found a table cloth I had bought for one of the boys’ birthday parties that we ended up not using at all. Evidently, I found them at a really good price and bought an extra one and then didn’t use it. It has ROADS on it! Yay! So the next thing to pop into my head was: “I can somehow attach this to some of those foamy floor mats that go together like puzzle pieces and then cut the table cloth to match the pieces. Voila! A floor mat with roads and houses for his cars to go on!” Great idea, let me tell you. Now I haven’t tried pricing those floor mat things recently so it might not be such a good idea after all, but we’ll see. I’ve got plenty of high stick spray adhesive that would likely work.
So I just went looking and Amazon has the ‘Comfort Step’ Anti-Fatigue Interlocking Padded Flooring – Set of Four 2′ X 2′ Pads
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