So last night, I had a revelation. For the last 5+ years or so, my dogs and my PC have shared the same room. This has led to all kinds of PC issues ranging from chewed cords, to pee'd on cases to getting splashed with "oh god I really don't want to know what that is". So after due consideration last night and Martha's advice from a 2006 summer or fall issue, I decided to finally raise the white flag and move my PC out of the dog room. One poor PC against 28 paws simply does not stand a chance. Sooo... the next question is where to put it? My house (for those of you that have not been here) is literally packed, floor to ceiling with store stuff. People have actually told me that at times it looks like a warehouse exploded and my house is ground zero.
So roll the cameras back to a flashback moment, this past April, I decided that it was time to stop living out of one room of my 4-bedroom house. I decided that maybe it would be nice if I could fit one person through the front door without having to give them a good push and hope they landed on something soft on the other side. Yes, this past April, I declared WAR on my inventory, and decided to take my house back.
The firs task tackled was the foyer - since opening the door was a plus, I thought it prudent to start there. After 3 weeks of working on it, the foyer was reclaimed as living space and it is no longer covered floor to ceiling in boxes. As a bonus, I have re-discovered the coat closet - a small set back was to also discover all the crap in it, but I tackled it with enthusiasm and Voila - the foyer is mine again.
Score: Me-3 (3 rooms in the house as mine - Master Bedroom and bath, altar room Foyer - and yes, the Foyer is a room for this count), Dogs 1 (I call it my PC room but who am I kidding?) and Inventory 6 (living room, dining room, kitchen, bonus room, upstairs bath, hallway/downstairs bath).
The hallway and downstairs bath went next - they were easy - barely a challenge. Once I was done, like a 5-year-old child, I kept opening the front door and running giggling through the hall until I was assaulted by the kitchen, turning around and doing it all again - but hey, at least I was able to walk or even run into the house. This was progress!
Score: Me-4, Dogs 1, Inventory 5
Although I had always hated taking pictures of my house (since it was in such a mess) I do wish I had taken a before picture of my living room. Ignoring the fact that there was only one path through the living room, that I had a 100 gallon fish tank which was half filled with moldy green water (I kind of got depressed when my fish died and just turned it off and left it...) and the walls had many many scuffs that you would expect to find in a warehouse wall, the fact is you could not really see any furniture in the living room. It took me over 2 months to find a new place for every box and product that was in the living room. This was by far one of the worst battles fought in my house to date. But - the task was complete finally, and thank to 2 very good friends, I was also able to clean and reclaim my fish tank (which actually has fish in it now - which is a whole another blog entry for later on in the week), find my lost furniture and re-paint the walls.
Score: Me-5, Dogs-1, Inventory-4 - The tide has turned! I am winning the war now!
At this point, I had come to the sad realization that although I was victorious in the living room, the dining room was not going to be able to be reclaimed. With four shelf units packed from floor to ceiling with product, I just gave up, and moved into the kitchen - I had accepted that the dining room would be a casualty of this war.
The kitchen, which once housed large cases of oils and containers on one side, bottles, beeswax, labels, wooden stirrers and more, was much easier to claim than originally though possible. All it took really was to move the Island back to where it should me, and move the larger boxes out to the apothecary and carve out a corner for the oils. I was even able to bring my kitchen gadgets out of hiding so that I could start cooking again. However, this led to a new problem - the problem that the kitchen has a pass through to the dining room, and now, with the kitchen looking so open and nice, and the dining room looking like the back of a bookstore, something had to be done.
Score - Me-6 (MUAHAHA!), Dogs-1, Inventory-3
So now - out of flashback mode and back to why I originally started this post, last night basking in glow of my accomplishment, sitting on the living room couch, feeling the fire of my reclaimed fireplace, I decided that the dining room will also have to be reclaimed. The problem becomes, where to put all of the product - and let me tell you - there is A LOT of product there. This is when Martha spoke to me - she whispered to me in her evil ways... "reclaim the dining room, move the PC down here and section off a part of it for an office, let the dogs have their room!"
Now considering that my poor Apothecary has basically been assaulted with a lot of product from downstairs, I think I can safely say that it is slowly becoming the new disaster area. However, for one shining moment, Martha gave me a glimpse of all that can be achieved if the entire Apothecary is taken apart, re-organized and many of the boxes removed or consolidated. And I thought the living room was hard - the Apothecary (aka my bonus room) is HUGE - easily twice the size of the living room. As I turned away from it, having definitively decided that it is too big of a task to tackle, I saw 5 pairs of sad eyes looking back at me from the dog/PC room. Those eyes said "mommy please, we really want to have this room for us to play in, for us to stretch out without having to worry about hurting that box we pee on that makes you so mad..."
And as guilt washed over me, I made a list of the initial battle plan for taking back the dining room, re-organizing the Apothecary and moving my office downstairs to a sectioned off part of the dining room. As I looked up from the huge, time consuming and very complex plan of attack, I saw Martha once again - cackling this time - her beady little eyes glinting in delight at the pages and pages of to-dos and tasks to needed to finish this... and people say I'm the witch!?
Score - Me-6, Dogs-1, Inventory-4 (yes, the Apothecary is now considered 2 rooms due to its sheer size and mass - take that Martha!)
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