BOOM!

Where I used to live, my office was also the laundry room. 

At this new house, I've moved NEXT to the laundry room. 

I have a large room that is 25% office, 25% craft table, 35% storage and 15% dog bed.  It is a haven of multi-tasking, organization and storage.  And it's laundry room adjacent.  Lucky me.

It's the storage part that went BOOM.

I got to go to IKEA yesterday, one of my happy places.  I bought a cheap rug for under my desk and chair so that I stop sliding away while working.  I was all excited to go lay it down and have the office/craft/storage room complete. 

I spent last week re-organizing all the storage in the room.  We have totes and totes and totes full of pictures, momentos and personal belongings from my husband's late parents.  The priceless stuff that you can't depart with, but have no idea what to do with.  And seriously, there are just so many pictures.

Tom's dad was 84 when he passed away 3 years ago.  His Mom passed away 5 years before that.  It astounds me that after distributing, selling, auctioning and donating the possessions they gathered during their 48 years of marriage...it can all be condensed down into 12 plastic totes.  The truely priceless things that we want to hold on to are the photos and worthless trinkets that are full of memories.  After all the packing, unpacking, reorganizing and shopping I've done in the last few months...I need to keep this in mind.  What really holds value in this house. 

There are also totes full of our momentos from growing up.  Beloved toys, old school papers, gear from the many phases of our lives. 

It's not wrong to hold on to my karate gi from college is it?  Hey, I made green belt...and I broke a board in two with just the side of my hand.  It shouldn't matter that no amount of dieting or working out will EVER get me to fit my thighs into that thing again!!

Also...totes full of clothes for the kids to eventually wear.  3 boys equals lots of hand-me-downs.  A generous sister of a sister-in-law with a shopping addiction and two daughters equals lots of pretty dresses, jammies and shoes in Grace's future. 

We got stuff.

In addition to the totes, there are wooden shelves (also from IKEA) with framed pictures, my unfinished craft project collection, sewing stuff, seasonal stuff.

It was looking pretty tidy.

Then I got home yesterday and wondered why my little bottles of paint were all over the floor.  And why my husband's high school art projects were strewn everywhere. 

BOOM.

Apparently the bottom tote on the farthest stack collapsed.  (Note to self:  when you are organizing and stacking totes, if the lid looks a bit bendy, it WILL bend eventually...so don't put 125 pounds of old photographs and tax returns on top of it)

The tote collapsing made the whole stack tip over. 
Which dominoed into the next stack. 
Which dominoed into the shelving. 
Which snapped the temporary strap I used to secure it upright. 
Which fell over onto my craft table. 
Which scattered stuff all over the floor.

So instead of laying down my rug.  I'm cleaning up.

Well, that's a lie.

Because of instead of cleaning up, I'm sitting at my desk, with my back to the mess, blogging about the fact that I need to be cleaning up.


See...even when it's trashed...the room is still a multi-tasking haven.

If your tasks include avoidance and procrastination.