Feats of Strength

I am a slug. A total slug. I think the shoveling of snow for three days has sapped any remaining energy in my body. Luckily the sun has been shining brightly for two days, now, and may eventually MELT the snow off my car so I can go to work tomorrow.

I have done zero stamping, though Lord knows I've tried. My mojo has taken a break, and I am filling my time with other things. What other things? Well lookie what arrived at my house:


That's right! My card catalog! I bought this on etsy and it has arrived chez moi, at last. I had the nice FedEx guys bring it inside for me, since I just knew I'd have 'lifting' issues. At least if it started out indoors, I'd have a shot at assembling it. In total it weighs about 350 pounds, and I estimate (based on the few remaining unpulled muscles in my body) that each drawer section weighs about 100 pounds. There's three of the drawer sections plus the base and top cap piece, which is set there on top.

Before I could unpack it, though, I needed to have a place for it to live, so I decided to take the brown cabinet from my front hall and temporarily move it into the Dining Room.

This is the brown cabinet that was in the front hall:

It held my CDs and my VHS tape collection. (I'd already emptied the top shelf before I thought to take this picture. ) After I emptied all the CDs out onto the Dining Room table in an attempt to lighten the thing, it was still too heavy to lift (darn particleboard) so I dragged it, and broke off one of the supports in the process. Oh, well, that's what you get with put-together-yourself furniture. Maybe I'll just give it away, or something.

Then I started to unpack and assemble my card catalog. Here is the base plus one of the drawer units:

See those little slots on the top? There are pieces on the bottom of each drawer unit that fit into them so they nest nicely. This also keeps them from living anywhere ELSE as separate units, though. I had thought I'd put one of the drawer units here, and maybe stack up the other two in another room, but that was not to be. ;-(

Here is the whole thing assembled in my front hall. (Please ignore the cans of Raid - they keep the ants at bay. ) Then I decided the cabinet is too big to stay in the front hall, so I started to move things around.

I took out all the drawers, then took off the top cap piece and disassembled the parts-is-parts and set them in the Dining Room.

Then I moved this green cabinet from the back Dining Room wall into the front hall:

It holds all sorts of miscellaneous crafty stuff inside, and on top, too. I need to find homes for all the stuff on top, anyway, and re-purpose this as a front hall piece to hold my keys, etc.

Just around the corner, in the dining room, is the brown cabinet that used to be in the front hall:

... and some packing materials I had to move out of the kitchen so Her Highness could find a path to her food bowl.

There's the card catalog relocated to the back Dining Room wall where the green cabinet used to live:

It is still too big for this spot, but it's better than the front hall. There was a cross stitch piece on the wall here, and those screws in the wall above the cabinet used to hold a shelf that is now gone. All the stuff from that shelf now lives on top of this cabinet.

Then there's the CDs:

Okay, I have a huge collection of CDs. Most of them are by people most of you have never heard of - I like to support the independent small-type musicians, so I buy their CDs when I see them perform live. I also have CD players in both my cars, so it was a natural for me to collect them.

But NOW I needed to find them a home. They are too tall to stand up in the card catalog drawers, but not too big to lie down:

In alphabetical order (you expected less?) I started at Z (Warren Zevon) and worked my way backwards to A, laying what I could fit into each drawer. The only artists that got their own drawers are Bruce Springsteen, The Kennedy's, and maybe Mike Cross and Tom Paxton.

A few of the drawers came with the cards still in them YAY!), so I put them in the top section, which is pretty much too high for me to see into the drawers.

It is tough being vertically challenged. Oh, and for all you young uns, THIS is what we used to have to plow through to find books in the library. Uh-huh. It's true! The drawers slide out easily, and you can take one to a table and look through it, then bring it back and take out another drawer. I used to find all sorts of things that I had no idea were there. Kindof like reading the dictionary. What, you don't ever read the dictionary? You should try it some time! Seriously!

So that's it with the furniture movement. I'm thinking I'll get a pretty basket or box to put under the cabinet to hold all my VHS tapes still in that brown cabinet. Then I can freecycle the cabinet. Or not. I may actually fix it and leave it there. Only time will tell.

In other news, kitty has found a new nest. In my wanderings the past two days, I have actually managed to do a few loads of wash, and I had left the light on and door open to the laundry room, and lookie what I saw:

She actually jumped up onto the washer & dryer, which is no small feat for her, because sometimes she forgets she is a cat, and that she CAN jump. I have a stool next to the end table where her water fountain lives so she can get to it, since she forgets she can jump. I could not make this up. She has issues with 'up' and 'down'.

So you can see she chose the laundry basket for a perch. I looked back later and saw this:


Yep, all cozy and comfy. To her it is new, so it is fun. Then I turned on the shower and broke the spell. She needed to assume her position on the counter while I showered. Kids, whatareya gonna do.

That's about it for now. I am working on an acetate card for my January stamp camps. I even bought enough acetate to go around, just in case I get a clue about what to do with it. You can be sure I'll be CASEing something. I'll show you what I make once it happens.

Thanks for stopping by!