Today continued the Weekend of Being Productive. First stop, the bank, to deposit a bunch of checks, and then to the little bagel place near the university, where I was quite happy to see they had not sold out of their pumpkin spice bagels this time. And then it was back to Target, because we hadn’t had room in the car yesterday for everything. We’ve been wanting some shelving or a cabinet or something for all the card and board games that have been sitting in random piles of boxes downstairs, and we’d found an assemble-yourself cabinet that looked promising. Richard had a Target gift card with credit left on it, so that covered about half the cost, and we stuffed the thing into the car (thank goodness for back seats that fold down in the Prius!) and drove it home and wrestled it into the house. And then we just left it there on the floor for later, because I had to run off to a meeting – my very last meeting as Chair of the Board of Trustees at the church in Dixon. It was a fairly uneventful meeting, necessary decisions were made, paperwork was signed, and I left the church feeling like a huge weight was lifted off of my shoulders. For the first time in a very long time I am not a member of some committee, or executive board, responsible for showing up at meetings, or making decisions, or anything else. It’s a truly lovely situation to be in, even as I realize that by virtue of my own personality and participation ethic, this sort of situation cannot possibly last very long. We’ll see.

Back at home, Richard and I decided to assemble the new cabinet, only to discover, after nearly having to tear the box apart with our bare hands to get the stupid thing open, that the manufacturer had neglected to also include the necessary hardware. So we stuffed all the pieces back into the box, sealed it back together again with perseverance and a large amount of packing tape, and went back to Target to swap it out for something else, which did have its hardware.

So now the downstairs guest room is (for the most part) organized and clean. Funny how much larger a room can look when there’s not a messy pile of boxes looming in one corner! Plus, we also picked up a very simple little TV cart, and the old television will live down in that room. It’s not going to be hooked to any sort of cable connection, but the plan is to move the Playstation down there so we can hook up the EyeToy Kinetic. Since the recumbant bicycle is also in that guest room (and currently fulfilling the typical cliche of home exercise equipment, in that it is covered in laundry needing to be folded) we’re hoping that particular room can double as a little home gym when it’s not being used for sleeping guests.

I was so relieved, yesterday, to have finally carted everything off to the thrift store. And then I opened up the closet in the downstairs guest room after we finished putting together the games cabinet, and found another huge stack of stuff I’d completely forgotten about. Sigh. Oh well, at least now we know of a place that will take donations, and there’s still time before Christmas to continue with the purge.

Happy Holidailies!