2008 Resolutions, Project 365, and the OCD kid's closet

Historically I've never been much of a resolution maker, but for some reason in the past couple of years I've given it a half-hearted effort every year. For 2008 it seemed like I had my resolutions all mapped out before the leaves changed colors. Which leads me to believe that I was prone to pissing myself off in 2007. Tom has his own take on resolutions:

"I think it’s a silly day to set goals on. Goals can be set and achieved any day with my new system: Tom’s Goalsetting, the not gay New Year’s way!"

I'm not going to rattle off my whole list of New Year's Resolutions here, it makes my eyelids a little heavy just thinking about how uninteresting the entire topic would be. I will share that one of my goals this year is to give Project 365 a try, because I have a lovely D50 that hasn't been fulfilling its photographic destiny for over a year now. Tom was the one who turned me on to the idea of tackling this project, and I'm intrigued by the idea of being able to see an entire year of my life through the photographs I took. I feel as though I have a love/hate relationship with my camera which could be alleviated somewhat (if not totally) by using it on a routine basis, so that would be a definite benefit to trying to keep this resolution. I warned Tom last night that it means everyone will have to get used to the sight of my heinously large camera bag around the house. I'm a routine victim of the "out of sight, out of mind" phenomenon. At some point I will have to pick up a smaller SLR case but it's not real high on my list right now.

At the house:

We spent the weekend painting my son's bedroom (finally) but it's not entirely done. So I don't have any "entirely done" photos of it. But I do have photos of how we repurposed his closet a few months ago. To start I stripped all of this lovely wallpaper from his closet.



We tried to convince Nicholas to accept the wallpaper. We told him all about little boys who would KILL to have pink and blue flower wallpaper in their closets but ever since he started school he falls for these tricks less and less. The wallpaper came off about as well as the wallpaper in our closet did, which means "not very well at all". It came off in little shreds of paper and required constant reapplication of wallpaper remover because it sucked it up like a sponge then dried out almost instantly. If I ever experience a moisture problem in my basement I'm going to want to get my hands on some of this magic, moisture absorbing wallpaper that they put in the upstairs closets. If our roof were to start leaking I'd install this stuff on every ceiling in the house.

Since we knew we'd be painting the bedroom a dark shade of blue EVENTUALLY, I wound up painting the inside of the closet a color that looked like light khaki at the store - but in reality it wound up being more of a pale butter yellow. I wasn't a huge fan of it in the end, but it's a closet.

Then Tom tackled the frustrating task of installing the shelving system I wanted in half of the closet. It's a fairly straightforward bracket and standard system, but I never really thought about the fact that we'd have to screw the brackets into the shelf boards. The one other time I had used these particular shelves it was a more utilitarian application where I had bare metal shelf brackets with a lip at the end to keep the shelves from sliding forward. In Nicholas' closet we bought some more aesthetically pleasing white brackets with no safety lip on them. It wasn't rocket science or anything, but there wasn't any wiggle room as far as installing the brackets went because once attached to the shelves they still had to match up perfectly with the notches on the standards. This required MATH. Which is a recipe for disaster for me, but Tom makes up for what I lack in the book learnin' department and it all went up securely - and LEVEL. Imagine that!





The shelves are for Lego storage sorted into plastic bins based on the size requirements of each kit. This is most definitely ME imposing my neurosis on HIM, because Nicholas would be fine stuffing them all in a paper sack. The colorful open-bin storage rack is your basic Target special that he's had since he was a toddler. As his toys become smaller and more intricate, this open-bin system becomes less and less practical for toy storage. For now it still serves its purpose for Transformers and various little boy "weaponry" of the Power Rangers and Star Wars variety. Because I recognize his need to be able to grab his lightsaber on the fly. There's no time to search for these things. I'm a cool mom that way.

His actual clothing storage needs are minimal, so in every house we've lived in I have modified his closet for toy storage in a similar way. I wanted the option to hang his winter shirts and sweatshirts and that's about it. He has a giant dresser to hold everything else. In the wasted corner space we installed some double coat hooks to hang backpacks, robes and crime fighting costumes on. This keeps all that stuff up off the floor. The closet doors are down in the basement being painted. Leaving the closet open like this would cause Tom and I to hyperventilate every time we were in the room, although I'm sure Nicholas would appreciate the easy access. Because opening and closing those closet doors is just one more annoyance in his everyday life, and he's all about streamlining his playing experience.

Once we get the closet doors up and the blinds hung I'll post them. And since I have to find things to photograph every day, the chances are very good that I'll actually follow through with it.