21 January 2013

Monday Listicles - Closet Time!


This week, Stasha, at The Good Life, wants to know 10 things in our closets.  Now, I have a LOT of closets in my apartment.  There are two in my room alone!  I decided to keep my list (and pictures) to those two closets and no more.  (Partly because most of them are an utter disaster and no one needs to see that!

1. A shoe tree.  For the longest time, all my shoes were thrown into a huge pile in a crate in the bottom of my closet.  When I did the Great Closet Cleaning late last year, I decided that I needed some way for me to remember what shoes I have.  So I bought this little shoe tree, which fits nicely in the back of my walk in closet.

2. Comics.  I love reading comics.  For awhile, before money got tight, I had 6 or 7 titles that I had mailed to me monthly.  I like going back to reread them sometimes, so I've kept them.  Of course, I also have a lot of books in my house and no shelf space for the comics.  So instead, they end up in the top of my closet.


3. Pokemon cards.  My husband and my boys play a lot of Pokemon.  (I play occasionally, when the mood strikes.)  They've collected a lot of Pokemon cards, tins, and binders to put the cards in.  I got tired of finding cards all over the house with no knowledge of whether they were good cards, bad cards, ones for Pete to play with or what.  So I put them into a box (sorted and organized)  and stored them in the top of my closet.  I've been finding random Pokemon cards around again, though, so I need to start filing again.


4. A dress that I, someday, want to get back into.  I love this dress.  I got it back in college when I accidentally brought it home with me when I had to pack up and leave.  I kept intending to bring it back, but now it's 20 years later.  I don't see that happening.  But it was always an awesome dress to wear on Halloween.


5. Games.  Games are another thing we have a ton of.  We don't get to play them as often as we'd like either.  We have one bookcase downstairs dedicated to just board games (and another in the dining room dedicated to just role-playing games).  We've run out of room on the board game shelf, so some of them have to live in our closet until I can reorganize the game shelves.


6. A shirt folder.  I bought this when Rich and I were first dating.  I could never figure out how to get shirts to look nicely folded.  It just never happened.  So I bought this and used it for awhile.  Now I know how to fold shirts without trouble, but Rich really needs to get some practice in with it.


7. Wedding bunnies.  I'm not sure if I've told this story before, but if I have and some of you remember it, I apologize for the retelling.  When Rich and I got married, the priest asked us to write a little about what we loved about the other one.  I wrote this eloquent piece that told every single thing I loved about my husband to be - and promptly forgot it in the apartment as we were driving over for the rehearsal.  I wrote, very shakily (writing in a car just Does. Not. Work.), as we drove to it and had it finished just as we were pulling up to the church.  I thought it was going to give the priest some ideas of things to say during the homily. (Yup, Catholic wedding.)  No.  The priest read it out word for word.  And one of the words I put in there was my nickname for Rich, Snugglebunny.  Of course, everyone got a good laugh (including Rich and I), and someone asked if he had a nickname for me.  And he told them Honeybunny.

Fast forward to the reception.  I'm standing there, talking with a few friends that had come to the wedding, when our friends, Kris and Tara came up to me.  They had waited around with us while we were taking pictures at the church (their daughter was the flower girl) and I would have expected them to come in sooner than they had.  But I saw mischief as they held something behind their backs.  When Rich and I were together, they whipped out what they'd been hiding - two bunnies.  One was colored like it was in a tuxedo and the other was all white.  Apparently, they remembered seeing a Toys 'R Us on their way to the church, so they made a stop, ran in and asked the first employee they saw, "Where do you keep your bunnies?!"  Rich and I carried them in when we were introduced at the reception and they guarded the cake for the rest of the night.  The only reason they're there instead of in some other prominent location is because, you guessed it, I don't have the room.


8. Bags of kids clothes.  All of these space saver bags are clothes in sizes between Teddy and Pete.  They used to be all mixed together, but I got smart.  Each bag has a paper in it with the size and, in some cases, the season, along with any extras like shoes, sandals or robes.  My kids have a lot of clothes.


9. Bookbags galore.  I love purses, bags, book bags, etc.  I buy more of them than I really need.  I did get rid of a lot of them, donating to Goodwill.  But I kept one large backpack (the brown one) and one smaller back pack, along with a lunch box or two, in case I need it for anything.


10. My fedora.  Back ten years ago or so, I went to a meeting of online friends.  We frequented the Straight Dope Message Board, were known as Dopers and our gatherings were called DopeFests.  I met a lot of great friends there.  In 2002, a bunch of people decided that fedoras should be worn (along with the regular request for the guys to wear kilts. Mmmmmm.... Kilts.)  I didn't have my own, but I did have a lot of friends that told me I looked really good when I snagged theirs from their heads.  One of those friends bought me my very own fedora for my birthday that year.  It doesn't get a lot of wear any longer - no place to really go out wearing it.  But someday, I'll have it back in rotation.


I'm looking forward to seeing what others have in their closets!