While the cat's away.........

Do you like moving? Not the jumping up and down kind, but the get another house and start over kind? I do.

The only time my house is consistently clean and orderly is when it's for sale and must be "show ready" at a moment's notice. Glorious living for those few months as we all work together to defeat the enemy clutter.

We have lived here for over twelve years, the longest I've ever lived in one place.

I have the itch. I want to move. (Actually, I want a bomb to go off after the strategic removal of a few items so that I can collect the insurance and build the current version of my dream house.)

Chained here for at least a couple more years, I'm doing the next best thing. Operation House Reclamation has started, one room at a time.

Today's project - the boy cave, a.k.a. The Den.  I will spare you the "before" picture. And thankfully, boy odor doesn't transmit over the internet so you are spared that as well.

We are cleaning out cabinets and bookshelves and actually hanging the pictures left shelved after the last paint job (three years ago.) Ricky would do a more thorough job if he were here, but his slash and burn style of attacking the mess doesn't allow me sufficient time to agonize over decisions.

In the trash go crayons, old school supplies, broken games, dozens of National Geographics saved for the next, long past, elementary school project. I did rescue a son's discard of Ricky's grade school chess set, in perfect condition and still holding sentimental value (I think.)

The boys helped a lot, especially if you ignore their attempt to bribe my office assistant to "lose" the feather duster. Brian was moving Ricky's album collection to a better location and noticed this one:

(And no, those are not my hands.)

Whatcha' think? Further proof we are the world's nerdiest family? Who else owns a two album set of the dramatic highlights of congressional investigations, with one whole album, both sides, devoted to the McCarthy hearings? Must be fascinating. Keep or toss? Not mine to say.

We have umpteen sets of dominos, I'm embarassed to admit the true number. There are double nines and double twelves for playing "Chicken Foot" or "Train." The rest are double sixes for playing straight dominos or my favorite game of all time, "42," which has just been legally declared the State Game of Texas. Seriously.

So should I throw away the extra red or some of the ivory sets, the dominos personalized with our name or the set decorated with the name of our alma mater? Should I toss the dominos given to and inherited back from my father-in-law decorated with pictures of bass? Ricky can ponder those decisions as he travels across India on Friday.

I will still stash my tubs of beanie babies back into the cabinets, too, planning to dole them out as bribes to future grandchildren.

But still, a couple of trash bags now on the street. I'm finally moving!