Day 108

Another missed day. Bad habit, but again I have my excuse - after breakfast I turned on the TV & Wii to exercise and my Wii would not turn on. 


Now, this is not the first time that has happened to me. It seems that both times it happened it was after a power outage. Even though neither were outages of more than 5-10 seconds both issues have that one common factor. Now, we have had other power outages for longer periods of time that did not cause this problem. 


Last time it happened I complained that the power strip. We have an old house and no outlets are really conveniently located. The room I use for a den is a bedroom that my son occupied growing up. I have an entertainment unit that is 6" long by 82" tall that covers most of one wall. My computer armoire covers a good bit of the second wall. The love-seat recliner takes up the third wall. And the fourth is a space between the door and the closet and that wall has no electric outlet. With everything in place the outlets are blocked from easy access so I have power strips positioned within easier reach. Problem is the strip coming from behind the entertainment unit was not only filled to capacity (don't worry, everything plugged in does not all run at the same time), it was also not exactly convenient for the bulkier plugs that have the box type plugs. To remedy that I had a second power strip running from that one. Well, after plugging & unplugging we figured out that some of the outlets of the second strip were no longer working so hubby bought me a new power strip - at Lowes - it was a manly power strip. It is brown metal and very heavy (my others came from Wal-Mart - putty gray plastic & very light weight). Well, the new power strip also had about a 8" cord on it. A lot of cord with no place to go but to puddle in the floor in front of the little 3-drawer chest that takes up the corner at the end of the entertainment unit. 


So, there was a brief power flicker and the Wii refused to work again. I disconnected everything and carried it to the kids room and hooked it up and it worked fine - eliminates the problem being with the Wii. 


I again cast a  suspicious eye at the fire-hazard puddled in front of the 3-drawer chest and declared my hatred of the stupid mess - not to mention the fire hazard of it. So I sent hubby off to the local liquor store to get a bundle of their empty boxes and proceeded to empty everything out of the entertainment unit. And, believe me when I say that was major. That unit was full. A complete set of encyclopedia and several years of the Year Book and Science Year, five photo albums, a reasonable assortment of books, about two dozen VHS, five or six dozen DVD's pictures of kids and grand-kids, all the odd lot stuff that was waiting to be moved to it's respective place but just never made it there and the oversize stack of junk & junk mail that needed to be put away. Heck, I even found an old pay stub from 2006 in that pile of junk. Of course, with the entertainment unit being empty for the first time in sixteen years I had to take advantage of the opportunity to wash it down with Pine-Sol from top to bottom.


We then pulled it out from the wall and re-ran the power strip arrangement. Before there was one plug used by the TV and the other plug had my series of power strips that also included one standard extension cord. We re-positioned the components in the entertainment unit so the TV shares a power strip with the RF Converter, DVD player, GameCube & Wii. It is okay that all those components are on one strip since the DVD player, GameCube & Wii would never be playing at the same time since there is only one TV anyway. The other power strip is now positioned between the entertainment unit & the 3-drawer chest and has a piggybacked smaller strip that runs through the back of the right side of the top shelf of the entertainment unit to allow a power for my Frebreze Scent Story machine and my iPod speaker station. The other outlets on the second strip are now accessible for the occasional use of a Kindle or laptop recharge. So everything is now plugged in in a better configuration and the best part is the puddle of cords no longer exists in from of the 3 drawer chest.


Of course, once the electronics were all lined up and in position I still had to put everything back in place and I dusted and washed everything off as it went back. I was so tired yesterday that I didn't even finish putting it all back. I have also worked on more today and I am down to one box left and it is all odds & ends and stuff hat will not go back in those shelves. But for today I am done. That box will wait until tomorrow . . . or the next day, or the next.  


The only thing I know is certain is that I will take three large green garbage bags of teddy bears that I removed from the top and move them to the basement as well as the four little doll chairs that some of them were sitting on. The four chairs and the four dozen teddy bears were originally all across the top of the entertainment unit. But I guess I am over the need to see my teddy bears displayed there for now.


So, there is my excuse for missing yesterday. (: