New Year's Resolutions--old song, new verse

Once again I have resolved to get and stay more organized. And if only we would stop bringing so much crap into the house, it wouldn't be that hard. We don't have kids--only a small dog and smaller cat, and, really, they don't require much in the way of possessions, the ocassional bone and fishing-rod-feather toy, but that's it. So, it's Chris and me.

But this holiday we brought home a piano. It was my piano as a kid--I was the one who took lessons--and my parents have been trying to get us to take it for, like, three years. But everytime we'd go to Alabama it would be raining or we couldn't get anybody to help load it or we just didn't want to deal with it. But this last trip, the weather was good, we took the trailer and we found help.

Now, bringing home a piano isn't like bringing home another shirt. You can't just fold it up and put it in a drawer or hand it in the closet with the other shirts. No, it requires a lot of space. Space that we don't really have, but especially don't have at Christmas when we have a tree and Christmas stuff everywhere. So, for two weeks now the piano has been sitting right in front of the front door. We're getting ready for it.

The tree and other decorations are back in the attic--in an organized pile for the first time ever. But the moves required to find a home for this piano require a flow chart.

First, the small table in the foyer had to be moved--and we don't have a good place for it, so it's shoved in a corner of our bedroom, which when we got the new bed and dresser (for free from one of Chris's customers!) last year we swore we would stop doing, but that was before the piano.

Into the small table's place went the larger, but still small, colorful bookcase. It looks good there, actually. Better than where it was.

Into the small bookcase's place went the large cherry bookcase--sort of Shaker style, Chris made it several years back. It's okay in its new spot, a little dark, maybe, but the living room in the beach house is very bright.

And that's where we got bogged down. The china cabinet--an antique from Chris's mother, has to be moved next into the cherry bookcase spot--but, it's full of some not very attractive stuff, a light fixture, mismatched plates and some extremely tarnished silver (plate, not sterling!). And it's being moved to the living room, because the house doesn't really have a dining room--just a great room, which sounded like a great (get it) idea at the time, and is, but has left us without many walls against which to back up furniture.

Once the china cabinet goes, the piano will live in its place, in what is called the red room (used to be the box room, when we first moved in and discovered that the previous owners had finished the garage, but neglected to put in heat and air or insulation and the room, while finished, though in a ghastly manner with gold shag carpeting, French doors hung so crookedly you could throw a cat (especially ours, she's really small) through the cracks between them and a bizarre navy blue and dirt-color paint job, but that's another story). The red room is our office, den, music room, laundry, exercise room, etc. Since it already houses the drum set and various guitars, basses, amps and a glockenspiel, seems like the natural location for the piano.

At this point, as long as it leaves the front door area, I don't really care where it goes! Because until this series of moves is complete, getting organized is once again falling by the wayside.