Not sure what took hold of me earlier today, but I whipped out the Swiffer duster and the next thing I knew, I was pulling books off my bookcase and had two giant Ikea bags full of paper sample books and old magazines that were on their way to the recycling bins.  I also gathered all my design magazines from various stashes in the house – many issues of which I’ve yet to even read – and sorted them by magazine and then put them in date order and put them into the plastic magazine holders I have.  Weird enough, stacked two rows deep, the remaining paper samples and all my archived design magazines fit neatly on top of my bookcase, freeing up a lot of other space on the shelves and in the drawers.  And, I moved all my CDs into the ottoman since its lid comes off to reveal a nice-sized storage area inside.  Hell, all my music is on my ipod and the external hard drive, so it’s not like I use the CDs hardly ever anyhow.

I also re-alphabetized Tracey’s DVDs and moved some things around so there would be more room in that bookcase for more movies – I took out all my Smallville, Sex and the City, Osbournes and Superman box sets and put them on the other bookcase which freed up some room for the movies that were laying flat on top of the ones that are standing on the shelves. I hate looking over at that bookcase and having it be a visual mess, so it’s nicer now that it’s mostly tidy.  I also straightened up the bookcase in my bedroom and removed a lot of stuff from my nightstand since I had a bunch of magazines and stuff piled in there, too.  I guess I’m pretty good at going through things periodically and throwing out a bunch of stuff to ensure my house doesn’t become one giant storage bin.

I didn’t get a chance to bring the stuff I had intended to take downstairs, but I’ll get to that tomorrow, along with the vacuuming which definitely needs to be done now that I’ve dusted everything and had books and DVDs and magazines and such all over the floor. 

Tracey and I went to SaveOn to pick up a few things when she got in from work and she picked up sushi while I opted for a safer choice of Chicken with Wild and White Rice soup with saltines.  After our dinner at Red Robin last night – followed quickly by a slice of cheesecake – I was in agony all night with a stomachache.  I fell asleep on the couch and woke up just before 6:00am with it hurting again and I couldn’t wait for Tracey to get up for work and leave so I could use the bathroom and go sleep in the bed.

I woke up and Manon called not long after wanting to know if I wanted to do something. I told her I wasn’t feeling up to it and we talked for a little while and then I was off to the races with the clean-a-thon which lasted several hours until I had put everything back in its place and the floor was, once again, visible.

We had some really weird weather here the past couple of days.  It snowed on Friday and then we had crazy amounts of small balls of hail yesterday so that the ground was white outside and it looked like it had snowed again.  I wish it’d warm up a bit – just enough to wear shorts and short sleeves comfortably and to make it pleasant to do things outside.

Tomorrow I have to work on my newsletter template and then figure out what I’m going to put in there, content-wise. I’m also going to send my newly-updated firm profile PDF to some client prospects, just to touch base and hopefully stir up some work.  Kim sent me an email and left me a message the other day saying that my referral to Shawna Rose had panned out for her and she was going to be doing some copywriting work with them and that this is the freelance opportunity she’s been waiting for to be able to leave MST.  She said she owes me a nice gift as a thanks…hmmmm….another Amazon.com gift certificate perhaps? LOL  I already have about $60 to spend with the affiliate certificate I got and the $35 Deidre sent me for my birthday.  I have a wish list of stuff I’m going to order and have sent to the mailbox in Blaine, probably in the next couple of days.

Going to read for a little while and try to get to sleep reasonably early.  My stomach isn’t perfect, but it’s feeling way better after a big swig of Extra Strength Pepto Bismol and the low-key stuff I ate today – cereal, soup, graham crackers and mint tea.

I found my travel journal when cleaning up, so I may import entries from that before I head to sleep.