Cleaning Out and Up
As I mentioned in my previous post, I am now doing the ole spring cleaning thing right now. I’m not only cleaning my rooms like I’ve done before and not only reorganizing my Pops like I’ve done before, but this time I am cleaning out things that haven’t been cleaned in literal years or, in some cases, a decade… or maybe two decades… hard to keep track really. I’ve discovered some interesting and really weird shit during my cleaning which in some cases has been almost like an archaeological dig. What I clean out goes into one of three piles: Keep, Sell, and Trash. Thankfully, the Sell and Trash are turning out to have far more in them than the Keep. Here’s hoping there will be plenty in the figurative SOLD pile soon too!
So, once I cleaned the usual parts of my room, I decided to clean what hadn’t been cleaned in so long that I can’t remember when last I cleaned it at all. Those things being? My closets! Also, a cabinet under my old entertainment center which is like a little closet that I’ve been throwing random stuff into for years… like I have been my closets. I began with my office closet since I figured it would be the least horrible of my two closets. If I was right about that, I’m in for some absolute hell next week when I start on the other one! Yes, it was beyond words awful, and I don’t just mean because it was so cluttered that when I opened the doors there was a large avalanche. I mean that mice must have been making nests in there at various points in time over the years for the past decade. At least I think it’s only been a decade since I last cleaned out that closet. Might have been closer to two. Thankfully I didn’t have to endure this atrocity alone, my friend Kristy helped me clean most of it out.
In addition to clothing I haven’t worn since the late 90s and early 00s hanging on the rack, higher up I found baseball caps hanging near the ceiling that belonged to my brother from back when that was his closet in the early 90s. On the closet floor I found boxes on top of boxes on top of boxes of random junk. Digging through the boxes was like being on an archaeological dig as I peeled back the layers. Only, this was far less tedious and boring AF than an archeological dig. (I should know, I’ve been on a couple.) The top layers were recent junk while the bottom layers went back to my childhood. Yikes! I found a ton of stuff I can sell via yard sale and maybe even some stuff for eBay and local Facebook swap. What kind of freaked me out though was I found a taped up box that has “DO NOT OPEN” written all over it in my hand writing. I have no clue what’s in it or why it says what it says. It’s under my desk right now while I debate what to do with it. The taped seal is broken in a place so a mouse or spider(s) could have gotten in it. That’s mainly what has me worried. Last thing I want to see right now is a dead/live mouse or get spooked by spiders.
Now, the closet is completely cleaned out. I plan to get several large plastic bins and then put my empty Pop boxes into said bins for safe keeping. I can put other things in there too. With it all cleaned out and I do mean cleaned, I can put anything in there! Aayla has already thoroughly sniffed out the closet area during her nightly exploration of the house. She loves exploring so having a new little area to explore has really made her happy.
As I implied earlier, I haven’t gotten round to the second closet yet, but I did clean out that cabinet under my entertainment center earlier tonight. I found even more goodies in there. I found several Star Trek prop replicas that I forgot I had and a box of recipes I used to cook back in 2009. I also found several notebooks of shit I wrote a decade ago including outlines for graphic novels, story drafts, really outdated to-do lists, and ideas for artworks among other written things. I even found a notebook of a story I wrote back in 1996. It was too faded to read though, and it was in my really shitty cursive handwriting of the era so even if it wasn’t faded, I still probably couldn’t have read it. I threw all of the papers away. I have no time to go through them all and if I forgot that they existed, I must not need them.
I just updated my Pops for Sale page after finally taking new photos of all of my Funko Pops that I intend to sell. They are also all listed on eBay right now if you would rather go that route. I have even decided to part with some of my older, rarer Pops as I need to raise funds to buy more Pops supplies such as bins to put the Pop boxes in along with more shelves and riser making supplies. Oh, and more Pops!
Speaking of my Pops Collection, once I finished cleaning out my office closet and filling up four 90qt plastic bins with Pop boxes (I’ll need a few more to store the rest of my Pop boxes), I started adding on to my risers. I cut out some large, flat cardboard pieces and covered them with white cloth using Mod Podge like I do my risers. I them used some small nails to secure the cardboard pieces to the backs of my larger risers to keep Pops from falling off the top rows of the risers and into the abyss behind them. It turned out to work, and look, better than I had expected and could have hoped! I also built some new risers and added onto some of my old ones to make room for some new Pops. I’m all out of foam blocks now so I’m going to have to buy more the next time there’s a sale because I have a feeling I am going to be needing to build more Marvel risers sooner rather than later. I’ll need more shelves too but I have nowhere to put them. I guess what I really need now are more walls or at least wall-space. Hmm…
Now to decide when to tackle my other closet and when to have that yard sale to get rid of all the stuff I uncovered. It may be a week or so. I’m having some trouble with my knees and arms that has me worried enough that I went to see my doctor the other day. I’m set to take a full spectrum blood test and get my knees x-rayed in the coming days. Here’s hoping it’s nothing too serious and an easy fix.