As I have mentioned in previous occasions, our house is relatively small, early 50s house, and when we bought it, it had two bedrooms, one bath, a living room, kitchen, a hall closet that has to double as the closet for the master bedroom (because it has none), and an unfinished basement.

Since we moved in we built a computer room and bathroom in the basement, both of which are finished and heated.

But even with those two additional rooms, with three adults the house can feel a little small at times.

So I am always looking for ways to organize, which is why I ended up with a subscription to Real Simple, and I have to say that for the most part what I have tried as worked extremely well in cutting down the clutter (especially after we had to remove all tables from the center of the living room so my grandmother could maneuver her walker after her fall in January).

So my recent organization binge has been to ditch all the jewel cases for my CDs, and put them into an organizer (DVDs are next, as their cases are even worse space hogs.)

First and foremost, I have forgotten how much music I own. This is beginning to feel like a Sisyphean task, as I realize I have CDs all over the house (because I couldn’t keep them all in once place) including what Michael brought up from the basement last night, a paper box full of CDs I hadn’t seen in years.

It’s actually been kinda fun going, “THAT’S where all my Stevie Ray Vaughn CDs went!” and “HEY! I forgot I owned a White Zombie CD! Awesome!” Unfortunately, almost all my heavy metal was on cassette, and those got tossed when we were remodeling the basement, because I quite literally had no space for them. So there have been some pleasant surprises.

Of course there are also the times when I say, “I bought a Jewel CD? I own ‘The Best of REO Speedwagon’? What the hell was I thinking? I don’t think these have ever been listened to! Maybe they really belong to Michael.” (No, that won’t work. When I met him he only had Megadeth, Queen, and Weird Al Yankivick CDs. Yes, I know that’s really weird.)

I also discovered that I own a Green Jello CD. (That’s right, Green Jello, not Green Jelly.) I am pretty sure I have not listened to that since the novelty of the Big Bad Wolf song wore off.

So now I’m staring at this last box of CDs, at a loss as how to organize what I have left. (I have 7 U2 CDs. What goes in the eighth slot on that sheet? What do I organize ‘The Wonder Stuff’ with? It’s pretty much the only British Bluegrass Pop I have. I have no idea.) And as someone who lives to organize, this is become pretty painful. I’ve got about 12 sheets of sleeves left, so I can’t just stick the Klezmatics in their own sleeve and move on.

Of course it probably means it is past time for me to stop for the evening. And I should probably continue to resist the urge to put White Zombie in the CD player, because I can guarantee my grandmother won’t enjoy it at all. :)

Next project? Getting an external hard drive and putting all this music on my computer. (Looks at pile of CD cases.)

Or maybe not.