The Problem: The comfy chair from which all this marvelous prose spills forth has been a cluttered mess since I got wireless. The computer has nowhere to live, other than on the ottoman. There is no room for a printer. Already-read books are cluttering up the side table, which is open on all sides, so there is nowhere to quickly hide the clutter if someone should unexpectedly drop in:

The Worst Offender: The aforementioned side table. Bought sometime in the 1960s; it's dated, worn-down, doesn't go with the more modern-style furniture in the room, and is oval-shaped, making it dificult to place more than a single item on top without stacking.

I purchased a cabinet for this area at Target last week, but work and other things got in the way, so I haven't had time to assemble it. Today I had a completely clear schedule after spin class with Susan, so I decided to tackle my "office".

This is the part that strikes the most fear in me. When I get all the parts out of the box and lay them out on the floor, I'm certain that something is missing, or the parts will not connect correctly, or some other problem that I haven't yet figured out.

I got to work with my phillips-head screwdriver, hammer and the instructions. Since a cabinet is basically a big box with a door on it, it didn't seem as daunting as other ready-to-assemble projects.

Things came together quicly. At this point, I had only one mess-up (placing the board that attaches the moulding to the cabinet backwards), so it all went pretty smoothly.

I got the back and top on, and was almost completely done. At this stage, I checked to make sure that the laptop would fit on the top shelf, and the printer on the bottom. Both did, so I wrangled with hinges for the door a little bit, and got that on straight.

Editor's Note: As you can see, I keep Retro-Active on the TV during any sort of project, be it writing an entry or putting together furniture. On the corner of the TV screen is the following bit of pop-culture information that I didn't know before:

The Human League's Martyn Ware purchased his first synthesizer, a Korg 7705, in 1977

Good information to know!

Done! It went together in about 45 minutes, and I'm sure that if I wasn't so cautious about how to approach anything that even slightly resembles "carpentry," I'd have been done even faster. I was extremely proud of myself, but I had a second project in the works.

The Second Problem: There isn't much unused space around the comfy chair, but behind it, I had a small corner to work with, and was sure that I could find a corner unit which would fit, and give me space to hide things that didn't go into the cabinet away when I didn't need them.

When I found the cabinet at Target, I was smart to keep looking, because at the very end of another aisle was a corner shelf; curved and just the right size to fit behind the chair.

Once again, I spread out all the pieces on the floor. There were far fewer for this project, as the shelf is much simpler in structure. While the shelf isn't as dark as the cabinet, I didn't think it would clash too much with the room, since it would be placed behind the chair. If anything showed, it would only be a little bit, and nobody really pays attention to what color stain you're using for your furniture, unless you've built it from scratch.

I don't have any in-progress pictures of this one, because it took less than 20 minutes to put together. The unit is part of a set that uses cubes and other pieces (such as a curved corner unit) that can be assembled and put together to make larger pieces of furniture. I have three of the cubes (one with a door, one with shelves, and one with drawers) which are stacked next to Mom's desk in her office.

The corner shelf was a tight fit behind the chair, so I pulled the chair out a little bit, so that I don't have to limit what's put on the shelves because of space issues between the chair and the shelving unit. It works fairly well, with the few things I've put on it so far.

Though there is still a lot of clutter around the chair in this picture (I was too impatient to put everything away before snapping the photo), you can see that things are significantly neater (and have the possibility of organization) than they were before.

Though it's not neatly organized yet, the laptop fits nicely on the top shelf, with room for my camera, my iPod, and some CDs (they're unseen in the back), as well as a few chargers/cords for my various pieces of electronics.

I'm very happy that I took off time from everything else to get this in order. I can now write, print, deal with pictures, and have everything at my fingertips. This would be especially handy should I ever find the need to work from home for an extended period of time; or just for my everyday computer-related projects.

I was pretty busy today, even if I hadn't done all that assembling. In the morning, I got a tour of the YMCA by Susan, who then put me through my paces in her 9am spin class. I like the class, because it allows me to stop thinking about being on a bike (if that makes any sense). I'm too busy listening for times when you pedal faster, increase the resistance, stand up or lean over.

Susan is an excellent trainer. It's so interesting that she's so introverted (for the most part) with people around the house, but once she's at work, she's the most popular person there. Everybody said, "Hi, Susan!" whenever she would pass by. In relation to me, she made sure I was doing everything correctly with patience and a great sense of humor. Her idea of "comfortably uncomfortable" (meaning that you get to a place that's more strenuous than everyday activity, but not so bad that you're unable to catch your breath) is a wise one, and she tends to blurt out a "Spectacular!" every once in a while, to encourage her students to work harder. She never once treated me as the out-of-shape, uncoordinated person that I am. After the workout, she said I did very well, and handed me the schedule for classes in spinning, yoga (which I have to try), advanced swimming and such.

I most likely will join the Y, since it's very close to home, and I do need somewhere to swim, as well as a place to run and work out when I'm not at the office (though I'll start running the lake again once the weather cooperates with me).

I also got the grocery shopping done and picked up presents for my cousin Beth and for Chris. Beth's birthday party is this coming Sunday, and they're holding it at 6:30pm again, so that I can be there. Soon it won't be an issue. I can barely wait!

One bit of weirdness for today: When I woke up this morning (pretty early, even with a spin class at 9am), I was exhausted. I couldn't keep my eyes open, and my tongue felt really thick. I eventually went up to bed and slept for another hour or so, which is something I almost never do.

And then, after all the activity of the day (shopping, assembling, vacuuming, scraping down the driveway), I sat down in the newly-outfitted comfy chair and just couldn't keep my eyes open. I was surfing the web while Mom watched Dr. Phil, and I kept nodding off. I finally told her that I was going to take a quick nap before Sean and Heather came over for dinner. I did so, and she said that it took her three tries, knocking on the door, to wake me up. When I got downstairs, I sleepily slurred, "It's still dark outside!" and Mom said, "It's nighttime." I had forgotten that I went for a nap, and woke up thinking it was morning.

Obviously, I need to get more sleep. I plan on sleeping in as late as I can tomorrow morning, and I'm going to have to work the journal so that I have updates ready to go before midnight. I like to experience the whole day, just in case something major comes up and I feel like writing about that, but honestly, very little major events happen to me, so I should be able to write something when I'm not busy.

There is always the possibility that the medication has started doing odd things to my brain, but I haven't changed it at all yet (I'm weaning off the Klonopin in another couple of days), but there's a slight chance that I might have something going on. If this weird pattern of sleepiness continues, I'll contact Dr. B. immediately and see what's up.

The third possibility is that I'm just plain sick. Everyone I know has had a cold or the flu over the past couple of months, and I've been spared. I may be in the first stages of some virus, or else my immune system is working overtime to battle some nasty germ. If that's the case, I may take a day off of work Friday, because I can't get through my day feeling as tired as I did today.

I do relize that my habits aren't condusive to great sleep as it stands. I stay up very late at night (because I wasn't able to sleep otherwise, back in the pre-medication days), and I wake up much earlier than I ever have. I think I'm seriously sleep-deprived, and if that's what is making me so loopy today then I know the solution: more bed! Who doesn't like more bed? I'll just have to adjust so that I'm hitting the sheets around 11pm, if I can. I can always write entries earlier, and though I love my late-night AIM chats, I can have those earlier, too.

In that vein, I'm going to post this and get to bed as quickly as possible. I might as well start trying to get over this productive-yet-sleepy cycle I'm in.