The President Gerald Ford Memorial Closet

Back to work today after a 4 day weekend. Tuesday was declared a holiday in memory of President Ford. Since daycare was open, I dropped Eli off for the day and declared it Closet Excavation Day. Turns out there's actually a floor at the bottom of the closets. Who knew!?
This all was inspired by the rearrangement of Eli's 2 1/2 year old cousin's room a while back (thanks Shannon!) They removed the closet doors and used it for nicely arranged open storage, thus increasing usable floor space. Feeling a space crunch in the post- Birthday/Christmas/Hanukkah flood of generosity, I thought it would be a grand idea to implement in Eli's room since some of his recent gifts (play kitchen -- see previous rant about girly colors) and drawing table & chair (yet to be assembled) are taking up premium real estate in the living room (new decor inspired by the pallet of Fisher Price -- adds interesting accents to the living room color scheme!).
The remnants of Justin's former home office were stashed in Eli's closet during the office-to-nursery transition, along with miscellaneous junk and a few lost treasures. In order to relocate the contents of Eli's closet, I had to excavate the guest room closet, which was such a disaster that one of the latches had broken under the strain, and opening the door risked an avalanche of luggage and wrapping paper.
Eli's closet is now conquered and will be dedicated in President Ford's name (ribbon-cutting ceremony invitations forthcoming), and the guest room closet has at least been tamed. Perhaps a lame way to spend a whole day off (and I should have done some thesis-writing), but at least there was a tangible sense of accomplishment. When these rare free days come along, I put so much pressure on myself to get as much done as possible it's almost stressful deciding what to do with all that free time! Despite all this cleaning the house still looks like it was ransacked though -- I'm holding out hope for a snow day this winter...or magic elves.
So how did this qualify as my observance of the passing of the former President? I listened to NPR's coverage of the funeral from the closet.