Quit playing games with my heart

I love games. Board games. Table games. Card games. The list goes on. I'm not much into RPGs, probably because I enjoy role playing on stage in front of audience more than sitting at a table talking about it. 

When I acquired my coffee table from friends who were getting a new one, I was thrilled that it had a shelf underneath. I immediately began storing my growing game collection there. It never occurred to me that shelf could be for anything other than game storage. 

For a few years, it was perfect. Then one magical day in December at the thrift store, I found 16 new games for just 14 clams and my game collection was definitely too big for the table. 

I was also starting to have another problem. When I was out looking at games, I often second guessed myself - did I already have this one? 

With this surge in game ownership, it was time to solve both problems. 

I bought three 105 quart bins and 2 shoebox bins and, as I put my games in their new homes, created a spreadsheet in Google Docs of everything I have listed by title, type (i.e. Word, strategy, trivia, dice, mystery, card, art, puzzle), age, duration, and number of players. The big boxes went into the large bins, the card games into the plastic shoeboxes. 

Now, the shoeboxes, some craft materials, and fitness equipment reside on the coffee table shelf and the other games went where I could find room. 

With 60 games (including some 11 decks of cards for Nertz/Pounce) and one on the way, I'm really pleased with my nerdy solution. I can pull up the spreadsheet on my phone when I'm out shopping or share it with a friend when planning a game night. 

It makes my little librarian heart glad and I'll avoid problems like this: