Anxious and sad about coronavirus...makes lego look so unimportant

I started the year by saying 2020 was the year I Hoped to get organized with lego...well be careful what you wish for.  I'd give anything to be busy and not have time to actually do what always gets pushed to the back burner.  I'm taking time off and fortunately have a good employer working to keep us on payroll so I started going down into my lego room.
I cannot believe how many legos I have now...one minute I'm thrilled then the next minute I'm thinking how or why did I get all these and if I'd saved $ I'd be sitting a lot better for a pandemic...I think I'm at the end of getting more for now.  One because I have no more room and two because if I cant make something good with the bricks I have then i suck and need a new hobby.
I was pretty glad to go through my legos though because I remember where I was when I bought many of them...when times were more peaceful and less stressful...so after today I was able to get good pics

I like looking at people's collections on the net and hope these will be fun to look at....

Well I will keep organizing to try to prepare the most amazing moc ever...I hope everyone coping with coronavirus and those grieving a lost one will hang in there.  Praying for everyone....take care

My first lego sets, the legos that kept me happy til 1978 castle

My first lego sets:

This is my first lego set.  My major accomplishment was stacking the window pieces or the bricks in the color scheme on the box next to the logo!  I wasnt very creative except I think I did build a house like on the box but even with that set I knew I didnt have enough sloped roof pieces to finish like all the perfect buildings in the catalogs

Then came sets that I think were actually my brothers that I pilfered since he was in school before me

That blue car got towed every where ..I loved the doors and the blue arches...also loved having spokes on wheels vs the 4x4 studs..not very realistic

Then came the forklift...the first "minifig I ever saw or partially owned...that guy launched that red brick everywhere with the spring loaded lift

The learjet was actually given to me for sure I remember that plane was with me all the time I loved the jets

Then the biplane came and between the 1x1 yellow cylinders in this set with the headlights of set 196 made an awesome yellow column that made the perfect antenna on the blue car!

image from Brickset.com

What I have learned about the biplane picture is that the police car in the background shows a blue tile "illegally " wedged on the black roof if the police car which per internet was the beginning the studsnnotontop technique.  Ironic that the illegal tech was used to make the police car!

My favorite classic space legos Part 1

My favorite and first space legos...1978-1982
I got the mobile lab set as my first space lego set.  Honestly I never like the look of the set but I loved the spacemen vs townpeople..they just looked so official on a mission to explore something in space.  I just always thought the set looked like a top heavy elephant.
  

The thing I liked about the set was the green 3x6x1 windshield and the round table 2x2 structural support
...by just stacking the 6 you had an instant cool lookout stand although no where was there a place for hands to actually climb up it!.  Even the alternative builds on back of box showed the stack of 6 making a tower.

The other thing I liked was the tile 2x1 in gray.
  At the time I was delighted to have the gray 2x2 tiles for  baseplate driveway 555 hospital set but now the smaller tiles could add more detail.  Now days 1x2 tiles are just a given in most sets as a keyboard or phone but at the time of the mobile lab, 1x2 and 1x1 tiles were rare.  Now the minifigs could carry something other than the wrench and walkie talkie that  almost every minifig came with (really compare the blank gray 2x2 tile then with how advanced the female minifig is in the detective office set of 2027...that tile shows an addressed letter and red wax seal as detail...lego liked the idea of minifigs holding the tile...I was 38 years ahead of my time

The picture that really stuck with me and made me want a lego room

The picture that changed my view on the potential of lego
This book was written in 1987 and at my library
Heres the pic and bibliography pic

This picture left such an impression on me as that was unfathomable to me at that age that someone could have that many legos.  Yet with fairly block pieces and 4 colors the depth and beauty of lego really shined through.  I could not imagine having that many legos of 1 color....and how the stacking of yellow creates illusion of sand. The only legos I had were in red and yellow (from the castle set). I think the moment I checked that book out was the beginning of wanting more and more lego...an entire room :)...and now 32 years later...

2020 the year I hope to get organized with my legos

So today was a relaxing day to sort legos...I had ordered new pieces I didnt have...I love the lego rails that are new as I can make some really cool space communication towers with the girder/metal scaffold look.  I ordered from bricks and pieces and mostly got numbers from the lego apocalypseburg set

My organizers are new as I got a gift cert to menards who had some nice organizers

So hopefully with time I'll get my mess sorted so i can actually build a moc...!

Overwhelmed with lego clutter

Sometimes I am completely overwhelmed with how many legos I have...some days I am thrilled as I stand and look, then other days I think why would I spend so much $$$ on this chaos. Other days i wish legos would just put themselves together..  Most of the time I am just so thankful for what I have and how blessed I am.  I have been so lucky to have a family that gives me support and a good job and career.

My favorite part of these pics is the small drawers....I love the small pieces to give details to models.  (Above)

 The tubs of legos tend to be the plates and regular bricks..one tub is wheels and one is slopes (below)

The covered solid tubs were another mistake...I cant see what's in them and the colored stackable bins didnt work because of the dust present. Sterilite containers are the best thing I've found by far.

What worked really well was these sterilite scrapbook containers...each drawer has a lid so each drawer can be transported easily upstairs to go through.  I did have trouble stacking full ones because the wheel and corner on the bottom collapsed but in all fairness, scrapbook paper wouldnt do that I'm the one that put legos in them instead.

Merry Christmas!

What I love about my lego room

I think what I love most about my lego room is that I feel like I created a space I really enjoy.  It also is a tapestry of sets and pieces that started when I was a kid but continues til now.  Like my life I can remember when and where certain pieces and sets came from...those stores may be gone, the people I bought them with may be gone and I may never make it back to the particular lego store I bought them at but the pieces slowly accumulated into my own collection.   There are special sets that were once in a lifetime find and deals

Absolute favorite building inspiration pics...part 1 the beginning of wanting multiples of the same piece and in 1 color

I remember when I got lego hospital 555...before the modern day minifigs...that was the first time I had multiple pieces of the same color...both red for the hospital and gray tiles for the drive up squad bay...that was the first time I saw a creation somewhat more realistic than just random color pieces...it also drove me nuts losing one gray tile...the perfect smooth squad driveway now had 2x2 rough patch...too much vibrating for my poor squad patient...

A little later, the lego group gave another reasons to have multiple similar pieces....and this became my favorite lego picture idea...

The ski center and jump (lego group idea book 265, copyright 1981).  The ski jump was lined with the tiles just like the hospital driveway...and the supports were multiple of the gray round 2x2s.  Also of note is that the hospital set had only 1 tree, I had to get multiple trees!!

All pics are copyrighted by the lego group 1980 idea book 6000 and 1981 idea book 265