Hello, I'm Danielle. You may remember me from such entries as 'totally bitchin' contest'.

A few weeks ago, I went into the city to pay Urban Outfitters a visit. Normally, I hate that store, because I hate their trendy androgynous clothes designed for trendy androgynous hipsters. I hate hipsters.

I didn't go for the fashion. I went because they sell these. Two album frames for $22! I bought twenty frames.

For the three weeks following this shopping excursion, I did nothing but moan and complain about The Lost Albums. I used to have a decent sized collection of records from the 80s, but only half of it made it with me to the year 2005. (Breathe a sigh of relief - all the Donny and Marie albums are ok.) I resigned myself to the fact that the rest of my collection was gone for good, so I replaced a few of my very favorites with a little help from eBay.

We drove (yes, drove) to Buffalo to visit my family for New Year's, and I spent about 7 and 1/2 of the 8 hour drive asking Tony, "Do you think the albums might be in my parents' basement?" and "Albums don't just disappear. Where do you think they could BE?" and "Those albums have GOT to be somewhere, don't they? DON'T THEY?" He responded for the first hour of this incessant interrogation before resorting to watching movies with the earphones turned up to full volume.

The first thing I did when I got to my parents' house was run to the basement and tear everything apart. The search was fruitless (but I did get Bonnie a wonderful pantsuit). My mom suggested I ask my grandmother if they might have been left behind in the basement when they moved into their new house. (We lived in a double when I was growing up - my grandparents in the lower apartment and my family in the upper flat.) At this point, I was feeling like the record search was futile, so I had pretty much given up hope.

The next morning, we drove to visit my grandmother. Nonchalantly, I asked her if she happened to see any of my old records in the house. Without a pause, she said, "Yeah, there's a big stack of records down in the basement. I'm pretty sure they belong to you."

I FLEW down the stairs to find The Lost Albums stacked neatly on a piece of my childhood bedroom furniture (click it - there's a picture behind that link!) that had been left behind in the move! I started screaming and jumping around and hugging my Howard Jones import singles! It was glorious.

Because I am the most impatient person on the planet, I spent this evening framing and hanging our favorite albums from the 80s, even though I haven't finished painting the walls. When Tony questioned this logic, I explained that it's actually BETTER to hang pictures before the final coat of paint goes up, because the walls are bound to get scuffed and nicked in the process. Painting AFTER the pictures goes up makes touch-ups totally unnecessary. SEE? LOGIC.

Anyway, here are two pictures of the almost-finished Wall of Greatness. I've got a Psychedelic Furs album and a Smiths album to go up, but the glass in two of the frames broke. Waaah.

It was Tony's idea to put Rocky Horror with Donny and Marie. The man's brilliant.

And if anyone's interested, I have doubles of two Culture Club albums - Kissing to be Clever and Colour by Numbers, and a Depeche Mode People are People that I bought on eBay to give away. If you'd like me to send you any of them, leave me a comment. (First come, first served!) Also please feel free to leave comments on how freaking awesome that wall looks!