Day 17 - A “New” Game - Shopping Our Cupboards

Day 17 took me into rarely explored territory: the hallway cupboard near my children's bedrooms. I've been decluttering one cupboard at a time lately, and this forgotten space held a variety of things—family DVDs, art supplies, over-the-counter medicines, and about ten games I'd completely forgotten we owned.

This discovery shocked me because we have a dedicated game closet where I thought everything lived. But no—ten games and even more puzzles had been quietly waiting in this hallway, including one still in its wrapper. How long had CATStacker been sitting there, unopened and ready for adventure?

My engineer-minded son and I grabbed the game and headed upstairs to figure it out. True to his robotics nature, he conquered the easy level quickly to understand the concept, then we jumped straight to intermediate. Nailed it. Naturally, we moved to expert level.

Here's where our confidence got the better of us. We managed the first expert puzzle with some effort, then—in what I can only describe as pure arrogance—we skipped ahead to the final challenge.

Twenty-five minutes later, we admitted defeat. We hadn't learned the incremental lessons about how the pieces stack, which combinations work well together, the subtle strategies that come from progressing methodically through the deck. We'd tried to shortcut mastery and discovered there are no shortcuts to understanding.

So we called it, made dinner, and settled in for Ocean's Thirteen—the third movie in our three-day Ocean's series marathon as I introduce my son to films he'd never seen. Sometimes the best response to humbling failure is good food and entertainment.

The real revelation wasn't our gaming hubris, though—it was the reminder that amazing fun can be found by simply "shopping your cupboards." This stack of games has been untouched for likely five years, waiting patiently for us to rediscover them.

We're planning to work our way through the collection, curious to see what other forgotten treasures are hiding in our own home. There's something both sustainable and delightful about finding novelty in what we already own, about decluttering leading not just to cleaner spaces but to rediscovered joy.

The nervous system challenge here was subtle but real: decluttering space - giving away things someone else would consider a treasure, finding unopened mind games so we could be challenged, accepting the humbling reminder that expertise can't be rushed (sometimes), and finding contentment in the simple pleasure of games and movies with my son.

Sometimes expansion looks like dramatic new experiences. Sometimes it looks like opening a game that's been waiting in your cupboard for five years, learning its lessons about patience and progression, and discovering that the best adventures might already be living in your own home.