Rocking and shaking in Indiana

Yesterday morning right after my alarm rang at 5:30, we were sitting in bed when the bed started shaking. I was just about to ask Corey "Why is the bed shaking?", when the dresser joined it. Ok I have been through earthquakes before and when the dresser shook I figured it out. My dresser has a large mirror and lets face it--all kinds of stuff on it! I was waiting for the stuff to come off of the dresser but instead it finally quit. Well now my husband lived through the "big one" in '72 in California when everyone ran from their houses in their night clothes. And he found himself in his boxers. So we woke Chase (had to get up at 6:00 anyway) and told him to get up and get dressed in case there were bigger ones to come. The one we felt was a 5.4 with it originating near New Salem in southern Illinois close to the border. We didn't feel anything the rest of the day however, there were several aftershocks. My mom felt one at 11:00 and Corey felt it in Bloomington.
Here is why I post and fully expect my son to explain this since anything like this he seems to be on top of. Next to my dresser sits a small makeup vanity. It has lots of stuff on it and if you walk by and hit it, everything on it rattles or falls. It is maybe a foot away from the dresser. Why didn't it shake? For that matter nothing else in the room shook except the bed and the dresser. Pictures on the wall stayed steady. For all you earthquake experts out there, there's what I want to know.
Also another interesting point is that when we had one in '87, we were sitting at the table eating and the doors of the cabinets started shaking. We were younger and closer to our California experience so we stayed very calm. This time, 21 years later, we are running around like madmen.