Odds and Ends

It's Been One of Those Weeks

You know the kind - when everything gets away from you and before you know it it's gone right on by. In my case without even 1 blog entry since a week ago Friday. I'm behind on blog and e-mail reading too but at least I'm caught up on replying to comments made on here. I won't even talk about the courses I'm supposed to be taking this month but there is always this coming week. I at least have started one of them and now even have my own font.

So what do I have to show for the week - absolutely nothing. :) Well I did do a lot of cooking - the nice comforting food we love to have in winter. Made a few soups too. I did manage to pop out 3 times during the week for some much needed tea/chai and crossword time with my friend Jean (the most we've done that in months I think as usually it's just once or twice a week because of other things going on. I did manage to get my Project Life Week 2 done (I'll share that in a wee bit) but I don't know what I'm going to do about week 3 as there were hardly any pictures taken that are worth putting in there. :)

Now as for those who wished me well while coping with shingles, thanks so very much for your thoughts and I'm happy to say that the pain seems to have gone (knock on wood). Guess getting right on to those meds as quickly as I did was definitely a good thing.

We've had about 4 inches of snow since Thursday morning and I'm hoping to get out there today and get some pictures - course it would have been better to do it while it was still fresh and white but that just didn't happen for some reason.

Ok, Project Life. I finally finished week 2 on Thursday when we had the 3 inches of snow and just got around to getting decent pictures of it today. :)

As you can see, a lot of week 2 had to do with getting all the Christmas decorations down and put away till 2013 (we're supposed to be on a cruise Christmas of 2012, keeping fingers crossed about that).  A note of explanation - all those liquor boxes piled up at the front door - we make our own wine and had just bottled 4 batches.   My cross-stitch lady is one of my on going projects - I'm working away at finishing off the bead work on her.

The September Cleanup

When I was in school I always thought of September as the beginning of the year, much more so than January.   Even though I've been out of school for lets be real - decades I still think of it that way.   This year I decided I was going to start "the new year" with a whole new scrapbooking area and I've been working away at getting that just the way I want it.  I've been working at it so much that I've really slipped behind on my blogging and worse - reading my friends (new & old) blogs.   Hopefully this week I'll be better at doing that.

One of our back bedrooms (actually both of them) has  a very deep cupboard and years ago we decided to change them so we could also use them for a bit of storage (other than clothes).   In the room that is now my scrapbooking room/lair/studio area J moved the clothes rod higher and more forward and then installed another removable one further down and behind these he installed shelves for me to keep my yarns, magazines, tools, patterns, etc on/in.  Well its pretty well gotten out of control and as I needed some space for scrapbooking stuff in there I decided to attack that part of the cupboard.   I think where knitting magazines and patterns are concerned I am definitely a bit of a pack rat.  I keep them forever - I even have patterns of my Mum's and she passed away in 1976.

I always thought there was no way I could get rid of a knitting pattern or magazine or even yarn samples - it just didn't seem right after all they were reference material (anyway - that was my excuse).  About a week and a half ago I realized that I hadn't even looked at them in years and at my age would never make even 98% of the knitting projects in them so I bit the bullet and took 12 magazines out of the cupboard.   I sat down & started going through them one by one and when I saw a pattern I really truly liked and might make or an article that I thought was important I tore them out and put the magazine aside.  Soon I was through all 12 magazines and had a very tiny pile of torn out pages.  This went on for days and by the end of Sunday I had a pile of 60 of them to put out in the recycle bins for Tuesday morning.  

 The first 60 to go.

We actually had to start a 3rd blue box (recycle bin) for the week as there just wasn't enough room in the other 2 what with newspapers, cans, water bottles, etc.   I kept going though and by Monday night I'd added 24 more magazines to the box for a total of 84 magazines gone.   This wasn't even 1/3rd  of what I had in that cupboard.   I was on a tear and it's kept up this week.  I just keep thinking of what else I could use that space for.  Right now I've decided that I'm not getting rid of my Knitters magazines - at least for now - but pretty well all the other magazines (Sandra, Interweave Knits, Knit 'n Style, Vogue Knitting and even Family Circle's special knitting issues) will be going.  I'm still undecided about some of my Mum's patterns - some of them go well back into the 50's or even 40's.   I think it's all about they were my Mum's.

 
 Some of the shelving J put in for me years ago - ignore that cottage cheese container on the upper shelf - I have to go through it and sort the stuff in it - I know some of it is J's stuff from when he was in Lions.  Can't wait to see it all neatly re-arranged.

 
The stack of empty magazine holders.  Yes I know this picture was taken the wrong way & won't come out right when I import it even though I did rotate it.

 
This week's stack of 90 magazines and 12 catalogues/newsletters. And there's still 3 more days to go before recycle pickup.   Wonder how many more I can get rid of.

I hope after this week I'll be able to start in on re-organizing the shelves and making room for more of my scrapbooking supplies/books etc. and then I'll really feel at home in the room and will have really made progress on my word for the year of organize.
 

 
 

Old Craft Layout

Yesterday I was busy reading Sian's latest blog entries about her crafting life (the link takes you to the final entry of the 5) and remembered I had done a layout a long time ago about one of my knitting projects.

My original intention was to create an album of my favourties but so far there is only those 2 pages in the album. I really must get back to it. I must say looking back I can't stand the colour combination I used - what on earth was I thinking. Even if I wanted to redo the layout I can't because they are stuck down into a Creative Memories album and there is no way I'm going to knit that little swatch up again on those toothpicks. :)

  
 
 

 

Where Do I Want To Be A Year From Now?

Those who know me know that I'm not one for making New Years resolutions but I need to have some goals as to where I want to be by the end of next year both health wise & craft wise.

1) It's no problem saying it but doing it is definitely another matter.   I want to be at goal weight by the end of next year (that gives me 59 weeks so I think that is doable so long as I keep at it. To do that I'll be back following the Weight Watcher program.  It worked for me in 2001 so I know I can follow it - the problem is sticking with it.  I might even go back & dig out the 2001 journals to see if that will help.

And in connection with that - get back to the Y for 2 to 3 times a week.

2) Finish the 2003 Las Vegas/Southern California trip scrapbook.

3) Start & finish the following vacation albums - 2006 Alaska Cruise, 2007 Panama Canal Cruise, 2005 Southern California trip and the 2004 WDW trip.  It would be nice to get more done but..... we'll see.

4) Make albums for Lisa for P-man and the new baby.  I'd like to get the new baby album done by her due date in January but I know that won't happen so instead I'm aiming  for Easter (having 3 weeks away in there will screw things up so that's why Easter).

5) Have my scrapping area and knitting stuff totally organized once & for all.  Definitely an ongoing project lately.  Right now it's in 2 rooms (the computer/office room and what I call the ironing room - I find the ironing board the perfect height for putting together the layouts).

6) Finish at least 2 projects already on needles (or pins as some say).  More would be even better.  That new yarn is calling to me though.

7) Finally have all the window coverings redone.  After 23 years in here that is definitely needed.  I'd love to get it done by this year end but I don't think that's going to happen as there is just less than 7 weeks left.

Once a month I'll post a goal update but I'll mark it that way so you'll be able to skip it if you feel ike it that day, I'll also post something absolutely not goal related for those not interested in reading how my goals are coming along but I'd sure love you cheering for me.