Odds and Ends

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.
 

 
 

Junque (Explanation to Follow)

It's been a good few days cleaning up in our house.   While John spent most of Sunday stripping & redoing the kitchen floor I spent the day working away at cleaning up the computer/scrapbooking room and shredded ending up with 3 bags of it to put out & I haven't even got to cleaning out the file drawers.  Yesterday I spent most of the day cleaning up & reorganizing my desk.   Until we get the new work table for me for the room I'm going to use for scrapping it would be nice to actually have some room in here to do some.  Of course I got side-tracked with the piles of photos on it that I had pulled for LOM (Library of Memories) and hadn't got back to but still managed to get a lot done.

It seems cleaning/decluttering is contagious the past few days.   In an e-mail chat with one of my best friends she told me that she'd been working away in their guest bedroom and to quote her "Boy, do I have lots of "junque" [that's junk classed up a bit]".

Today it's garbage/recycle day and I'm hoping to get some of our "junque" out there so I'm heading down the basement  to see what can go out from down there.  We've got stuff down there that's waiting to be fixed and there is just no way that is going to happen.  I don't know whose idea it was to have garbage pickup every other week (recycle is every week).  It works great most of the time but when I'm in a cleaning out mode it doesn't work so great.  :)  Ok off to see what I can get rid of today before they come & pick it up.

If It's Recycle/Garbage Day Then The Weather Must Be Yucky

I'm beginning to think that's a new rule. 

This is only the 3rd one of the year but so far we've had a really windy day, a really snowy day and today we're supposed to have practically everything - freezing drizzle, rain & snow, plus the possibility of a flash freeze later this afternoon.  About the only thing they didn't say was that it would be windy.  Sounds like a good day to stay in and work on my word for the year - organize.  I need to get the spare bedroom done so that we can start putting our stuff in there that we want to take on the cruise next month.  Plus it would be nice to geth this room done so that I can see the surface of my desk, but the spare room takes priority for now.  Maybe I'll be able to get it & some of this room done today. 

 

 
 

All The Christmas Stuff is Finally Away

This is my second attempt at writing this blog – I wrote a much better one on Sunday but our router failed when I went to save it and it disappeared.  Hoping I have better luck with it today.

Or is it all away?  Maybe I should have titled this - The Disorganized Method of Packing Up Christmas.  :)

It helped having John home sick last week, that sounds totally weird I know.  But he wasn’t ill but instead had a virus with a very bad cough and fluey type feelings. On Friday I got all the decorations off of the trees (2 – 1 big, 1 table-top) and John was able to take the big tree apart and box it up.  We find it really weird that that one tree which came in 1 box when it was bought now needs 2 boxes.  There was no way on the face of the earth that it was going back in the original box, in fact it barely fit in 2.  Good thing we kept the box from the previous tree, at least it sort of holds 2 of the pieces – mind you it’s quite rounded looking now instead of rectangular.

While John did that I worked away at getting the decorations put away but that job continued into Saturday as for some reason it just takes me longer to put them away.  Guess it’s the sorting of what goes into what box.  I need to make master lists for the boxes then it would go a lot faster.  Saturday was a good day for staying in and doing the packing up – we got lake affect snow overnight & ended up with 20 cm.  So while I finished up the packing up of the decorations, John was outside using the snowblower.  He didn’t have to use it at all last year and only once the previous year but Mother Nature so far is making up for that. 

Back to the packing up.  I finally got everything packed up and then John sealed the cartons up and packed them away downstairs.  But wait – what’s that on the shelf part way up the stairs – the carolers.   Ack!  I wondered why that one box was so empty & light.

 

Poor John, back downstairs, find that box and bring it back up so I could pack them away too.  You get the picture.

Finally all was done or so we thought.  We celebrated by having a fire, first one we’ve had this winter - any excuse will do to have one.

But….. Sunday as I was originally writing this John told me he'd just noticed that I’d missed one thing – the wooden blocks that spell out Merry Christmas on the table in the foyer.  At least they’re small enough that a small box will work and just put it down with all the cartons.  There was no way I was going to dig through those cartons finding a place to pack them away.  

I’ve decided what I need is a master list of what I’ve put where so this doesn’t happen again.  Guess that fits with my word for the year – Organize

It's Been a Slow Couple of Days Here

Well at least for me.   I've been fighting some sort of virus with a vicious cough and this week it has seemed to be winning so I've been laying low and taking care of it. 

John had the day off on Monday - it was a holiday here for January 1st falling on Saturday.  We needed a couple of things at the grocery store - namely bananas and  I was really tired after coughing all night long so instead John decided he'd take the new car for a little drive & go get them.  Somehow I think that's going to happen a lot when ever the weather & the roads are nice.  :)   He's just dying for warmer weather when he can put the top down.

I've decided what my word for this year is going to be be - Organize!  With that in mind, the past couple of days I've been going through the paperwork that has appeared in the past few weeks.   What is with paper- it seems to multiply.  :)   So after sorting a good deal of it yesterday, today I've been busy updating quicken and adding to the "to be shredded" pile.   Think the rest of the week will be nothing but shredding.   I do seem to wait till there is a lot of it to do.   Think that will be part of organizing - assigning a time every week to do it and then it won't be so overwhelming.  :)  I should take a picture of this room and you'd see why I need to organize.  No I'm not going to do that!

Yesterday I also spent some time using up the last of the New Year's Day turkey by making a Turkey and Rice soup.  John said it was good but I think I'll make it differently the next time.  We also tried a new chicken recipe that Mickie, my friend from my RCS (a scrapping group of friends) days, shared with me - Orange Chicken.  It was quite tasty but next time I won't bother with the dunking in flour, egg and flour.

Meanwhile John's short week at work became even shorter when he had to call in sick this morning.  He's been fighting a cough as well and today felt like he was coming down with something maybe flu-like.   He's got a Dr's appointment tomorrow so hopefully she'll give him something for it.   I've been trying not to go to her because every time I do it seems I come down with something from someone in the waiting room.  I don't understand people in there who won't ask for a mask when they have something.  There's a big sign telling them to but....  Me, I've got in the habit of asking for one to prevent getting something from someone else there.