Good morning, my friends. Have you been waiting on tenterhooks to see if I took a day off yesterday? Well...yes, and no. As I've mentioned, we're having new carpet installed on the upper floor of our house on January 16th. Said upper floor consists of the stairs leading up and the landing at the top, our master bedroom, and a second bedroom that doubles as my quilting room and office. (No beds have been seen in that room.) So Mike and I have been dreading the purge associated with this carpeting extravaganza. Home Depot is doing the job. They'll move the furniture from one room to the other and back again as they work. Our job is to empty everything off of and out of the furniture. This purging effort mainly involves drawers, closets, and bookshelves. So far I've been doing one drawer per day, which takes about one minute per drawer.
Okay, so yesterday, we're feeling all high and mighty about doing our workouts. Then, I got this hairbrained idea to do the little attic area you see where the elfin door is on the left side of the image below.
It leads into an unfinished space with a low roof. And if you remember what our house looks like, I'm referring to the space, I've circled in green below. There are actually two dormers, but one is hidden behind the branches of the fir tree.
One must stay bent at the waist to move around in there. Other tactics include sitting down and scooching around on your butt. The point is that it's an uncomfortable space to move around in, and it's full of fiberglass insulation. Early on, Mike laid some plywood planks down so we could use it for storage without getting into the insulation. When I have an item in my hand that has no home (think empty boxes and large shopping bags), and I don't know what to do with it, I have a very bad habit of opening that door and tossing it in. Out of sight, out of mind. Well. Yesterday I paid the price for years of out of sighting and out of minding and cleaned out that space. What you see in the earlier image is all the crap we've pulled out of various spaces.
The stuff on the right is for donation. The stuff on the left is for trash and recycling. About 3/4 is for recycling. I had four boxes of reference materials from when I was a working social worker. My office was closed permanently in December of 2004. I was required to hold onto my client files for seven years, and I got rid of those as soon as I was able. For whatever reason, I held onto the reference materials. After seeing all that crap yesterday, I wondered why I waited so long. I blame Necessity and Motivation. Both of those chickens have come home to roost now.
It was a tiring and (literally) painful job. I don't recommend it when you're trying to take a day off. Probably I spent several hours of my day on that. Mike was working away at one of the storage cabinets in my office, weeding out old technology like wired computer mouses and miles of land-line telephone cable. It's going to feel good to have it all finished, but we're only about halfway. There's still a lot to do to be ready for the January install date. We'll get there, but we are not happy taskers.
So, I was ready for a day off from sewing anyway. I still took some time to make up the next two stitcheries for The Story of My Day. This one is "Dessert for Me!"
Also, "Where's the Remote?"
These are all the blocks I have for this quilt so far.
Also, I made copies of the next two blocks for the Whimsical Quilt Garden. (They're printed on both sides of the sheet, and I need single-sided copies for tracing the applique.) I'll be doing the two blocks at the bottom of the image below. After that, I'll just have the two on either side of that row to finish all the blocks. For now, though...the the two I've indicated.
Except for tracing and making copies, I didn't do anything in the sewing room yesterday. I'm hoping to get back to it today, but let's just revisit that image at the top of this post. We have to do some recyling and donating today in order to make room for more. Eventually, we'll do a dump run, but for now, trash is the least of our problems.
So, how do you like my day off? I don't recommend following my lead on this. There will be less physical labor today, but we'll need to make a trip into town. We figure since we're going into town, we might make a quick trip to the grocery store. I have food to get us through the week, but our camping trip postponed from last month is happening next week, and I'll want to do some cooking ahead for that. Also, I'll drop off the Little Green Frog quilt at the post office and send it on its way.
It's been raining, and raining, and raining. We're been suffering through a series of "atmospheric rivers" the past few days. We aren't expecting to see the sun until later in the week, but maybe we'll get lucky with the weather for our camping trip. Only time will tell.
9 comments:
If I can do something in less than one minute, I don't let myself procrastinate. I hang up my coat, put newspapers in the recycling, scan and toss a letter. Ever since I wrote about this rule in 'The Happiness Project,' I've been amazed by how many people have told me that it has made a huge difference in their lives. ~ Gretchen Rubin
We've had over an inch of rain since Sat and a brief thunderstorm last night (it was only 39 degrees, so weird). Nothing like a remodeling project to force some much needed decluttering. I'm still trying to clear out my late husband's hobby stuff, so I can move the fabric stash into the space. You'd think that would be motivation enough, but I'm still dragging my feet on finishing.
Pat
Purging does make you feel better. I cleaned out one of my clothes closets and had 41/2 garbage bags full of clothes. Some I haven’t worn since I retired 9 years ago. I even found tops and dresses still with labels. I still have another blouse closet to do and several drawers then to m husbands closet.
I imagine a good share of us have a similar room. Mine is a spare bedroom that usually couldn't be slept in due to the "stuff" piled on the bed. I had a couple of bins full of old classroom materials from when I was teaching - some from HS courses earlier in my career and some from grad level courses I was teaching late in my career. I finally got rid of that stuff just a couple of years ago.
Your experience is the reason that I don't allow anything to be stored in the attic.But having a basement is just as bad. At least in the basement I can just throw things out the side door....and I can stand up. I know you feel good having it all cleared out! You deserve a drink and a dessert.
There are days when I wish I had one extra bedroom for storing stuff, but then I realize that I would just stash stuff in there and have to go through it eventually. I would imagine crawling around in that space was not fun, especially on your day off! Your stitcheries are cute, as always!
That's the problem with having the space to store "stuff". At some point you do have to go through all of it. Looks like you made good progress. You'll be so much happier having done all of that. Hopefully you enjoyed your stitching time yesterday.
Your purging adventure resonates with me. I have two sewing rooms that I currently can't get in to, much less sew in, and our guest bedroom is mostly entertaining boxes of things I don't know what to do with. I have finally decided that since i haven't used much of the stuff, I might as well toss or donate the large proportion of it. Maybe I'll get new carpet when I'm finished!
I hope your home is safely out of the way of the current flooding. Please give Sadie and Smitty some scritches for me.
- Kathy P in Pittsburgh
I keep staring at my bins of fabric 'bits' that could/might be fodder for landscapes and knowing that the lids will no longer go on and I can hardly lift a couple of them so it's time to do a deep purge and get rid of what I know I won't be able to use. Perhaps you talking about your purging efforts will rub off on me??
I think your Whimsical Quilt Garden is one of my favourites, primarily because of all the wonderful bright colours.
Post a Comment