Making Space?

 

You may not consider this a making space post, but believe me, I have gotten rid of so much today and I now can see the top of my washing machine and also my dining room table.   It is all due to holiday cooking.  I bought the ingredients for lots of chex mix (nuts and bolts) and finally took the time today to completely make all of it.  This means I got rid of 6 boxes of Chex cereal, 1 large box of cheerios, 2 bags of pretzel sticks, 3 canisters with 2 pounds of nuts in them, and 3 pounds of butter.  I have another box of Cheerios that will be going to our church's food bank.  

So, what about all the Chex mix I made?  It is all going out to friends and family over the next week.  This means it will not be taking up any space in my house either.

I will still be working on more areas to declutter.  In fact, the first place I am going to hit is my pantry.  I know there is quite a bit in there we will not be using in the near future and our food bank is begging for donations of anything.  Rather than letting canned goods expire, I will be happy to donate.

Remember I was looking for some place to sell my porcelain dolls?  Well, that is not going to happen.  No matter on the doll, the best I can do is $10/doll and most will only go for $5.  I might as well donate them to a thrift shop and let someone buy them for a gift for their child.  I will take them off of my taxes at the end of the year.  

It has been so long since I have had an entire day at home.  It has been so nice and I did manage to get more done than just the Chex Mix.  Hubby and I both got our hair cut today.  It had been 7 weeks since I had done that.  Afterwards, I went to Staples to just look around a bit.  I LOVE office supply stores.  It was great.  There was only 2 other people in the entire store.  I even bought myself a gift.

A fountain pen.  I have wanted a fountain pen for sometime.  My husband thinks I am crazy LOL.  This set was on sell for well over half off.  I have already used it and let me just say...I have never written with anything as smooth as this.  I am in love with it.  

I got a treasure in the mail today too.

These little mini loaf pans.  Yes, I am trying to declutter but......gosh, these are perfect for me to make my 'specialty' breads in and then gift the breads to friends and family.  They also make great little items to put snacks in when company comes over.  (OK, so there is no company coming to my house in the near future, but it might happen sometime)  I like that they have lids on them too.  Actually, I got two sets of them and one set is going to be used for our white elephant gift at Christmas with the family.

Hey, remember when I gave away all my gift wrap?  Yup, now I need a roll to wrap my white elephant gifts.  Hubby told me to go to the dollar store and buy ONE roll of wrap.  LOL  That is exactly what I am going to do.  Just 1 roll, just 1.

Anything going on where you are?  Anything other than the Virus?

Until next time..........................................................................

WEEK 20

 It is a happy day!  I have a lot to cover today, so let's get started.

I have a finish for this week.

Hubby's socks are completed and have been worn already.  I finished the second sock on Friday morning.  For the moment, I do not have any socks on the needles.  How long will that last?  I have no clue.  There are so many WIP's in my basket.  My goal is to get a few of those completed before the end of the calendar year.  

Here is one WIP that should be finished either today or tomorrow.

Do you now how hard it is to take a photo of a partially finished hat without a head to put it on?  This is Josie's slouch hat, made from the alpaca yarn we got on our alpaca farm tour.  The pattern is Percussion and is free on Ravelry.  I am learning how to do jogless stripes as well as how to carry yarn for color changes.  With carrying the yarn up the back of the hat, that means there will only be 3 ends to weave in when this is completed.  It is almost at the halfway point.

Those are the only 2 items I worked on this week because I had dog/teen duty.

These were my main focus this past week.  Josie has quite a busy schedule with school and her acting and voice.  Thor has a busy schedule holding the couch down.  My duty was only 4 days this time.  Josie's photo was taken this past week as she was getting ready to attend the red carpet event for the viewing of their production of "The Addams Family".  Since play houses are not opened yet, the kids are doing plays but have been filming them.  I think this is a great thing as it keeps them active in theater and also gives them a taste of what it is like to be in films too.

It will be another busy Sunday for me.  I already have 1 load of laundry going with 2 more to do.  The bread machine is busy making my dough for my pullman loaf bread.  There are menus to make for the next 10 days as well as a grocery list to do.  If there is time, I will be heading to the grocery store to pick up needed items for the menu.  After all of that is done, I need to water my indoor plants and wind my antique clock.  If I get all this done, I will then settle down and work on Josie's hat.  With completing all these items today, it gives me the next week to work on decluttering and crafty projects.

Today I am going to leave you with something I got from my Portuguese knitting group on Facebook.  It made me smile and even chuckle a little.

I had an epiphany this morning.  Remarkable, because I hadn't any coffee yet.  Therefore; I am blaming it on the mittens I am knitting for my son in law (whom I adore, by the way!),  Anyway, I have decided that we are not Yarnaholics.  We are Yarn Scouts!  We search out yarn the way snipers search out the enemy.  No yarn store on line or off goes neglected and/or unscathed.  And there are levels of achievement that must be merited.  Needles.  Skills with needles.  Techniques with needles!  The various kinds and materials knitting needles are made of!  Ladies, do you know that as an instructor, each of my clients gets a booklet on everything acrylic to wood in needles as well as fibers.  And what the benefits are. Therefore; when we ply our skills to yarn we become: Fiberologists!  This was inspired by a member of another Company Group! Anyway, My epiphany brought me to the most important merit badge of all:  Yarn Stashing.  I have called this badge, the Squirrel Hut.  Why?  I'm so happy you asked!  Because we squirrel yarn for contingency plans.  When we need it, it'll be there.  Rainy day inspirations!  That special someone yarn, etc.  Therefore; if anyone says you're a Yarnaholic, you may correct them and say:  Nope.  I am a professional Scout Master of Fiber Ops!  Have a wonderful day and knit away!  I do hope this made you all smile.

Until Next Time....................................Happy Crafting & Stay Well!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Making Space

 Well hello there.  This is my weekly update on my making space.  Here is a quick look at what I have pulled to be removed from my home this week.

Did you see it all?  What?  You can not see anything?  Really?  Look closely.

Maybe it is because I am not home much this week.  When I am home, it is to make dinner and do some minor household chores.  I am on Dog/Teen duty this week.  This means I am out of the house by 10 and not home until 5:30-6.  This does not leave me much time to declutter.  

Next week, I will back to a more normal schedule.  That means I will have quite a bit of time to go back into declutter mode.  Fingers crossed, I will just double my efforts then.

Until next time......................................................................

WEEK 19 OF YEAR 10

 

Yes, here we are again.  Sunday morning and I am ready to sit down and tell you about my progress this week on my projects.

First up are the socks.

The second sock now has the heel completed and I have just begun to work on the foot.  Hubby is anxiously awaiting the completion of this sock.  The first sock is laying on his dresser patiently awaiting it's mate.  I think I hear it sigh once in a while too LOL.

Then, there is the shawl, Reyna.

I know it looks the same as last week but believe me this is all new.  By that I mean, on Sunday afternoon, I frogged what I had accomplished .  I found a couple of mistakes and was not happy with the tension I was getting.  So, I ripped the entire thing out and restarted it.  This is not something you want to work on if you are not going to pay attention to your stitch makers and what they mean.

Then, because I did not have enough WIPs, I started another one.

This small little thing is going to end up being a hat for Josie.  The pattern is Percussion.  I will be learning how to do jogless stripes in this hat.  A new to me, technique.  The yarn is from the alpaca farm Josie and I visited last Monday.  Once again, I started this on Tuesday and by the time I was ready for the first stripe, I found several mistakes I could not live with and frogged it and restarted it.  It seems, most of my projects lately, have to be started twice before I 'get' a pattern.

Here are the colors Josie chose for her hat.

The white is from the alpaca 'Dolomite' and he really loved it when you fed him.  He was a bit rough while eating out of your hand but it made quite the impression on us.  Hence the reason we bought his yarn.  The brown is from one of the momma alpacas we were not allowed to feed because of the babies that were still nursing.  

Of course, I could not leave the alpaca farm without getting some yarn for myself.

I am in love with this color.  The proprietor of the farm has all these yarns labeled as 'sport weight'.  Nope, I held it up to my sport weight yarn and it is much finer than that.  I held it up to my fingering and it is spot on.  This yarn is destined to be a shawlette for me.  Not sure what pattern yet.   There is  400 yards of yarn to work with though.

Here is a photo of the alpaca my yarn came from.

Hello Lilliana!  She is a beauty.  Did you know, alpacas only have bottom teeth? The teeth need to be trimmed each year when they are sheared.  Their hooves are also trimmed at that time.  Most alpacas only weight about 100 - 150 pounds and are around 12-15 pounds when born.  In the wild, alpacas only live about 7 years because when their teeth get too large to eat and they starve to death.  On farms, like the one we visited, they will live up to 20 years.

One of the things I liked about this farm is they keep breeding records.  There is no inbreeding of their animals.  The other thing is, how clean the farm was.  There was 20 acres of land and they know just how many alpacas they can keep on that much land.  They do not overcrowd at all.  

Here is Josie with my favorite alpaca.

This is Blarney Stone.  His fleece has already won first place in his first alpaca show.  I spotted him when we were 3 corrals away.  I might have given a little squeal when I saw him too.  He is not a year old yet so he still has some growing to do.  What a beauty he was.

All their alpaca fleece is grade 2.  Grade 1 is the best grade but it takes years to get to that.  Blarney Stone will be a good one to start trying to improve on their fleece.

How close were we allowed to get to the alpacas?

Pretty darn close, wouldn't you say?  And yes, they do spit but we were fortunate not to have anyone do it to us.  They also kick, which is why we were told to keep our backs to the fences so they could not get behind us.

This coming week I have the privilege to be dog sitting and teen watching.  There is one more week this year to do this and then I will be free until next year.  These weeks are kind of fun for me.  There is so much down time and I am able to get quite a bit of crafting done.  

Today, I am finishing up some laundry, making bread, baking a cake, making some Chex Mix (nuts and bolts), and enjoying some nice cool fall like weather.  We woke up to 50F and are only going up to 66F today.  My windows are opened, letting the breeze blow through the house.  I think we have finally moved out of summer!

I best get busy with my kitchen work so I can enjoy the afternoon of NFL football.  That makes for perfect TV knitting.  I do not need to watch it to know what is happening.  I have an arm chair quarterback that gives me plenty of feedback on the plays.  Thanks Husband!

Until Next Time......................................Happy Crafting & Stay Well!!!!!!

Feeling Domestic

 

Yesterday, I told you what a whirlwind this week has been for me.  It has not let up at all.  It is that time of year when being in the kitchen is part of my life almost daily.  Holiday cooking/baking is starting.  It will not be as grand a scale that it was in past years.  We will not be having the visitors this year as we have had in years past.  (Stupid Covid!)  

Yesterday, I learned a new way to make my Chex Party Mix (nuts and bolts)

A recipe for making this in my Ninja Foodi Air Fryer was posted in one of my facebook groups.  I decided to try it out.  OH MY GOODNESS!  I made 3 batches of this in the time it normally takes me to make 1 batch in the oven.  It was so easy and tastes so yummy.  Now that I have this easier way to make it, I can do the remaining batches over the next few days and have it all done and ready to pass out to friends and family.

Today, I spent the morning over at my BFF's house.  She is unemployed at the present time and because of health reasons, is unable to wear a mask.  That pretty much keeps her confined to her house.  So, what do you do to help ease her boredom?

                                                 

You decide to get together and make a bunch of flour tortillas.  She has only made them a couple of times when we were with our friends in Vegas.  So, today, we decided to make sure she could make them with just little direction from me.

She is getting better and better at making them round.  We were laughing at some of the shapes that showed up.  It was a regular geography lesson.  I know there was Africa, Australia and a couple of states from the US too.

Here are her little dough balls waiting to be turned into a lovely tortilla.  Between the two of us, we made over 2 dozen of them.  She is going to make tacos tonight for hers and I am going to make green chili chicken to use mine with. Our next venture is to learn to make tamales. 

It was so nice to just spend a few girl time hours with her and her dogs.  It gave us a chance to catch up on all sorts of stuff.

With all these 'extra' activities, other items have been pushed to the back burner.  Mainly my decluttering.  But then, if I get all the Chex Mix made I will have decluttered my dining room table where all the supplies are sitting LOL.  And, if I make another couple dozen tortillas, I will be able to take the bag of flour out of my freezer and put it into the flour canister and that will declutter part of the freezer.  Do you like my logic?  

In all honesty, I am still wanting to get back into Josie's room and finish up the china hutch in there.  I am looking for a consignment shop that would be interested in putting my porcelain dolls up for sale.  (Thanks Sam)  So far no luck.  If they would be willing to take them, I also have several Hummel figurines and plates I would love for them to give a try at selling too.  Otherwise, those items will just have to stay where they are until I can find a buyer for them.

As for crafting..................once again, there will not be any gifts being made this year.  The out of state family puts a wish list on Amazon and we purchase from that for them.  The intown family all gets together and has a white elephant gift exchange and the local grand gets something off her wish list from us too.  This has reduced our Christmas stress so much.  

OK, time for me to throw the chicken in the pressure cooker for dinner.

Until next time..........................................................................

Very Behind

 

Happy Wednesday everyone.  I hope your week is treating you well.  Mine has been a whirlwind of activity since Monday.  I plan on telling you all about it as soon as I show you my 'Making space for what matters" for this week.

The declutting challenge from October really inspired me to continue with it.  Becki from Field Lilies has offered to continue the challenge but on a slightly less demanding scale.  She has suggested only blogging once a week about what we have decluttered that week.  There is no real number of items that are demanded this time.  In fact, there may be weeks when nothing got removed from the house that is blog worthy.  (ie: things that get thrown in the trash or recycle bins)  If you would like to join us, just hop on in.  There are no sign up sheets to fill out.  Just head over to Becki's blog (I put the link on her blog name) and see if it is something that appeals to you.  She has also made some lovely graphics you can use for your header.  I just haven't grabbed one yet so I made up one to use today.

Anyway, here is my declutter of this week.

It isn't all that earth shattering.  I am still working in Josie's room.  This time she was able to help me a bit.  We found socks she has never worn and refuses to wear, a Raggedy Ann doll I made for her that is kind of scary looking, a little baby doll she used to take to church with her and a hat and scarf set I made for her when she was a wee thing.  That is all so far this week.  There is quite a bit more in her room we discussed, but I am trying to figure out what to do with the items she told me to remove from her room.  They are all porcelain dolls I have collected over the years.  I wish I knew of someone that collected them as, I would give them away to them.  I can not see giving them to GoodWill as some of them are quite expensive.  This, to me, is where the hard part of decluttering comes in.  If you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments.

OK.  So, as I said in the beginning of this post, this week has been a whirlwind for me.  Yes, it is only Wednesday but, I feel like I have not had the time to stop and just 'be' yet this week.

Josie and I took off for Prescott Valley and Prescott early Monday morning.  We have been wanting to go on this little adventure for a couple of months.  I just was waiting for her to have a day off from school to do it.  Hubby did not accompany us as he had some dental work that needed to be done ASAP.

We left about 8:30 in the morning and arrived at the alpaca farm around 10:30.  It was just the two of us and one other couple from Los Angeles for the tour.  I learned so much about alpacas.  It was a great tour and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves the whole time we were walking around the 20 acres of land.

As you can see, they are not at all afraid of humans.  Of course it helped that I had food to let them eat from my hand too.

Can you see the two spotted ones?  They never know what colors they are going to get when breeding their flock.  These are babies here and were so cute.

Josie loved feeding them.  This guy loved her.  He is about 6 months old and is a real beauty.

This one is my favorite of all the alpacas.  This is Blarney Stone.  He has won first prize for his fleece.  The owner was impressed that I spotted him and fell in love with his coat the minute I saw him.

He seemed to be quite taken with Josie too.  The fleece/roving/yarn they get from their flock is a grade 2.  It has taken them almost 10 years to get their fleece to this grade.  

Yes, there were ducks there too.  Lots of them.  They followed us the whole time we were there.  They would eat the grain that was dropped on the ground.

This is Taj.  I do not know why I remember his name.  I loved his two tone face.  His mother has the same face only in white and black.

If you are ever in Arizona and want a lovely experience go to Plum Creek Farms and enjoy a tour.  It does cost a small amount to take the tour, but you get food to feed the alpacas for that price.  The tour lasts about an hour and there is a shop on site where you can purchase items made from the fleece or you can purchase roving or yarn too.  Come back on Sunday and I will show you the yarn I purchased.  

The trip up to the farm and on into Prescott was great.  We hit the peak of fall color on this trip.

Living in the desert, we do not get 4 seasons.  But, if I travel 2 hours north, I am able to take in the beauty and wonder of Fall.

The trees were at their peak and I would say by next week, the leaves will be dropping off.

I think she had a great time.  We laughed because her shirt matches the trees.

As we got back into the car to head back, I plugged in my phone for the GPS navigation.  I immediately got an alert of the interstate being closed 6 miles from where we were to catch it.  I called my husband to find out what was going on and he looked it up for me.  Seems there was a wild fire and they had closed all the south bound traffic on that road!  I told him where the GPS was taking me and he agreed that was the best route home.  REALLY?  That route back home was going to take us an extra hour and a half.  Normally, I would not be too upset by this.  However, it was already after 3 and the sun sets about 5:30.  The route that was given to me was all mountain driving until the last half hour.  There are no street lights in the mountains and there are lots of twisty turning roads.

I put on my big girl pants and sucked it up.  What else was I to do?  I needed to get the teen home so she could go to school the next day.  Otherwise, I might have opted to get a hotel and wait until morning.  I will say this, the trip back was even more beautiful than the trip up.  We drove through what we call "the piney woods".  The temperature outside dropped from 80 to 65 quickly.  I opened up the fresh air vents in the car and we enjoyed the most lovely pine tree scent for many miles.  There were no towns for the first 2 hours of the drive.  We finally hit, Strawberry, Pine and the Payson.  (Yes, there is a town in Arizona named Strawberry)  We stopped in Payson and grabbed some dinner (McDonalds) and ate while sitting in the parking lot.  That was the only stop we made on the way back.  By this time it was pitch black outside.  The drive from Payson to the valley was nothing but twists and turns all the way down the mountain.  I was thankful there were other vehicles on the road which helped with seeing what was up ahead.  Josie was a great traveling companion and kept a steady stream of conversation going.  I finally got her to her house about 7:30 and I arrived at my home around 8.  I was exhausted.  But...........................I would not trade the memories of that day for anything.  So, our day trip that was suppose to last 8 hours ended up being an 11 hour adventure.

Tuesday, the refrigerator repair guy came and fixed our door seal.  After he left, hubby and I took off to fill my car with gas as well as going to the grocery store to pick up 4 items I was not able to get during my last shopping trip.  I got a load of laundry done, uploaded all the photos from my camera (thank you Josie for taking such great photos), watched Dancing with the Stars (we record it), fed my sour dough starter (it is refrigerated) and got dinner made for tonight.  I stayed up until almost 11 watching election results.  Hubby was up until 2 doing the same.  

Today, I am hoping to complete another load of laundry, start making my chex mix for the coming holiday season and maybe even make a cake for tonight.  Our daughter is coming over for dinner and to deliver my Pampered Chef order.  I am WAY behind on reading others blogs and am also hoping to catch up on that today.  I get so much inspiration from reading them.  The last time I read any was Sunday afternoon.  Normally, I read them first thing in the morning and then again after dinner.

The morning is quickly passing away so I had better sign off and get moving.

Until next time.......................................................................

WEEK 18 OF YOP YEAR 10

 

Here we are again.  Another Sunday update and I have been busy this week working on my WIP's.  No finishes but making progress on several items.

Hubby's socks got the most love.  The DPN on the bottom of the sock is where I was last week.  Twenty more rows before I start the heel flap.  The heel is my favorite part of the sock so I am excited to get there.

Remember Fodhla?

I frogged it.  Yup, the yarn was just not working with the pattern.  Never fear, I found another pattern to try it on.

Say hello to Reyna.  This pattern has been on my 'to do' list since Liz from Highland Heffalump made one.  I am already pleased with the look and feel of it.  It got cast on yesterday.  I love the pattern as it is easy to memorize.  The main thing is, knowing what row you are on.

The other item I worked on was the Havana blanket.

The white dot is where I was last time I worked on it.  We had a few days of unusually cool weather and I used it to my advantage to work on the blanket.  It was wonderful not to melt under it.  It is now back on hold as we are back into the 90's.  Good thing I don't need this blanket for another 2.5 years.

I bought something this week.............................................

Another orchid.  I had an orchid that decided it no longer wanted to be part of my household.  It made me quite sad as the other two orchids are doing wonderful.  My frown turned into a smile when I went to the grocery store and saw they had orchids for 20% off.  I have no idea what color the one that died was.  I just know this is the one that caught my eye first.

Today will be busy with laundry, making bread, baking a cake, doing some weekly household chores, and preparing for Josie to come and spend the night.  The reason she is spending the night is, we are heading to Prescott Valley tomorrow to take a tour of an alpaca farm.

Lilianna from Plum Creek Farms

We are all looking forward to it as it is going to be 15 degrees cooler up there.  I have not been up in that area for many years.  Once we are done with the alpaca tour, we will travel another 12 miles to Prescott and have lunch there and take a little look around the town center.  I have been waiting for Josie to have a day off of school so we could go and do this during the week.  Hubby has even agreed to go with us.  He has no clue about alpacas but is willing to learn about them.  What a sport he is!  

Did you notice there is not any decluttering challenge on today's post?  Yesterday was the completion of the 31 day challenge. (496 items GONE)  It was fun to do but, it really did cut into the time I normally would be doing other things around the house.  Will I continue to declutter?  You betcha!  My plan now is to take one room at a time and completely tear it apart and then put it back together.  Items that are not needed or are useful anymore, will be removed from that room and will go into 1 of three piles.......................donate, sell, or trash.  I will still blog about this but not daily.  Not sure how often I will post about the treasures leaving my house.  Depends on how much 'stuff' I find during my clean out.

Until next time.......................Happy Crafting & Stay Well!!!!!!!!!!!