Making Space

 

Monday is such a great day to dive into a room and declutter it.  According to the 91 day challenge list, this should be the week to do the kitchen and pantry.  Since hubby and I are over achievers, we zipped through that room last week.  This is the part of the challenge when hubby and I are veering away from the way the list is laid out and will do what room we feel needs to be worked next.

Today, we ventured into our guest room.  First thing we did was take the futon and make it back into a couch.  When opened up it is a queen sized bed.  That takes up an enormous amount of room in that bedroom.  As soon as we got the futon put up we opened the closet and were so happy to see I had already gone through it back in October.  The only thing left in the closet is my wedding dress from 1973, the veil for the dress and two boxes of Hummel Figurines and plates from my moms estate.

The wedding dress is going to be shipped to a local organization that makes angel gowns for sweet wee ones that do not get to grow up.  The veil will be donated to St Vincent de Paul.  As for the Hummels.................They are collectibles and finding a collector has proven to be next to impossible at this time.  None of  my relatives what them.  In fact, I have a cousin trying to find a buyer for her mom's collection too.  They just need to stay in the closet until further notice.

The biggest part of our day was spent on the two bookcases in that room.

Hubby bought these bookcases over 40 years ago from an unfinished furniture store.  He painstakingly sanded, and polyurethaned them.  It took him several months to get them smooth enough for his liking.  They are 100% oak.  They have gone from Arizona to Texas to Pennsylvania and back to Arizona.  They are super sturdy.  Unfortunately, they are tempting to fill with books, whether you read the books or not.  The case on the left has been gone through.  The one on the right has just been started.  We will finish it up tomorrow.  My hope is to completely empty one of these.

Here is what we have culled out so far.

The books on the left are going to Goodwill.  The ones in the middle will go to St Vincent de Paul.  The mess on the right will be trashed.  Amazing how many books we have.  There are still two bookcases in our family room to go through as well as a barristers case in the office that is full of books too.

Here is a photo of one of the bookcases in the family room.  There is one just like it on the other side of the fireplace.

The people at church call my husband the 'book man'.  Big surprise, huh. LOL

I will be happy once all the books have been gone through.  This has been the one area of the house that has bothered me the most.

Other things I did today were; grocery shopping, cooking chicken for the dogs, cleaning veggies for lunch and dinner, empty the dishwasher, completed 1 load of laundry and worked on the Havana.  It is now that time of day where hubby and I are watching the news and I am getting ready to start prepping for our dinner.

How has your day been?

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

WEEK 29

 

Happy Sunday to y'all.  How has your week been?  What have you done this past week?  Did anything fun and exciting happen?  

I am a bit disappointed this week.  There were high hopes the Havana would have been finished other than the twisted fringe.  It didn't happen.  Havana is REALLY close to being completed.

There are 8 more rows to be crocheted yet.  There were only 28 rows put on it this week.  Quite a poor amount compared to the 60 rows completed last week.  

This is the reason why Havana is not yet completed.

Sir Thorbert demanded my presence this week, at his home.  Havana is just too darn big to drag anywhere.  Thor told me he would be fine with me bringing it over to his place.  He would love to cuddle up in it.  

Do you know what happens when you need to find a portable project?  You start a pair of Rose City Roller socks.

The daughter asked if I would be so kind as to make her more socks.  She liked the RCR socks I showed her.  She picked out the yarn from my stash.  Working on these is a joy because of the striping.  It is so bright and cheery.  The yarn is Hobby Lobby's Cozy Toes.  It is wool free and has a wonderful stretch to it.  It is very close to my favorite yarn, Diversity (which is being discontinued).

The other reason the blanket is not done is, hubby and I are doing the 91 day declutter challenge.  It has been quite a bit of fun to see so much 'stuff' leaving our home.  We have actually completed 4 weeks of the challenge in the past 2 weeks.  There are 2 reasons we have gotten so much done.  

1.  We are doing it together

2.  The rooms we have done, I pretty much did in October for the 30 day challenge.

This coming week we will be going into a room I have not done anything to in years.  It is our guest room and is kind of a catch all room for when we don't know where to put something.  This is also the room that has two 6 foot tall bookcases filled with religious books.  We finally found a place that will take these books and make sure they get into hands of others who may need them.  St Vincent de Paul will take any religious articles and redistribute them.  We had tried our local Catholic University, a home for young men coming into the priesthood, our parish, and our diocese.  No one had room.  We were starting to feel like Mary and Joseph looking for a place to stay during the census.  (Luke 2: 6-7)  Now that a place has been found to take these books, it will be much easier to get our personal library under control.

This week also saw some lovely items arrive in the mail.  First up..............more DPN's.

This is the case the Signature DPN's come in.  I have combined all of them together as well as added a stitch marker to the tube.  This way, they can not fly around and get lost again.  These are the only Signature DPN's I own and are strictly my sock knitting needles.  Any other 'small' knitting in the round projects are done using the magic loop method on 1 circular.

My other mail treasure this week was this.

A row counter that goes on the needle.  I got this from Knitty Gnat on etsy.  She lives in South Dakota.  It was amazing as to how quickly this got to me.  I ordered it on the 13th and it arrived on the 16th.  Not too bad for the United States Postal Service.  The reason this one was the one I choose from the hundreds of them on Etsy was:

The llama!  And not just the llama, but the fact I got to choose what color beads I wanted to have on it.  Purple just happened to be one of the colors she offered.  There will no longer be missed counting of rows.  I am so bad at remembering to make a mark or tap the app on my phone after each row.  Since this sits on the needle in the middle of the knitting you kind of need to move it each row you knit.

That is all from this past week.  This coming week hubby and I have eye appointments.  There will also be that decluttering going on.  Today, there will be no decluttering.  It is our 'rest' day.  Instead, I will be doing laundry, making menus, making a grocery list, clipping doggy toenails, and crocheting the last 8 rows of the Havana.  There might even be time in there to take a little walk around the neighborhood.  Our weather is gorgeous right now and I need to take advantage of it.  

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

MAKING SPACE

 

Hello again.  Hope your day is going well for you.  Mine has been productive so far and looks like it will continue to be so for most of the day.

I completed the declutter of the kitchen yesterday afternoon.  Today, hubby helped me declutter and reorganize the laundry room.  We have done 4 weeks of the 91 day challenge in less than 2 weeks. 

These are the three boxes we will be taking to Goodwill today.  We have another box to donate to our church and our food bank.  There is a small box heading to my daughters house too.   Next week we will be doing our Guest room.  That is not the room scheduled for week 5, but we need it cleaned out so we can start using it for our exercise room.  Right now it is our 'dumping ground' room.  The only other rooms that will take time are my craft room and the Arizona room.  Amazingly enough, I am not having any problems letting things leave the house.  Emotional attachments have not hindered me at all this time.  

I just pulled a loaf of bread out of the oven.  Oh my, how good it makes my house smell. 

I think I better publish this.  It has been in the making for the past 3 hours.  Interruptions have caused delays.

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

LOST AND NOT FOUND

 

I am sitting here so upset.  There is a DPN missing from my favorite set of DPN's.  About two months ago, I dropped all 10 signature sock DPN's on the floor.  They scattered pretty good too.  Hubby helped me pick them up and we even moved furniture to make sure we got them all.  I swear I counted all 10 needles when I put them back into my 'special' jar that sits right by my knitting area.

Fast forward to yesterday.  My daughter picked out yarn for me to make her a couple of pairs of Rose City Roller socks.  Since I was going to be at my Son's home most of the day, I decided I would cast on the socks for a traveling project.  I grabbed my DPN's and discovered I only had 9 of them.  I have moved furniture, used a flashlight to help look around inside of the furniture, moved end tables and floor lamps.  NOTHING!  I am so upset.  The needles were a Christmas gift from hubby several years ago.  They are my absolute favorite DPNs.

Yes, I have other DPNs in the same size.  The Signature Needles just feel wonderful and the yarn sits perfectly on them and doesn't slip all over the place.  The best part is, they are made here in the USA!  Now, I can hear you guys wondering why I would be upset with the loss of one needle.  I normally do my socks concurrently on DPN's.  I have tried to do them with 4 needles but find I have ladders in them.  With 5 needles, I never have any laddering.

I sent an email to the company last night to see if there was a possibility of purchasing just 1 needle. They have already replied to my email and yes, I am able to purchase just 1 needle although it was actually 'cheaper' for me to buy another set of 5 than to purchase 1 needle due to shipping costs.  Let me just say, I have worked with this company many times before with questions and they are always extremely polite and so willing to work with their clients.  It is one of the reasons I now own every size of their circular needles too.  Those were another Christmas present from the hubby 2 years ago.  

Do you have favorite tools of your trade?  Have you ever had to replace any part of your favorite tools?  Did it make you sad to do that?

So for now, I will just work on one sock at a time.  Luckily, they are short socks so row counting is not a big deal.  I am loving the yarn my daughter picked out for the socks.

The neon colors make me happy while I am knitting.  It will be fun to see how the 'stripes' line up when the sock is completed.

Hey, speaking of counting rows.  I normally use my phone to keep track of how many rows I have knit.  Unfortunately, there are times I get on a roll and forget to hit the button on my phone as I start a new row.  So, this morning, while I was waiting for a response from the Needle company, I went onto Etsy and found a row counter that made me smile.

Isn't this adorable?  I love the llama on it.  I ordered mine in purple (of course).  I have been wanting one of these for some time.  Now I can count up to 109 rows without turning my phone on.  Sometimes, technology does not work for me.  This is one of those times.

As for decluttering.........I did start on my kitchen.  I still have 2 drawers and 3 cabinets to go through and then it will be completed.  Yesterday, I went through my spice cabinets.  Good grief!  There were so many bottles of spices that were duplicates and unopened ones we will never use.  Those will be going to our local food bank.  I also found spices that had been in there so long they no longer had any 'aroma'.  Those went into the trash.  My spice cabinets look so nice now.  We can actually find spices without having them crash down on our heads.

I am hoping to complete the kitchen this afternoon.  I do not have teen/dog duty today.  Instead, I am taking my BFF to an MRI appointment.  She is severely claustrophobic and has to take valium in order to even go into an OPEN MRI.  Needless to say, we don't let her drive while taking those lovely drugs.  

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

MAKING SPACE WEEK 2

 

Good golly!  It is Monday and I got a message last night informing me I did not need to dog/teen watch today.  That meant I had all day to do a few items I was not able to complete yesterday.

Waking up at 5am was a big plus for me.  By 8 in the morning, I was showered, dressed and heading out the door to pick up the 6 items needed from the grocery store.  It was nice to get in and out of there in less than 30 minutes. 

When I got home, hubby was already working on decluttering his side of the dresser and his side of the headboard of our bead.  I was totally impressed.  He had a few things he did not know whether he should dump or keep and I only kept one item on that list.  It was a jewelry box by dad bought in Japan during WWII.  I just did not have the heart to get rid of it.  (Sigh) At least, not this time.  While hubby finished up his area, I dumped everything out of our cedar chest.  All that went back into it was 1 set of sheets.  Five sets of king sized sheets were given away to Goodwill and one set of brand new flannel sheets is going to my son and his wife.

The box is holding all of our 'dust collectors'.  We had so many little knick knacks sitting around in our room.  This will make hubby's job of dusting go much quicker now.  The blue Rubbermaid hamper is full with all the purses I am donating.  I only kept 2 everyday purses, 1 clear purse (They are require here for concerts and ball games), and 1 evening bag.  

These bags are full of clothes from both hubby and myself.  We both agreed it was shameful at the amount of items we had that could be used by others.  Remember, we had cleaned out our closets last week so these bags are separate from those clothes that left the house.

The only item not shown is a pair of crutches I used about 15 years ago when I had foot surgery.  They were so dusty, I had to take them outside to clean them off and I still sneezed while doing it.  

That completes the challenge for week 2.  I know we are way ahead and that is ok with me.  I know we will slow down in a couple of weeks when we are called to do the craft room and hubby will be working on his 'shop' that week.

We will continue to follow the schedule as far as what room is next to work on.  Next room to be decluttered is Kitchen and Pantry.  This is one room I love to organize.  Since the pandemic hit, I have been doing so much more cooking and baking.  That means I have been adding items to my kitchen to enhance my baking and cooking skills.  With my daughter selling Pampered Chef and my dear friend introducing me to King Arthur Flour company, my kitchenware has really expanded.  I have also been learning how to make 99% of baked goods from scratch.  And in that learning experience, I have learned how to substitute honey for sugar and how to add healthy items to baked goods to enhance them.  (Flax seed, chia seeds and wheat bran)  I have also learned how to use my pressure cooker to make healthy meals for us as well as my air fryer to replace 'fried' foods.  

The only thing I have not added to, since the pandemic hit, is my yarn stash!  Aren't you proud of me?

Do any of you find you have been adding to any of your kitchen or craft items since the pandemic hit?  Have any of you learned any new skills in that time frame?  

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

WEEK 28 OF MY 10TH YEAR

 

Welcome back.  It is once again time for my week in review/update.

I am happy to report, I stayed totally monogamous to the Havana this week.

There were 60 rows completed this week.  That leaves 36 rows and the crocheting part will be completed.  Then it will be getting the twisted fringe evened out and whoosh......it will go to it's new home.  I am so glad I learned this technique.  One thing I would do differently is NOT use worsted weight yarn again.  DK would be a much better choice for one of these types of blankets.  The mosaic crochet makes a very dense fabric.   I do have another mosaic blanket I am going to make and this time I will be using all the DK yarn I already have in my stash.  Some of that yarn has been hanging around for YEARS.  It will be nice to stash bust my DK and then only purchase more when I have a project that calls for it.  

Before I start another blanket, I still have other WIP projects that need my attention.  (Two to be exact)  My daughter has also requested a pair of socks and said she would love a pair of the Rose City Rollers.  Those may get cast on very soon as I am needing a traveling project over the next week.  There is teen/dog watching happening this coming week and the Havana is not really portable at this point.  That will remain my after dinner/ TV watching project.  Hopefully I will be able to complete it by next Sunday's update.

Something got done this week that has not happened in quite a while.

I worked on and completed a puzzle.  It was nice to have something different to do.  This puzzle only took a few hours to complete as it was only 500 pieces.  Me thinks I will put another puzzle out this afternoon.  I love being able to just go and put a few pieces in at a time and then leave it for other ventures.

Hubby has been going to the grocery store for me over the past 2 weeks.  (Stupid shingles!)  I may decide to let him go more often.

These found their way home with him this week.  I love having flowers in the house.  They just brighten up any area they are put.  When we lived in PA, he would bring home flowers every week that he was in town.  (He traveled 2-3 weeks a month)  It was never expected so a nice gesture of love from him.

My shingles are basically gone.  They all scabbed over and most of that is gone too.  YIPPEE!  I was very fortunate to have caught them early and was put on an anti-viral drug to help with the process.  I don't seem to have any of the post-herpetic pain that is associated with shingles either.  Yes I was truly fortunate.

Today, I will be doing laundry and working on decluttering the Master Bedroom.  With me being gone several hours a day next week, I need to get a head start on some stuff.  I do not want to fall behind on the decluttering or I will never get caught up again.  There will also be menus made for the next 10 days, a grocery list made, and of course, working on the Havana.  I baked a loaf of bread yesterday, so that is done for the week.  I might make some type of sweets for us yet too.  We like just a little sweet thing after dinner in the evenings.  There are some new baking pans at my house that need to be used so why not make something sweet and yummy in them.

I hope all of you are having a great day.  

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

DAY OFF

 

Hubby and I took today off from decluttering.  We finished the 6 day challenge list in 2 days.  Next week we won't be so lucky, though.  I have dog/teen duty next week so only have the morning hours to work on the rest of the Master Bedroom.  Since we didn't have decluttering to do today, we started on cleaning the rest of the house.  Half was completed today and the rest will be completed tomorrow.  This leaves us the weekend to just enjoy life.

Yesterday I was talking about how I was working 2 rows of mosaic crochet at the same time.  I think I need to explain something first.  The Mosaic crochet I am doing are patterns by Tinna Thorudottir.  When doing this mosaic crochet, you never turn your work.  You always work on the right side of the fabric. (left to right if right handed or right to left if left handed)  Here is a photo of working the 2 rows at once.

You can see the light blue yarn on my hook.  The dark blue yarn is dormant at the moment.  Once I work the light blue within 1 stitch of the dark blue, I will start working with the dark blue again.

Here are both yarns off the hook.  I am getting ready to pick up the dark blue and work some more stitches with it and then will go back and work with the lighter blue.

I timed myself today to see if I really was saving any time.  I am actually saving 10 minutes by doing the two rows simultaneously.  When doing 12 rows in each section that is a BIG time saver.  That saves me 30 minutes per section.  

The Havana is getting so close to being finished.  I have 60 more rows to complete and then the twisted fringe to even up.  Do any of you get itchy when you get close to the end of a BIG project?  I am looking at my other 2 knitted WIP's deciding if I am going to complete them or frog them.  I am pretty sure, one of them will be frogged.  The other one is debatable as to what I will do with it.  The only other WIP's I have are cross stitch and I will save those for when the weather here gets too darn hot to have yarn on my lap.

Time to go and make some dinner for my dogs and us humans.

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