Falling behind and catching up

When we were still actively homeschooling, we would have "ketchup" (or catsup, if you prefer) days. Those were days when we wouldn't try to accomplish anything so much as just catch up on things that were already in progress, books we wanted to read, recipes we wanted to try out, the daily business of living. And, of course, the laundry.

After falling behind last week, I figured it was time to catch up on the de-crapification process. And yesterday was a doozy.

But let me backtrack to last weekend for a moment....

Apparently it is allergy season here in Dodge, which may explain why I have been so tired lately. The Wizard has been tired as well, and even the young adults who flit in and out have been complaining about general tiredness. To combat this exhaustion, I have tried caffeine, which for me generally takes the form of tea. And with my tea, I sometimes like a cookie.

Lo and behold, somewhere amidst all the moving STUFF around, I found The Last Container of ginger snaps. These are probably my favorite store-bought cookies and this is THE Last Container. Wild Oats was bought out by Whole Foods not too long ago. Whole Foods continued every single brand of Wild Oats' store-brand cookies except the ginger snaps. So I'd been holding onto these, saving it for a special occasion.

I finally opened it and had a couple of cookies, then placed the container on the shelf near my desk so I could have some more the next day. However, late that evening I came to my desk to shut down the computer and found this on the floor nearby:

The dogs had eaten all of my cookies! I know it was the dogs because they are not really dogs, they are pigs. Cats would have nibbled a few, but very considerately left the rest. Or they would have moved them around the room, just as they do my yarn:

But the dogs will eat every crumb and then lick the container clean. My Very Last Wild Oats ginger snaps and they are all gone. I have no recourse but to bake some ginger snaps of my own. Fortunately, it is almost Purim, so I can make them and then give them away as mishloach manot. But more about that later.

In addition to eating my ginger snaps and relocating my yarn, the animals are helpful in many other ways. For example, they keep the laundry warm until it can be folded and put away.

Or sometimes they just guard it so that no passing cats (or dogs) can walk off with important articles. Guarding, naturally, requires a certain amount of stealth:

And it seems that at least one cat is concerned about whether we plan to purge kitties before the move:

Besides the allergy-tiredness syndrome and the disappointing loss of ginger snaps, the Drama Queen set back the de-crapification process by the simple expedient of moving to a new apartment. Because she was moving from a 2-bedroom apartment that she shared with a roommate and the roommate's significant other to an efficiency apartment that she is sharing only with a cat, she has less space at her disposal.

And when you have more than enough STUFF to fill the space you inhabit, the rest gets carted over to Mom's house, right?

Thus, we ended up with piles of the Drama Queen's belongings, like a shoe organizer and her brand-new vacuum cleaner (which I am assuming she plans to take back when she comes over to do her laundry):

And one of her two cat trees:

At least I have already re-homed the cat tree. It went home with a young friend yesterday, along with much more which I will describe in absorbing detail later on.

The Drama Queen also sent home her recycling:

And a couple of items of furniture that she had asked us to buy for her former apartment, like a small table and four chairs and a 6-foot bookshelf. I sent the table and bookshelf up to the bedroom that the Drama Queen herself used to inhabit, but the chairs haven't made it up yet for some reason:

I am a firm believer in letting sleeping cats lie, but I'm sure that has nothing to do with it.

On the other hand, the Drama Queen did take some of the odds and ends of kitchen stuff that were out in the garage.

Some were from her time in a student apartment on campus, and some were from the Sports Nut's time in a similar apartment on a different campus. Whatever. They will get some use, so all is well.

And, because the Drama Queen seems to collect change but never spend it, her brothers and I kept finding loose change in the cars she borrowed, in the stuff she left at the house to be laundered, and in the things she left here:

Long ago, when she was still living with us, we developed a protocol for dealing with the coins she left lying around. This protocol also applies to any other money that is discovered in a location that makes ownership unclear. It all goes into tzedakah boxes.

And here is my "pile" from last weekend. These are some pictures that had been in Grandmother's house or apartment. I'm going to offer them to one of my sisters first because she sort of has a southwestern thing going on in her place. If she -- or one of the other sibs -- doesn't want them, I guess they will be listed on Freecycle.

So I've caught up through the weekend. I'll deal with the post-weekend stuff in a bit. A word of warning -- it involves breaching the recesses of the dreaded Storage Locker.

The Dog Bit My Hand

That's my excuse for not updating this blog lately. And I'm sticking to it.

The dog is in disgrace, by the way. She was let back into the house yesterday and immediately got into another dispute, so she is in exile again (still):

But before all that... even before the Wizard and I completed 31 years of married life (notice that I didn't say "bliss" exactly), I had a box to empty.


The drawers on top had their own interesting surprises. Like spools with and without thread:

I remember that gold thread. I made a gold vest for the community chorus Pops concert in our former town the year we moved to Dodge. The blue thread is from Future Vet's ongoing quilt project. I'm not sure about the rest, but I do have a place to keep spools of thread, so those were easy to dispose of.

There was also an odd-shaped light bulb that must have been from a desk that somebody (I suspect the Drama Queen) had at some point:

And there were the plastic horses:

Plastic horses? Why would I have plastic horses? I honestly cannot remember where these came from. I can't even imagine when or why they came into the house. I have this vague idea that they had something to do with the youth group. But I am absolutely positive that we never went horseback riding.

Actually, now that I think about it, one of last year's co-presidents did go horseback riding, fell off, and broke her leg really badly. But I don't think we would have bought plastic horses to commemorate the event.

Whatever. There wasn't much inside the actual box:

All of that was dealt with in a matter of seconds, leaving me to continue wondering about the plastic horses. So I went and found a shelf to clear to take my mind off the plastic horse problem:

But before I could do much about the things on that shelf, I got distracted by this:

A box of used softballs. How useful!

If only that were the end of it. But no -- I found more softballs:

And yet more softballs:

And ... yes, even more softballs. Unused ones, this time:

The Wizard and the young men of the household once played softball on Sunday mornings with a bunch of men from the synagogue. I don't know why they felt compelled to buy dozens of softballs, but they did. Then they stopped playing and left the softballs behind for me to deal with.

And I have! I found a woman who is putting together some packages to send to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. She's going to take the softballs and include them in the packages she sends. I expect they will get left behind when the soldiers are deployed back to the States, but that's cool, too.

I will catch up on the exciting weekend events tomorrow. The Drama Queen moved to a new apartment ... drama enough for the whole family.

Wrapping Up a Few Things

I'm beginning to think that I need to post in the morning rather than at the end of the day. It's because of the dogs. They want out, they want in, they want good-night treats, they want out, they want in, they want more treats.... Sometimes I can get by with working or studying in another room after they come in for the night, but they don't like it if I put them in their crates for the night and then continue to work at my computer.

So, here's what I did yesterday. I decided to clear out the bottom of the nightstand next to my side of the bed. The Wizard's nightstand has nothing in it, but mine has an intriguing pile of papers.

Here's a better look:

At least the book dust jacket is easy to deal with ... now. Sports Nut kept complaining about the fact that we needed more mylar dust jacket covers, so I finally went and ordered some from Gaylord, which has got to be my favorite place to shop. I figured out a long time ago that I don't really want a house -- I want a library instead.

To my surprise, this pile was almost entirely booklets (and some assorted background information) that I put together for the Holidays@Home Family Education Series that I taught three years ago. I'd been wondering where all this went. It certainly didn't go to people who attended the workshops because ... well ... hardly anyone attended them.

Maybe someday we will live in a place where this kind of workshop series would be a success, so I'll file all this material away. (Good thing we bought a new file cabinet, huh?)

I also finished converting my entire stock of musicals on cassette (that hadn't already been replaced by CDs) to mp3 format so that I can load them onto my iPod.

I did not, however, manage to felt the cat bed that I made for Sport Nut's cats. It was in use.

A very productive day, and a very long post to go with it

The problem with getting rid of STUFF is that, for me at least, there is an intermediate stage during which the STUFF is just sort of lying around. Today I looked around and found a pile of items I put aside to think about and/or discuss with the Wizard, sitting on top of a box of cassettes that I am converting to mp3 format:

In the dining room, I found another pile of boxes holding photos (the ones I keep putting off dealing with), alongside a box of papers to file and the box of things to save for the next house:


In the kitchen, I found that the box of Things Looking for Other Things was getting a little full:

In the back hall, I found a pile of things that I have listed on Freecycle but no one has asked for. I was planning to offer them at least one more time before just tossing them in the trash:


On the kitchen counter, I found a pile of boxes containing crafts items like fabric markers and the ever-popular Sharpies:

Next to my desk, I found a box piled up with things that I plan to list on Freecycle in an attempt to get rid of them:


And on top of the filing cabinet, I found a pile of cat:

I think I'm going to have to have one day a week when I deal with the secondary piles. Since the goal is still to get rid of things, I think that will fit into the box, bag, shelf or pile a day structure.

But today wasn't the day to deal with all the piles I found. I went out to the garage to look for a box. Instead, I found these:


Not one, but TWO boxes clearly labeled "Photos." How many pictures have we taken over the last 31 years? How many more before we got married? Since I already have two boxes of photos I don't feel like dealing with just yet waiting in the dining room, I decided to skip over these two boxes.

Then I came upon these boxes:

Two boxes that are labeled "go through". How nice! Before I could get to either one, I had to move the black objects on the right. Those are a set of "risers" that you put under the legs of a bed or couch to raise it a little. We bought them for Grandmother. We must have bought 2 sets, because she definitely had one raising her couch and this one has never been used. I think I Freecycled the other set long, long ago.

And here is the Box of the Day:

With a quilting grid ruler on top of it, no less! At least I know where that goes -- upstairs with all the crafts stuff. And here's the inside view:


Wow, what a lot of interesting .... stuff. And so much of it I could identify. For example:


In 1963, my father spent some time working on the island of Kwajelein in the South Pacific. He took a side trip to Japan with some work buddies and brought back presents for all of us. Mine was this doll. As nice as the memory is, I am not going to keep this doll -- in fact, given that its hair fell off at some point and I glued it back on rather inexpertly, I have already tossed it.

Instead of this doll, I have something else to remember that particular episode in my life. My father was always fascinated by the world around him and brought back lots of shells from the beaches of Kwajelein. I have those in my bedroom in a wooden bowl made by my Grandpop and I look at them every day.

But enough of this mawkish sentimentality. What else is in that box?


Coins of Israel 1971? Definitely not something that I collected. Must be from the Wizard's trip to Israel around that time. Cool. Definitely a keeper.

As I looked further into the box, it became apparent that most of the STUFF was the Wizard's. This, however, was a puzzlement:


What in the world is it? I have no idea.

These I remember, though:

Stephanie Piro made the two with pictures. We used to see her at crafts shows before we moved. In fact, the entire family once showed up at her booth wearing the same style of one of her t-shirts. Now we have to order online instead of being able to chat with her.

I thought this item was mine at first:


But then I remembered that the slide rule I used during my brief foray into engineering was at least twice as long. It had been my father's, and I enjoyed watching the faces on those little boys studying engineering as I whipped out my slide rule and used it to solve problems. Ah, those were the days..... My father's slide rule is still somewhere in the family, but this one belonged to the Wizard.

Another trip down Memory Lane:

Do you have any idea how long it's been since the Wizard and I played racquetball? Let's see... the Drama Queen is 27 years old and I stopped playing when I got pregnant, so....

We tested the balls, though. They still bounce!

And a small framed photo of my first cats, Ragtime and Francesca, in their favorite pose:

Then there were the campaign flyers from my (successful) run for president of the Associated Women Students when I was in college:

Those were certainly entertaining. The next items were more in the line of What Were We Thinking?


SIX cleaning cloths for CDs?

But then....

OMG! There are TWO of them!!

What are they? Where did they come from? And why did we cart them across the country?

Apart from a few small items that went to some obvious places or to piles that I have already mentioned today, the rest of the box was the Wizard's to go through. Which he has done. Some stuff he got rid of, like his Bar Mitzvah Certificate. Some he has filed or put on a shelf.

So that's another box done.

But the fun for the day was not over. The Drama Queen came over to do her laundry, and I made her go through the box of stuff I've been holding for her. She also had a few nostalgic moments:

I made that book cover for her when she was in third grade. It has a lot of personal and family significance for both of us, so it's kind of nice that she's keeping it. The cup was made for her by a family friend who was a potter for her Bat Mitzvah.

Though she did shred and throw away and recycle things from "her" box, she still has a pile of STUFF:


She says she will cart it all away when she moves to a new apartment in another week or two. We'll see about that.

Meanwhile, as I continued to whittle away at that enormous stash of cassette tapes, I finally finished the cat bed this morning:


I still need to felt it. I figure if the cats don't like it, I can keep on felting it until it works as a hat. Currently, it doesn't unless, of course, you have a really big head:

Sports Nut and I also tackled the empty bedroom upstairs where we had stashed all the stuff we took out of the youth lounge a few weeks ago. I had also moved all my boxes of fabric and yarn and other crafts-y STUFF into that room, but it was sort of haphazard:

And before we could even get into that room, we decided to deal with these crates that were sitting outside it:

Yarn, more yarn -- at least "dealing with it" just meant moving into the room we were about to organize.

Which we did. Not too bad, if I do say so myself:

What I had forgotten was that the Drama Queen was bringing her cat to stay here for a couple of weeks while she is moving out of her current apartment and into her new apartment. Her landlord wants to show the apartment and she doesn't want her cat to get out while he's doing that. So welcome, Telemain:

He's not actually all that happy about being here. He knows we won't pay much attention to him and that he'll be left all alone up in that room. On the other hand, when he is out and about, the other cats pick on him.

There was a bunch of snack food upstairs, which we brought down to give away. Media Guru snagged some of it for family use, but the majority is going to people who can use it:

The day's de-crapification was not yet done. When I took the plastic and glass recycling out to the garage, I happened to spot what I thought was going to be an empty box that I could recycle:

But no. This box holds an apparently never-used coffeemaker. I probably got it years ago when one of my coffee-drinking sisters was visiting. (I never drink the stuff.) The Wizard and I had obviously forgotten completely about its existence, because it we had remembered, we might not have acquired this:


No matter now. The Wizard's coffee maker makes 10 cups as opposed to 4 cups -- and given that those are 6-ounce "cups", that fills his coffee mug twice. And the smaller Mr. Coffee can go to the veteran's home where I am sure that someone drinks coffee.

This next picture was taken about the same time that I discovered that someone had peed in Hershey's bed again. It probably wasn't Sweet-pea, seen here enjoying the bed. I suspect one of the "boys" (Ashey, Toshie, or Dybbie). They have been known to express their displeasure over the new dog before.

In other news, my pile of converted-to-mp3-format cassettes continues to grow -- and I've taken out the 5 or 6 cassettes that were inflating the pile earlier, so this is an even greater accomplishment. Plus I've gotten to listen to some of my favorite musicals again:


I have unearthed two and a half wine glasses:


This is odder than you think. I'm pretty sure that the bowl for the second wizard wine glass is in another box somewhere. But I'm really kind of puzzled over where the other 4 pottery wine glasses have gone to. (Yes, there were originally 6, but one got broken long ago.)

And, last but not least. As we were catching up on Season 4 of Boston Legal, Sports Nut took a break and found that Canti was already using the cat bed I had made for him and his sister (the one who dumped water on my computer yesterday). And it's not even felted yet. How sweet.