An end has arrived -- and Day 2 of our experiment

First of all, today's picture of the "guest room". Day #2 -- Monday, November 30, 2009:

As you can see, the futon bed is now a couch and the new cover we got for it way back in August is now actually on the futon. This doesn't look so bad. The door to the bedroom is open and you can see the bathroom. If you take a very careful look, you might even be able to see whether there is anything on the floor of the bathroom.

And -- drumroll, please -- I have reached an end to the other thing that has occupied this November -- participation in National Novel Writing Month. Over the past 30 days, I have written a 50,000 word novel. Not that it's publishable. I have a lot of editing to do. But here's my reward:

A Little Experiment -- Day 1

At the request of Future Vet and Media Guy, who were home for the Thanksgiving weekend, I am conducting a little experiment. Each morning I will go to the door of the "guest" room, which doubles as a sitting area for the Drama Queen and I will take a picture. Let's see what happens.

Day #1 -- Sunday, November 29, 2009:

Thanksgiving Day Minus 3 and Counting

We will return to our regularly scheduled programming in just a few days. In the meantime, Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching and I have to spend at least a little time thinking about it because a) Media Guy and Future Vet are coming home from school, b) another whole family is coming over and bringing a turkey, c) since half of this family doesn't eat turkey, something to eat besides turkey has to be prepared, d) one of my sisters, one of my nieces (though not this sister's daughter), and one of my niece's friends are arriving sometime on Thursday on their way to moving niece and friend to their new home, e) other people are likely to show up as well on Thursday, and d) in addition to eating here, quite a few of these people plan to sleep here.

In short, there's cooking and cleaning to be done. In the process, some cleaning does lead to getting rid of STUFF, but there's a certain amount of STUFF that just gets moved so that it can be dealt with later. Right.

First of all, when we left the living room some time ago, there were boxes and other STUFF piled up on the couch:

Just out of sight in the bottom left corner is Max's crate. And visible but probably not detectable as what it actually is, on top of that brown chest midway up the right side of the picture is a second large dog crate in two pieces with a pad and a dog bed lying on top of it. Those were for dog who was supposed to come here for fostering, but who ended up going somewhere else.

In short, on top of dealing with the boxes and STUFF, I needed to move dog stuff out of this room because that couch that is buried under all those boxes is amazingly comfortable to sleep on.

As of Friday of last week, progress had been made:

Max's crate and about half the boxes are gone. Last night I finished going through the boxes (throw it all away!), vacuumed, and moved furniture around:

It's so nice to have some room to move around and a couch to sit (and sleep) on again! With Max's crate out of the way, I moved Hershey's crate over to the corner and gained some maneuvering room around my desk.

I have a borrowed carpet cleaner and we'll be going to work on those spots on the carpet either tomorrow or Wednesday.

Beyond that, we went shopping for food so that we can make some things to eat on Thursday. And every day until Thursday and a few days after Thursday.

If you want to find out what happens to all this food (plus the vegetables and frozen stuff that are already stashed away), details will be posted.

And one other thing. As faithful readers all know, we have this storage locker which is full of (you guessed it!) boxes. But the rent keeps going up on the storage locker and I've finally had enough. So the Wizard went out and bought a new New Shed and has been putting it together. As soon as it's done, I will recruit Sports Nut to help me move boxes from the storage locker to the new New Shed.

Tomorrow. More cleaning. More preparations for Thanksgiving. How exciting!

Another Difficult Good-bye

The other day Future Vet pointed out that I haven't updated this blog lately. Specifically, he was looking for another "In Memoriam" post. And I realized that I have been avoiding dealing with a lot of things, including the need to update this and to talk about Max.

Max was our snow dog, a big-hearted goof who came to our family when he was already 5 years old. Someone did a good job raising Max to that point. He was well-mannered, good-natured, and he never ate food that was sitting on the dining table or kitchen counters, even though reaching them was no problem for him. (Unlike other dogs who shall remain nameless. For now.)

As best we can tell, Max was a fairly even mix of Siberian Husky and Alaskan Malamute. Breeders of both came up to us at one time or another and claimed him as their own. We called him a Siberian because that seemed to be his personality and because it was just so much fun to refer to him as Conehead the Siberian:

Over the last year or so, Max had been losing ground in his battle with arthritis. Looking at his x-rays, his veterinarian was amazed that he could get up and walk at all because his hips were in such bad shape. He got slower and slower, getting up and moving was more and more difficult, and finally there was nothing more we could do for him other than say good-bye.

Max, I miss you. I hope you are running through the snow without pain, that you get all the ear scritches and belly rubs you want, and that the treats just keep coming.

Not as much progres as I would like

This is going to be the only post this week. I really had intended to keep up the daily Monday through Thursday posts this week, but very early Monday morning I went downstairs wearing slippers to let some very noisy dogs in the house and shut them into their crates. And on my way back upstairs, I tripped over my feet, or my slippers, and landed hard on the tile floor with both knees. Just for good luck, I also hit my head on the wall.

Monday I mostly sat around feeling sorry for myself with heating pads and hot tea and kitty cats. Tuesday I still didn't feel like running up and down the stairs all day, but I got a few things done downstairs. Wednesday the bruises were starting to develop -- very nice ones, at that -- but I got more done. And today, I actually finished about half of what I had wanted to get done this week in terms of clearing out boxes, plus I worked on a much more sedentary project that has been on the back burner for months -- switching our DVD collection from the usual large plastic cases to the slim cases. That frees up a lot of shelf space, as has been touched on in the past.

The bedroom upstairs, though, is pretty much cleared out. No more boxes and bins, except for the yarn stash. And even the yarn stash is now sorted out by type of fiber or yarn weight or projects, and it's all in nice neat plastic bins. Take a look:

 No boxes, just a couple of cats. And here's the other side of the room, with the yarn all nicely sorted and put into see-through bins.

That white drawer unit in the middle foreground is sewing stuff. It's still up here because the sewing machine is still upstairs. When I move the sewing stuff back downstairs, those drawers will be gone as well.

The balcony is pretty much done as well, even though I did that over the weekend.

The box in the corner has the new cushion for the papa-san chair. I don't see much point in actually using it with winter coming on. The cats are enjoying sitting in the chairs and being able to walk around without bits and pieces of things falling on them. And all the k'nex pieces are in those drawers:

We (or the kids who want to use them) can bring in one or two drawers at a time if it gets too cold to build things on the balcony.

Now, anyone who knows me at all knows that when I clear things out, there are inevitably periods of (mostly temporary) chaos. The boxes and bins that were up in the bedroom at the end of last week are, unfortunately, still with me for the most part. I just didn't have the energy to go through all of them this week. However, I did move them downstairs -- that's why they are no longer cluttering up the bedroom.

Most are in the living room.

Some are in the hall:

And just to prove I actually did clear out stuff this week -- those three boxes on top of the plastic bins in the hall are all empty. And there's another pile of empty containers at the foot of the stairs:

In addition to all that, I freecycled a whole pile of things -- some of it on the large side, like some queen-size air mattresses. And I gave an entire bin and several boxes full of art supplies and other stuff to a friend whose children are still young enough to enjoy them. So the great work of whittling down the STUFF so we have less to move when we leave Dodge continues.

Again, I make progress

Yesterday, I had sorted a bunch of bins and things into various piles like fabric, yarn, crafts stuff, miscellaneous crap, and so on. Today I opened the drawers under my desk and found even more yarn:

And then, in the family room where I sit and knit while watching television, I found even more yarn, though most of this is for current projects.

Sports Nut's 'college' blanket is but one of these projects. I've completed 2 of the 6 diamond shapes that are going to make up this blanket. When I started these pieces, I actually thought they were going to be a slightly different shape, but what the hey? I think this is going to work. The variegated and solid pieces will alternate and then I'll fill in the tops of the diamonds with off-white pieces:

While I was tossing Sport Nut's blanket pieces down onto the floor to photograph them, I noticed even more yarn -- this time, some stuff that the Drama Queen stuck in my cart when I was looking for those size 4 knitting needles yesterday.

Is there no end to the yarn in this house? I piled up all the yarn I found in all these various venues in one place and it makes a pretty impressive pile. And you know what I am pledged to do with piles, right?

It was obviously time to go outside and do something else instead of figuring out where to put all that yarn. So the Sports Nut and I decided to take down our sukkah frame:

and store it:

Sukkot has been over for about 4 weeks, after all. And we've had a hard freeze and snow since then.

But wait -- there's more!

I went upstairs to my bedroom, determined to finally whip it into shape, but keeping in mind all that unanticipated yarn I had found downstairs. I put a bunch of bedding and pillows into big bins for storage. The bedding mostly belongs to Media Guy, but he didn't take it with him to college, so it's going into Future Vet's room for the foreseeable future.

The pillows are from the chairs out on the balcony. With colder and wetter weather coming, I didn't want them out there, so I put them in a bin. Then I put the bin out on the balcony because there really isn't another space for it other than the storage locker, which I am trying to empty. So they are out there and will get cold, but at least they shouldn't get wet.

I moved all the bins with fabric and t-shirt logos for mythical t-shirt quilts back into the closet. I shoved the dozen or so duffle bags I had pulled out of the closet into one of the suitcases we store there. I was on a roll! And here's the result:

You will note that it is sort of possible to walk into the closet right now. That means there is still room to shove more crap in! (I really don't like walk-in closets.)

Speaking of closets, I was messing around in the regular (non walk-in) closets and noticed something interesting. Take a look at the floor of the Wizard's closet:

And now look at the floor of my closet:

Just to be perfectly clear, my Crocs are usually kept downstairs and the slippers are usually next to my bed. I had to add pairs of footwear to that closet to get that many in there. I don't want to ever hear any remarks about how women have more shoes than men!

And just think, none of that was the main project for the day. The object was to clean up the area in front of the bookshelves of that enormous pile of boxes. Take a look:

Not bad, huh?

And then I had space for the orange chairs. Yes, I know they are ratty, but we've had them for 24 years through 4 children and innumerable cats. They are quite comfortable and only those we allow into the bedroom can see them. And trust me, they will not be coming with us when we leave Dodge.

At this point, you are probalby wondering where all that yarn went. The yarn that was up in the bedroom, the yarn that was downstairs, the yarn that was hidden in the cracks and crevices of the house. Well, here's where it ended up:

I was supposed to get an empty bedroom for a crafts room once the two younger boys went away to college. Obviously, that didn't happen. Fortunately, my bedroom is large. Or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it.

So, it's not perfect. But it's a whole lot better than it was.

Here's the final look. From the middle to the back:

From the middle to the front:

And, oh yeah, the rest of the stuff. The stuff I had no more room or time to deal with today. It's still there as well, hiding behind me as I took the first two pictures. So here's the view behind:

Next week -- the rest of those bins and boxes. I shall overcome!

Moving Right Along....

I forgot to mention that  when I went to Michael's yesterday, I found the coolest thing. Tie-dye duct tape!

I gave one roll to a young friend who makes things out of duct tape. I have no idea what we will do with the other roll, but who cares? It's tie-dyed! Sort of.

Today I sorted out all those boxes and bins that got dragged out of the walk-in closet. I haven't quite figured out what to do with all of the stuff yet, so it's all sitting around the bedroom in piles. Tomorrow, tomorrow -- that's when I will take the next step, whatever that may be.

In the meantime, here's what I found. Lots of plastic boxes full of fabric (sorted by color, no less) in the walk-in closet, left over from my quilting days:

More fabric and sewing and quilting stuff in the bedroom:

A couple of those bins have t-shirt logos that I have sort of promised various children that I will make into t-shirt quilts some day. I figure if I wait another couple of decades, they may forget that I made this promise.

Also lots and lots of yarn, though not quite as much as I expected. Here's what is still upstairs:

And here is the yarn that I carried downstairs yesterday and the yarn that is being used for current projects. Most of it, anyway. I think Sports Nut's blanket-in-progress missed the picture:

There are also a few other bits and pieces and skeins of yarn around. I know, for example, that I have some sock yarn in the drawers of my desk because some day I am going to knit it up into socks. Really.

Besides the yarn and fabric, there are bins full of other assorted crafts materials -- needlepoint, embroidery, some items left over from religious school projects, candle-making stuff from when Future Vet was interested in making candles. And a big box of t-shirts that we were going to tie-dye with the youth group during a weekend retreat that nobody signed up to attend. (Now you have some insight into my fascination with tie-dyed duct tape.)

In the background of that picture, you can see a bin containing bedding from Future Vet's and Media Guy's bedrooms. I'll just move that into Future Vet's room along with all the other stuff the two of them left behind.

And there was a bunch of other stuff in bins that I am going to have to go through carefully. Since tomorrow is already devoted to replacing all the stuff that came out of the closet, going through the bins and boxes will probably have to wait until Friday. Or next week. Here's a sneak peek:

I didn't get as much done today as I had hoped. Instead I spent some time with a friend who is sick, and I started on a new knitting project. Because you can never have enough knitting projects going on at the same time. This project is a pullover hooded sweater for a 2-year-old friend. I am hoping to finish it sometime before she graduates high school. My progress to date:

That's the cuff and the start of a sleeve, by the way, not a turtleneck. She's little but not that little.

And that's about it, except for the knitting needles. I dug knitting needles out from all kinds of places today and sorted them by size.

Oddly enough, I have no size 4 knitting needles, apart from the ones in my Boye Needle Master set that I bought 30 years ago. So I stopped by Hobby Lobby to fill out my set and they didn't have any size 4 knitting needs. Neither did Michael's. If I didn't know better, I would think there was a world-wide conspiracy to keep me from owning size 4 knitting needles.

Always in the Last Place you Look

Today I made progress on the crafts materials because I wanted to locate some specific yarn that I want to use to make something for a 2-year-old of my acquaintance. In the tradition of procrastinators everywhere, I first went to a Michael's store to see if they had the yarn. (I knew I had some in my closet, but looking for it felt shockingly similar to actual work.) Unfortunately, the store did not come through with the yarn I wanted and I was forced to look through my stash.

And I did find it. Here:

The yarn I wanted was in those two clear bins with blue lids in the farthest corner of the walk-in closet. Just to give you a little more perspective, here's the view from the door of the walk-in closet:

And to really round out the picture ... here's what came out of the closet so that I could locate those two bins way at the back of the walk-in:

And another view, because once is never enough:

People like me should not be allowed to have walk-in closets. I have heard some people say that they like them because they can, you know, walk into them. But as far as I can see, the only excuse for a walk-in closet is that you can throw stuff in and shut the door. Trust me on this. This is not my first walk-in closet.

Why do they never teach the really important things in school, like Quesenberry's Law, which states: STUFF expands to fit the space available. And then some.

While searching for the yarn I wanted, I opened up all those plastic bins that were still in the bedroom and took a look at the contents. Before I started this process, I thought I would have 2 or 3 broad categories to sort the crafts materials into -- fabric and quilting stuff, yarn and knitting/crocheting stuff, general crafts stuff. As I looked through the bins, it quickly became obvious that I didn't have enough categories. There was also needlepoint stuff, stuff made for the kids when they were babies and which we want to keep even though these things will never be used again, t-shirts that kids don't want to part with even though they won't ever wear them again, and stuff that was not crafts-related at all. I sorted the bins:

 

But I have the feeling that I will have to start all over again tomorrow because at this point I have no idea what is in which bin and why each bin is in the particular pile it is in.

The upshot of all this emptying of the walk-in closet and sorting of bins is that the area by the bookshelves, where we want to bring back our chairs so that we can actually sit down, now looks like this:

 

Okay, it's not perfect. Did you really think it would be? But those four boxes on the floor are all that is left of the enormous pile that I started with. Remember that? I do, but just in case, take a look:

 

If that's not progress, I don't know what is.

We will, of course, ignore for the time being the pillows and blankets and duffle bags and other odds and ends that are currently strewn around the other side of the bedroom.