Sunday, December 22, 2013

Winter Wonderland

The view from my patio doors in the back of the house:


We have at least 6" of snow so far and another inch of ice under the snow.  Needless to say, I'm not going anywhere today!

The electrician is supposed to stop by tomorrow morning so the contractor can get me the final numbers on the basement finish - they are planning to start the first week of January - I can't wait.  So, yesterday I quilted the last quilt for the homeless I can do and got it bound.  Then, oiled the machine and covered it with muslin to keep as much sawdust and dirt off it as possible.  Emptied the built in shelves in the basement, so they can move them to a different area of the basement, loaded up the big table with stuff and moved a few things back upstairs.  As I moved the sewing stuff upstairs, I cleaned out all the drawers and plastic bins and sorted and organized.  Today, I'll be doing more of the same.  Good thing I cleaned out the office, because now I'll be putting stuff back in there -- but no unopened boxes and everything that does have to come upstairs for now will be cleaned out -- decluttered!  It's a project that I was going to do when I unpack the basement, but better to do it now and when the basement is finished, I can just put the things away.  No more saving stuff I don't need. 

Next spring my friend Kris is having another garage sale, so I'll put things in a garage sale pile, and my church does a household goods and clothing give-away once or twice a year, so I will have tons of stuff to donate to that too.  It will be so nice to have room to move around and no clutter to boot!

Until next time....Merry Christmas and many blessings for the New Year.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Making Progress

I'm making progress on cleaning out the office. I have now unpacked the 3 boxes I had in here, set up the computer on the computer desk and moved the laptop to the treadle machine top! Emptied out one wall and brought in the dry sink that had been in my bedroom --for lack of a better place at the time. When I take the tree down, the rocker will go back into the living room and I'll move things around a bit so it's doesn't feel too crowded.
I really prefer my laptop now, so eventually I'll clean off the pc and donate it to church - they can always use another computer!
Still need to shred papers and find places for some things, but at least I don't have to walk into a room and see boxes and stuff that doesn't belong in here!
Until next time......Blessings.

Wednesday, December 04, 2013

December Goals

As I'm cleaning house today I've come to the conclusion that I definitely have OCD!  I'm still living out of boxes, or more accurately, have unopened boxes all over the place and boxes that I have opened, but don't have a place for yet because the basement won't be started or finished til next year sometime.  Not having a place for everything and everything in its place is actually driving me crazy!  So - slowly but surely I'm going to start working towards cleaning out and unpacking.  First room - for December -- is the office.  This is a very tiny 3rd bedroom that immediately became the office on moving day!  These are the before pictures -- hopefully by the end of the month I will have after pictures. 
The computer desk. I had this cleaned out once! I do have a pc that is still in a box in here. Not sure where I'm going to set it up or how yet, but it will get out of the box this month!
The corner with a bookcase that I literally stacked quilt books on and anything else I needed a place for. The garbage bag in front of the shredder is covering a stack of papers, etc. that need to be shredded. The boxes have the computer and binders in them. Also, have knitting needles, yarn, books, etc. in the plastic box.There's a shelf with a quilt hanger on the floor that I'm going to hang in the dining area of the kitchen.

My mother-in-law's treadle sewing machine, which I love, is in here because there is no other place for it. I'll work with it there. The dog kennel is there because ever since JR chewed up the woodwork in the old house after Bill died, I've had to put him in the kennel when I leave. Now it is no longer necessary, so I will take it out to the garage. The rocker is in here because I put up my Christmas tree where the rocker was in the living room!

I didn't take a picture of the closet, because I had started with it -- I've put shelves in there and my file cabinet, but the shelves are full and need to be cleaned out again too.

So - goal by the December 31, 2013:  make this room a pleasure to walk into and work in!

Until next time......Blessings.