Week 17: A couple dishes, some yarn from stash
I know, I’m a day late again. No de-clutter drama this week to discuss, and no de-hoarding fireworks either. I gave my mom a couple pyrex dishes with cracked rubber tops that we had replaced with new ones recently. So it wasn’t exactly an exodus, considering I gave away two dishes and ended up with four new ones. But at least I didn’t keep the old ones too! I also took a glass frying pan (!) out of the cupboard to put into the Goodwill pile. I’ve used it maybe six times in the past 10 years and R. Darling didn’t even know it existed until I showed it to him to make sure he didn’t want it before I chucked it. Baby steps!
Onto more exciting things…..
Here at Chez Funkytown we have a new obsession: The Backyard. Every morning now I wake to Knittymunchkin chanting Outside! Backyard! Outside! It’s adorable, but here in the Pacific Northwest it stays cool in the mornings most of the year. Sometimes even downright cold when you’d least expect it. Even the most scorching afternoon may be preceded by a dawn filled with frosty condensation pouring from your mouth as you chase an active 2 year old in the yard. All I really want to do is curl up on the couch in my pjs with a hot cup of coffee. But like a good Mama, I try not to squelch his desire for fresh air and the great outdoors. This morning found me freezing my keester off in the early dawn as a bundled up Knittymunchkin careened around the yard and I tried not to shatter my teeth with all the shivering I was doing. I managed to find a really old (we’re talking circa 1991) pair of fingerless gloves that my parents sent with me when I went off to college in Upstate New York. I put them on and they were scratchy as all get out. This would not suffice. That means I need some good fingerless mitts to keep my digits toasty, but my fingers free to accept cups of sand “coffee” and plenty of “pretty flowers” (dandelions).
I’ve never actually made myself a pair of fingerless gloves before. I’ve made a bajillion (it seems) as gifts, but never any for myself. I checked my queue and there were only three patterns in there, two of which I deep-sixed back to my favorites. The only worthy pattern remaining was Commuter Fingerless Mittens from Knitty, First Fall 2011. Good thing I have a ginormous stash to “shop” from! I pulled out some Berroco Ultra Alpaca that had been gifted to me a few years back by my good friend Kathy (blog-free; the one I made the squares for here). I am a few rows in and I am loving this yarn! Where have you been all my life? In my stash, actually. Just waiting to be discovered.
I forsee more of this in my future. Both the Ultra Alpaca and the frosty mornings outside…
Monthly Archives: April 2012
Snot Rocket
Yes, that’s right. My precious angel has recently infected me with the crud and both our noses are dripping like your favorite ice cream cone on a sweltering summer day. I guess we’ve been pretty lucky. It’s April after all, and this is our first bout of the year. Of course Knittymunchkin is made of rubber and you can hardly tell that he probably feels terrible, between his cold and the last two teeth that are trying to push through. If only I could be so cheerful. I just want to lay in bed watching trashy movies and sleeping for, oh, the next week. Not happening.
Anyway, it’s Thursday again. I have missed the last two (three, if you count my pass week). But just because I haven’t posted, doesn’t mean I haven’t been chipping away at my goals. I think the exercise of trying to write about it once a week has done its work, without me actually having to go so far as to bore you with my tales of semi-reformed hoarderliness. That doesn’t mean I won’t continue to write about it, I just may not wax as poetic about it as I have up to this point (you don’t get off that easy, puh-lease!). The emotionally charged items I expect to give up now and then will still get their due, but things that go by the wayside more easily will hopefully receive a little more brevity on my part.
So. The Update:
Week 13 (March 29, 2012): Pass from Week 7’s massive offload
Week 14 (April 5, 2012): Candle & Bath stuff brought out of stash & put to use, pre-pregnancy jeans with hole in goddess grotto (ha ha) thrown out, 30 minutes of declutter every Tuesday established
Week 15 (April 12, 2012): 10 balls of yarn sent out via RAK, almost 1 lb. of dishcloth cotton scraps sent out via RAK, stickers sent out via RAK, sweater pledged via RAK underway, book mailed out via Bookmooch
Week 16 (this week): Book to Bookmooch
I’ll admit it. The jeans were a little hard to part with. I loved the way they fit when I was skinny; key phrase: when I was skinny. Realistically, as much as I would love to fit into them again, I never will. It’s a sad day when you feel defeated by your waistline. My brain raced with reasons to keep them: the hole’s not that big, you can hardly see it, you could wear them to garden, you might fit into them again someday, they’re so cuuuuuuuute. I gulped and threw them in the trash. Immediately I felt the irrational urge to fish them out. Instead, I walked away and found something else to occupy my mind. And then…. I totally forgot about them. Huh. So that’s how it’s supposed to work!
That same week I was reading an article in SHAPE magazine written by the experts who counsel the people on “Hoarders”. There were lots of tips in there on how to cut down on your clutter and get more organized. I was particularly struck by the one that said you should set aside thirty minutes on a specific day each week to de-clutter. It sounded like a great idea. Now that I have a lot less structure in my days, being that I report to Knittymunchkin instead of a 9-5 workplace, I find it a lot harder to focus and get things accomplished. You’d think somehow it would be easier, with all that time in my day, but it really isn’t. Time with a two year old vanishes faster than you can say “Elmo”. So scheduling specific organization time seemed like a great idea. I chose Tuesday evenings for my new plan and so far it has worked really well. Thirty minutes is long enough to get something done, but not long enough to feel like you are chained to a specific task. The first week I could actually see the top of part of my desk again after just one session. I’d realistically like to do this more than once a week, but for right now one session is about all I can commit to. Still, it helps!
Little Bubbles Baby Set - Yoke
I mentioned that in Week 15 I pledged a sweater via the Random Acts of Kindness Group on Ravelry. Every month you can post a wishlist and this month I posted on my wishlist that I needed a knitting recipient. I had two kits for the Little Bubbles Baby Set from KnitPicks, and I never got around to knitting them for Knittymunchkin. Now that he’s too big for the biggest size, it’s kind of a lost cause to make it for him. So someone answered my request and I’m knitting this for her 5 month old. Hopefully, by the time I finish it it will be the perfect size for her :) The colors I have aren’t sold anymore (or shown on the pattern page) but I love them. Knitting this makes me wish I’d had more time to knit things for Knittymunchkin before he was born. Oh well. Maybe I’ll save that second kit for the grandchild I may have one day. I know that’s planning pretty far in advance, but it would be worth it to have it when the time is right. Uh oh. Maybe I really haven’t made any progress!
Off to sniffle in bed with a book for a while. Hope you are all staying healthy & happy!