Making Space #2

For some reason I am unable to confine myself to any kind of structure, rules or regulations.  It is a pattern that seems to be developing the older I get.  At 73 I am become more emboldened to miss deadlines and resist expectations ... finding them to be uncomfortable like wearing tummy slimming panty hose over a tummy that refuses to be slimmed.   

No, I am not at the "breaking the law" stage or anything ... at least not yet!  🤣 Joking of course.  Truth: I am not breaking the law, and Truth: I wouldn't admit it here if I did, and Truth: I might want to try that sometime - you know, like jay-walking or something. Ha!  But Final Truth: I am not going to do something really stupid.  I am not totally insane ... at least not yet! 🤣 !   

Anyway, back on topic - if there is a deadline I am definitely going to miss it - even if I made the deadline myself!  And that is what I am doing weekly with my Making Space posts. Missing the deadline. Going forward - I am participating but the posts will just be ... well ... a surprise!    

You see I had these decluttering items ready for a post for the last 2 weeks.  They sat in a bag near my table - technically still in my house but waiting for the "decluttering ax" to fall right after I posted about them.  

There are 11 items here mostly going into the trash but the children's cloth books will go to the thrift store along with the shorts that don't fit (for the same reason I don't wear tummy slimming panty hose) and a tee shirt that shrunk upon washing or my breasts grew or I gained weight.  (I like option #1.)

With this post 21 items total have been discarded.  

 

Addiction In A Box

So now I remember ... Addiction.

Almost a full day spent getting this puzzle sorted and prepared for when my daughter arrives to night ... so we can work on it together.  I thought I would start to get the borders in place to save time.  And sorting out some pieces into separate categories so they are easier to sort through.  And then just going a little further with some inside pieces because I couldn't find all the border pieces.  And when I looked up ... it was 3:30 in the afternoon.  I did nothing but work on this puzzle today.  

Geez!!  

I should back up.  The past spring I got it in my head that I wanted to do some jigsaw puzzles.   You know, 'pandemic boredom' had set it.  So I started shopping on line and discovered this was not a new idea.  Apparently the rest of the world had the same idea.  The puzzles I was interested in were selling out at record speed.  I finally settled on 5 puzzles - 1000 pieces each.  Then I paused.  It has been probably  25 years since I did jigsaw puzzles.  So I purchase another one - 500 pieces to get into the swing of this with a smaller challenge.

AND because I don't have a dedicated space to leave a puzzle set up, I shopped around for puzzle savers.  I used to have a HUGE one that did not work very well.  You would close it up like a very large brief case.  When it was re-opened, everything was a mess.  I settled on an inflated roll and cover.

That all happened in the spring and summer.  I had not opened even one of them.  Life got busy and 'pandemic boredom' passed.  Then last weekend my daughter expressed an interest in doing a puzzle and I was thrilled.  But my procastinor self waiting until today - Friday.  By default - today is the day.

That's the back story. The front story is I spent the whole day working on it - couldn't set it down - although I tried twice and found myself returning again and again.  

Here is, 'little old anal me,' setting up the puzzle on my new felt pad.  Along with the puzzle saver roll. I purchased puzzle trays that allow you to sort your pieces by whatever method you choose and keep them neat and tidy between puzzle sessions.  This puzzle was 500 pieces and didn't look too hard.  In the end had an edge piece tray, an object piece tray (if I could make out the object on the piece it when into a tray), a letters piece tray, a blue piece tray, and a checker board floor piece tray.  All the other pieces were left together for now.

At 3:30 after sorting out the trays and trying to complete the border (which I haven't - I also remember swearing that pieces were missing years ago - they never were - but I am sure this time!! 😀) this is what got done. This is the only thing that got done today.

Holy Moly!!  

Does anyone else work on puzzles?  Do you have a method or are you just not as OCD as I am?  Is this progress typical?  Its been 25 years or more and I just don't remember, but I can tell you if you are trying to juggle a job and a family and house hold chores ... DO NOT TAKE UP JIGSAW PUZZLES!!  Of course if you are like me and your time is your own - give them a try.  They are great fun.  I just wish I could leave the puzzle out and put in a few pieces at time and then walk away.  I wonder if they have Jigsaw Puzzle Anonymous groups!

Anyway, I finally packed it up so we could eat at the table and here is how it looks.

And here are the other puzzles waiting in the wings to totally destroy any plans I have for things like laundry, cooking, food shopping, cleaning.  

Oh wait!  I hate doing those things.  

Ha!  So maybe this isn't a bad thing!

And, yes, I show 6 puzzles!  Forgot a few.  And they have a similar theme - Halloween-ie!  Guess I need to broaden by collection.
  

Memories of Halloween

Halloween 2020 was bound to be different from any previous Halloween of my memory.  It was my grand daughter's first Halloween - or rather the first one she would be able to participate in. 

Her parents planned a party at home for her - a small family gathering, just me and her grandfather and her Aunt.  We came done up in witch hats and blinking light necklaces and wrapped Halloween cookies for her treat bag.

My two beautiful ladies - Esk and my daughter!

Her mom made the cutest Halloween cake - from scratch, no less.  Cute as could be and very delicious. (Low in calories, too.  Not!)

Her parents had a Halloween blow up figure in the back yard, a scavenger hunt in the house for Halloween goodies and a yummy dinner of barbecue ribs. 

She was dressed as a ballerina! 

Even her dog Rags had a costume - devil wings - that he wore for only about 2 minutes because he was sort of terrorized by them and we couldn't leave them on when we saw his reaction.  Poor boy.  For such a big imposing bully (English Bulldog), he is secretly not imposing at all.

I love this picture of my son and his daughter. 

He is such a good guy and it warms my heart totally to see him gently nurturing such a beautiful child.  

And Halloween just wouldn't be Halloween unless you visited a neighbor and greeted them with a "Trick or Treat."  Their few neighbors live on 6 or more acre plots - just visible from their own property and trick or treating was a rare occurrence. No other children live on that lane.  

Esk came with a small bag of treats for the neighbors!!

But one neighbor - an elderly couple who seem to have struck up a neighborly relationship with the younger new comers on the lane (my son and his wife) invited this little person, my dear Esk,  to make a trick or treat visit to them.  So we all walked down the lane in the late afternoon to visit and get a piece of candy.   So much fun.  More fun than canvasing a townhouse development or apartment project where the neighbors are on top of each other and the candy haul would become too heavy for those little arms to carry.  

The candy dish was on the bottom step.

And how much fun it was to see the neighbors encourage Esk to take more candy (in fact take the whole bowl - of about 20 pieces) while she had mother's words of repeating in her head, "Esk, when you visit you take just one piece."  You can be sure Esk walked away with all the pieces!

And the adults got to visit for a short time while Esk picked candy one piece at a time.  It was so much fun.

Esk was not frightened at all by the images moving on her walls.  She loves the Halloween cartoons and stories so much.  

Some day things might go back to normal, but for now, making new memories (safe and socially distant memories) is what it is all about.

Her Trick or Treat bag!

 

Making Space #1

So yeah!

  I missed the first week of decluttering!  

Thank goodness this is a relaxed kind of challenge!  

Sigh!

I am joining Beckie at http://www.Fieldlilies.blogspot.com) on an informal challenge called Making Space - Declutter 10 items a week - and if life gets in the way - you might miss a week, but the goal is to post 10 items weekly on the day of your choosing.

It wasn't hard getting 10 items together this first week.  These items are things I have kept for absolutely no good reason.  

• Three magazines all from 2018 - that have been sitting on my end table in the living room.  It is 2020 last I checked! Never opened!  I should never buy magazines.  I never read them.  
• A bag of red mechanical pencil refills.  I don't even own a mechanical pencil and I never write in red. I have no memory of when those refills came into our house.  
• Two mayonnaise jars I saved for some really.good.reason!!! (Not!) Do you save jars?  Am I the only crazy person that saves that kind of thing ... and never use it?  
• A fairly nice piece pottery for storing garlic.  Why would I get rid of that?  Well, I always buy my garlic in jars - already chopped and ready to go.  I did use it once or twice but kept forgetting it had garlic in it!! I threw away a lot of dried up garlic using that pottery.  Stopped using it years ago.
• A pink bag clip that held absolutely nothing closed.  
• And a jar candle.  That candle was used as a door stop in the condo and was left by the previous owner.  I couldn't throw it away because it was perfectly fine.  But I seldom burn candles and when I do I prefer soy candle wax because it leaves less soot on my walls.
• A pair of drug store readers - from my husband when he could partly see.  They were #5s - they don't sell #5 in the store.  They had to be special ordered.

Some of this is going in the trash and some of it will be donate to my local church thrift shop!

Seriously, this first week has been a breeze.  I am sure it will get harder because I have done a lot of decluttering in the past.  But it gives me peace when I move stuff out the door.

Already have the stuff for week #2 collected.  I just need the discipline to sit down and do the post!!

 

Making Space For What Matters

 

I used to participate in 'blog challenges' when the idea of blogging was new-ish and I was looking for content to write about.  Over time I drifted away from that kind of activity - enjoying just reading some of the posts that others provided.

Over the month of October a few blogs I follow were participating in a decluttering challenge.  It was called 30 Days to Less or Minimalism is a Journey.  The premise each day's decluttered items matched the number of the date in October ... and you picture them on your blog before removing them from your home. For example: October 1 - one item, October 2 - two items, and so on.  At first I thought the idea was worthy but too small to make much of an impact ... until we got to the higher numbers of the month, like the 20th, the 21st, ..... the 30th and the 31st!!!  Then the impact got to be substantial and challenging because it was a daily activity with increasing numbers of items with each passing day.  In fact on the final day some bloggers totaled up the discard items to discover that during October they had decluttered close to 500 items.  I consider that very substantial.  I found this challenge about day 10 - and although I was tempted to join in, I didn't see the point of starting in the middle. (an OCD part of my personality that slips into perfection. *sigh*)

So here we are on November 2nd - and one of the participants (Beckie at http://www.Fieldlilies.blogspot.com) decided to continue the challenge and less deadline driven stress.  It is called Making Space - Declutter 10 items a week - and if life gets in the way - you might miss a week, but the goal is to post 10 items weekly on the day of your choosing. That would play out to only 40 items a 4-week month as opposed to almost 500 items in a month!  Doable and also significant.  I will say the title of this challenge, Making Space, has always been the entire reason I have decluttered.  It is the positive stimulus at the end that motivates me to clean things out.  The older I get the more I feel the need for an uncluttered environment. I know that clutter for some is a mental stressor.  For me it is a de-motivator to everything else in my life.  

So I joined!

I am also hoping this practice - besides making space in my condo - will make me a more frequent blogger.  I certainly have fallen off the wagon over the last few months.  I blame it on the pandemic - but in truth - it is just plain laziness on my part.  It takes a certain amount of discipline to post regularly and that is what I have been lacking.  

Thank you Beckie for the gentle nudge resulting in a worthy effort! 

My declutter posts will be published mid-week - Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday - like Beckie's.  My mind is buzzing already with items on the way out.  Lets see how far this goes!

National Cat Day!!

 Happy National Cat Day, 

Miss Aja!!

Slipping

So much is slipping past me these days.

Imagine my shock when I discovered that time had slipped so far from my last post of August 31st.    We have also slipped into Fall in my little portion of the earth.  The colors aren't in full bloom yet, which seems odd as we are facing Halloween.  The weather has been so odd.  Guess Mother Nature is confused.  But the days are getting shorter - so there is no missing what is happening.  I like Fall, but my very favorite season is Winter.  

And I have totally slipped off my 'knitting mojo' this summer.  I blame it on the pandemic.  

The picture above shows my garter stitch blanket I started in March 2020 done in double worsted weight acrylic.  We finished I just couldn't keep it.  It was too heavy, too big, and filled with too many thoughts related to being Covid 19 home bound.  Just not happy thoughts.  It is now on it way to a thrift shop. 

As much as I like to think this world event hasn't impacted me all that much ... it has.  Something inside me has slipped and my focus on my usual passions like knitting has shifted to more pensive pursuits ... no deadlines to meet, no forced expectations.   

The picture above is a sport weight silk scarf for my daughter.  Very soft and squishy - and almost done.   

It is like I have given myself permission to back away from artificial structures like a to-do list and just go with the flow of doing what seems right at the moment.  Eventually I get around to doing things that actually needs doing (like laundry or vacuuming) - but the world doesn't end because I let something slip to several days later.  Is it the pandemic or just my age that makes me rebel against expectations.  Probably both.  

Taking time to just "be" has worked pretty well in noticing Aja's continued transition.  She is spreading her 'imaginary wings' and claiming her rightful place in our home - more and more every day.  

The picture below is proof positive Aja visits the living room - looking out the living room window at the night. 

When Milo comes for a visit, she makes a point several times of day of coming out of the bedroom - sort of a 'statement' that she is the rightful owner and Milo is the guest.  That is true, of course.  She runs  back to the bedroom if he starts to walk to her - but she continues to make the effort.  Maybe someday they will be friends.  

Here she sits on my lap - brief visits but frequent.  At some point she will relax, I am sure.

She gets on my lap almost every day - sometimes twice in the period of an hour.  She still struggles with feeling comfortable there, but just like everything else she will grow into it.  She has found her perfect hiding place in a plush little bed I put in the bottom of my husband's closet.  She still enjoys her sunny out-in-the-open bed by the window.  And just this week, I found her sitting by an open window enjoying the fresh air - I think she has finally adjusted to the outside neighborhood noise.  The biggest leap has been her adjustment to my husband.  She will always be a "woman's" cat, but she allows him to pet her as long as he doesn't extend that petting session for too long.  He is the 'cat feeder' and she loves her food - so as time goes on she will include him into her circle of trusted people.

She is kind of camera shy so getting good pictures of her is a challenge. 

My other priority during this time of Covid has been my grand daughter.  I see her less often now that she has returned to day-care, so when we finally get together I can readily notice how quickly she is advancing in her language skills, her imaginary play and her concept development.  And for some darn reason she looks forward to coming to my house - 'grandma's house!'  

Last time she visited she was scheduled to come to my house for a sleepover after her nap!  When she awoke she told her mother she would pee and have her apple juice at my house rather than doing it before she left.  hahaha! Love that kid.  It couldn't be that I have something new and different when she comes every time.  Last weekend, she got to be a "princess" in this dress I bought her - complete with a crown, long gloves, necklace and wand!  Best $25 I ever spent!!  

I love this picture of her in her princess regalia - holding an iPad! Sort of a mixture of two worlds!

I keep telling her to aim for Queen - don't mess with this princess stuff.  Be the one in charge!  She is only 2 so we have many molding years ahead of her! Time slips pretty darn fast, however, every time I see her and discover how quickly she grows and develops.  It is a joy to witness but also a sadness.  I want to hold her back just a little to enjoy the beauty and wonder of every stage.  Some day her grandma might be too old her for, not able to keep up with her, or her friends are more important that this old lady ... it is the way of things as they grow ... so these times now are precious in my heart.

Everything is not "sweetness and light."  I hate this new blogger platform.  Why can't they just leave it alone!! But I hate the thought of starting over on another blog system more than sticking with this one.  So I will soldier on ... complaining all the way.

And then I discovered today that about 50 emails in my gmail account were incorrectly directed to Spam.  That is where blog posts from others are directed - to my gmail account.  I thought my blog friends were particularly quiet recently, but I didn't wonder if it was an error.  I read many but too many to try and comment.  Can't help wondering if my computer has a bug of some sort. 

So that is my story here on the East Coast of the USA.  We are 2 weeks from our Presidential Election.  The heat of that has become as hot as the sun!  We need a change back to civility ... we need to return to Country First - not Party First!  I think we need new leadership to make that happen.  I am so tired of all the hate talk, the acts of violence and the insults.  We need to be civil - and we need a leader who at least knows the definition of that word.  I am tired of seeing out Democracy slipping away!  Hoping for a change at the top!