Practice what you preach!

 

It's one thing for me to send you off on an assignment every day for decluttering our houses, but quite another if I'm not following along. Part of that is time constraints as I go through this current series of presentations. After this coming week, the number per week will drop by two, and that'll make a HUGE difference. I'll also have most of them tweaked to my satisfaction with videos and samples made so the prep time will drop. Phew! That'll be nice to have a wee bit more relaxed pace. 

Well, I got a bee in my bonnet about those magazines yesterday, and I couldn't let it go. This is what happened at my house. 

WAIT -- the pictures are out of order so let's start with the morning and then move to the afternoon. 

I went shopping! In-person - no curbside. My usual shopping area just happens to be in one of the open regions. It's a five-minute drive from the house. I've been good - staying at home, but it had come to the point where I needed to get out. It's hilarious as all five places I went to are in a row within three LONG blocks. They were on the side of the street that was open. Shops on the opposite side of this street are closed. It's a bit too far to walk, and I wasn't carrying bags of dog food home! 

The first stop was to get dog food. I saw these cute little cloth containers for dog poop bags. I did NOT buy one, but I could make one. As a matter of fact, I think I have a couple of small (think teeny) duffle bags, and I could dig one of those out. For the moment, I keep the bags in my pocket, but as spring approaches and the need for a jacket will go away - eventually, I'm going to need something that attaches to the leashes. God forbid that someone needs one, and we've used up the couple that I take in my pocket.  

Dog poop bag zippered mini-duffles

Then I went to Home Depot to look for some cleaner for the stovetop and black screws. Hmm - they do NOT make black screws - I was advised to buy paint! I did find the cleaner and bought a stainless steel cleaner for the new microwave as well. 

Seriously, other than wearing a mask and NOT parking in the curbside pick-up spots, things are pretty normal. Yes, capacity in the stores is reduced, but when have you ever been in a store and it's been at capacity? Maybe Christmas, maybe the garden season, depending on the store. 

I stopped at Value-Village. Just because! I needed a fix of scrounging, and look what I found. I found a Scrabble game, and while I don't need it, I always vowed that whenever I found one, that I would buy it for the letters. That's it - NO MORE!!!  I also checked out the puzzles and found this SUPER easy one - well, except for that blue background! What the heck - I didn't need it, but it was only $2.99. I'll make it and pass it along. I LOVE that brand of jigsaw puzzle, so that's more why I bought it. I also bought a shirt to embellish.

Finds at Value Village

Again - shopping was just like normal. No line-ups, no waiting. 

Then I was off to Fabricland, where I picked up some thread and some yarn. They were the only store asking you to use hand-sanitizer when you walked in and the only store keeping track of the number of customers in the store. I think the maximum was 20. And they had a security guard doing that dirty job at the front. 

The last shop was Staples to get some tags and some folders. I got what I wanted, and I was out of there in a flash. I stopped to pick up Harvey's for lunch, and I was home in less than two hours! 

How crazy that I got excited about those mundane tasks, but at the same time, I resented spending two hours doing silly errands. 

OK -- I get it that I have a small car, but can you tell me why someone (in the city) would need this monster truck?  It's hard to tell in the photo, but if that truck ever hit me head-on - well, it wouldn't be pretty for me. The top of my car barely touched the top of the hood of his truck. And this wasn't even a true monster truck (with the big tires and jacked up)  - it was just a HUGE truck. 

A monster truck

I decided it was time to deal with that picture frame. I needed a screwdriver to take the frame apart. That's when I realized that this was professionally framed. I hate to throw that frame away. There's a nice piece of mat board in the frame as well. All that it needs is new glass - I would imagine you can buy new glass. But what a bother that would be. Oh well - it did hang up in our house for a long time; it might be best to keep the mat board and toss the frame. A shame, but what the heck will I do with it, and what will anyone else do with it? Unless they know how it went together, they will NOT be able to put it back together. 

The disassembled picture frame

I wanted to take a photo of the picture inside, but it's so glossy that I kept getting glare. I'm going to have to figure out a little studio set-up to get rid of the glare. 

This was NOT my idea, but a blog reader suggested that I put the picture in the center of that border print left from M's quilt. I can't remember who that was, but LOOK - it looks amazing in there. A brilliant idea!! And the right size. Now to figure out how to put the poster on fabric and sew it together - it won't fit on one fabric sheet - I'll need four. I've got the sheets, but not the time to make that happen. 

Combining the sci-fi picture with the cosmic border print

The other suggestion (again from a reader) was to laminate the poster, and I'm going to do that, but I thought I might need to transfer it to the fabric first. So it'll get a second life at my house. The frame and that piece of broken glass will go. 

And now onto the magazine thing. 

First, I have two massive sets of bookcases. The magazines are housed in one (along with some books) and the other section strictly books. 

Some of the magazines had been sorted and put into labeled piles on the shelves. Some had not. So I started pulling piles of magazines off the shelves. Then I started moving them around so that if there was more than one pile of the same title, they were close to each other. 

The floor was a mess of unsorted magazines. 

The great magazine sort

Then I started to sort them, and this is where I left them last night. I must have been thinking of this last night. I had a dream that I was sorting and organizing, but it wasn't magazines - it was something else. I don't remember what. 

Sorted into similar titles

I was back at it this morning and shuffled a few more things around. This is what it looks like this morning. 

The current situation

And there is only ONE set of shelves that still needs some attention. Once that gets done, the rest of the magazines will go back on the shelves. There is a fairly large pile of odd titles, and that really should be my focus when I pull another stack to read. 

One more section to sort

I already feel much better about this huge mess. And you know what? I even feel happy to let some of them go. But ONLY once I've looked at them. Hey - if I spent the money to buy them, the least I can do is get some entertainment from them. The bottom line is that they are NOT in the way, and they are organized, so there is no urgency to ditch them. That time will come. I'm not adding (much) to the pile. I've let most subscriptions lapse, and I'm very picky about what I buy now. 

I pulled several binders from the shelves. These are filled with pages that I tore from other publications, and I found an entire binder filled with actual patterns for scrap quilts. Good grief!!! Those will likely go back on the shelf as is, but they will need to be addressed at some point as well. So yep - even if you pull a pattern from a magazine, that doesn't mean you'll actually make it. Or even remember that you did so. That's why I prefer scanning and filing on the computer. I probably won't remember it either, but at least it doesn't take up space!

Binders filled with pages of patterns torn from magazines

But while I was tidying this morning, I FOUND something that was lost. I KNEW that I had this book because I remember exactly where I bought it  -  at Quilts at the Creek, several years ago. 

Can you guess what it is????

What is that PURPLE book?

It's the PRINCE book from the Cherrywood Challenge. YEAH!!!!!!  That book cost $38, so I was glad to find it. I was prepped to buy a new one, but I hand not done that yet!!!

The Prince book from the Cherrywood Challenge

And now it's tucked on the shelf with the OTHER Cherrywood Challenge books. NO - we have not heard from Cherrywood about the winners of the Princess Di challenge. The PINK one. Due to the crazy storms in the US, delivery of some of the pieces was delayed, so they were waiting for all of them to come in. The announcement will be this month. Once that announcement is made, I'll share my challenge piece with you. 

My set of Cherrywood Challenge books

And I managed to get a customer quilt done!! That'll get trimmed this morning and picked up later today. 

Customer quilt - DONE

So yesterday was a GREAT day. I do not feel guilty in the least to give you an assignment for tidying up!  The magazines are in order, and all that is necessary now is to find the time to read them. I do, but only for a few minutes a day which means it will take a long time to clear them out. And there are some that I will definitely keep. 

It's Sunday - really? The weeks are flying past; I can barely keep track of the days! But let's take a break from cleaning and decluttering. What you need to do today is grab that stack of magazines that you do NOT want to keep but want to read and take two of them. Read them and then toss them in the recycling. 

You know what my problem is? I can't just read the one article that I'm interested in - NO - I have to read the entire thing from cover to cover. Where I acquired that habit is beyond me!! But I don't mind, I usually find some interesting tidbits of stuff. I'll share with you the ones that I'm currently going through tomorrow. I'm not keeping anything - not even taking pictures, notes, or anything. Just reading and then passing them along to someone interested in reading them. Otherwise, I'd be tossing them. And yes - I did ask first!

Wow -- I'm so excited that I found that book. The next thing I need to do is to sort those books by category or topic. That's going to be a HUGE job, and I'm not sure I'm ready to make that happen. It's going to be complicated and huge! My heart was pounding after shifting some of those heavy stacks of books and magazines. So I've been walking, but I've done nothing for maintaining upper body muscle mass.

 Let's hope that the gym opens soon! I know that I don't need a gym to stay in shape, but I want the gym to open. Although that means I'll have to drive there - it's not that far away, but by the time I walk there and then walk back, I might as well have gone for a walk. I could ride my bike there. It's about 4 KM away. 

Starting tomorrow, our area goes out of total lock-down, and so some retail is allowed to open. Let's see how quickly the stores will reopen. Not that I  need anything, but it would be nice to browse every once in a while. Heck - I don't do that anymore! OK - so I just want to be able to walk to Bulk-Barn at the mall. That's it! I'm a person with simple needs and requirements. 

On that note, enjoy your magazine reading today. 

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!