The decluttering continues

AH—those DHs and their set ways!!! This will NEVER be a dining room! But be sure to read to the end—the office may eventually have another purpose, and I approve!

Look at Murphy! She needs different things to entertain her brain, so she climbed on a rock in the forest! 

MOM -- look at me!! 

How fitting was this bit of wisdom in my Yogi tea yesterday? 

A fitting quote

Based on that and the fact the date of my adventure was changed, I decided to hit the office with a vengeance! I could hear you cheering me on, so I went for it. And besides the thought of having a flat surface for that puzzle? I'm in! 

I found magazines from 2014. The newsmakers of 2014. A lot different from today's newsmakers - just a mere 10 years ago. But who is on the cover then and now? Yep -- that would be Taylor Swift!

Old magazine

An "ancient" and well-used paper. Stained, ripped, torn, and now in the recycling. 

Good grief - I kept this?

I mostly stumbled upon brochures from another show! This time, it was the Houston Quilt Show—not one year's worth of brochures, but two years. I collected them when I worked for the fabric company, and we were always on the lookout for new designers. 

Pattern designer brochures

I had to empty my recycling, which became so full and heavy!

The recycling bin is full

Some of the brochures were in their original packaging. YES—shame on me for collecting all that stuff and NEVER acting on most of it! It was such a waste, but I have no regrets. It is what it is, and it's all in the recycling. Except I did keep this bag, as that tree could be used in journal-making! I'm allowed to keep a few things!!! I'm more excited about dealing with this now than having to deal with it if I were to move. I cannot imagine dealing with this because I HAVE to, rather than I WANT to, and with no set deadline! 

A cool image on a paper bag

Oh my—I have a fond memory of Deborah and me doing a schoolhouse on striped fabric and digital prints. I took a picture, but the card is gone. 

Schoolhouse invite

I kept plugging away, and YES, I did consolidate some of the stuff, but look!!!!! I can definitely put a small puzzle together in that space. 

Open space on the desk

I consolidated some of the junk on top of the filing cabinet to free up space on the desk. But it's all in containers, and it's easy to grab a container at a time. Well, that's my reading bag out front. 

Three containers of stuff 

This stuff is still on the floor, and I will try to deal with it today. I need to address this before I move on to the next pile, or I'll make a bigger mess. 

Stuff to deal with today

I chuckled when I went through all those pattern designers. This company has nutcracker patterns. I remember years ago when I coveted EVERY nutcracker pattern that existed. Why? I've not made one of them, but I NEEDED them. 

Nutcracker patterns

Somewhere along the line, I got this idea that I have to do EVERYTHING, or READ everything, or collect everything. I remember saying as a kid (I lived a VERY sheltered life in the country until Grade 6 and even then) that I would read EVERY BOOK in the world. I had yet to learn how many books there were and how many authors, and the numbers are growing by the day! No one told me, which in some ways is good, but in others, someone should have said - there is only so much you can do! Read the good books first! 

While pitching and purging, I came across these from my daily quote page calendar (2017). I thought it was appropriate for what I was doing. 

Quote of the day

Ah, Jen Kingwell, she was in my life way back in 2016! I didn't know how many of her patterns we would do as sew-alongs at that time! We are on our FOURTH Jen Kingwell pattern, although I taught one of the quilts twice! Let's just say that her quilts are challenging and leave it at that! 

Jen Kingwell

Wait, I have one of her classes this morning, and I do not want to give anyone FOMO, but this is such a great class. Her pattern was written for hand piecing, but no one (wait - we have one lady) will handpiece it. Some of the blocks are IMPOSSIBLE, however, I'm breaking them down into various techniques and providing the information back to the group. I dare anyone to say they are NOT getting their money's worth from that class fee! I introduce a new technique or style to replicate the hand-pieced blocks every month! This is a fortunate group indeed!!! 

And then we have the easy quilts. I swear these two, along with log cabins, are so common that we should just have a website for super-easy quilts, have someone write a good pattern, and be done with it. How many of the same patterns do we need? 

Super easy quilt - 9-patch and hourglass block or 9-patch set on point

Half square triangles

I found this pattern. I know some people require a pattern—I totally get that. But some of these are so simple—squares and half-square triangles—that a pattern is really not needed. The beauty of these easy ones is that you can easily make them any size you want by adding blocks or making the block sizes larger or smaller! 

Simple pattern

I am lucky that my brain works in quilting like a duck takes to water. I get it, and I keep reminding myself that some people struggle. So, that pattern above? It's up for grabs if anyone wants it. 

I found this, and I have no idea what it's for. It says salt in multiple languages around the edges. 

What is this?

I was going to ask you what it was for, but then I decided to check with Google. OH MY GOSH—this is for the dishwasher. But what do I do with it? I guess I had better read the instruction manual! I took it out of the garbage, and I'll check the manual! 

I was on a roll, so I excavated a few more boxes and bags from the back of the desk. Those are all dealt with now. 

More stuff to deal with

Seriously? A box of oversized golf tees? What does one do with those? They went in the donation box. 

Oversized golf tees

And I had to empty the recycling bin a second time! 

The recycling bin is full again!

Remember me saying that I had to handle everything without just chucking it? I found MONEY!!! It was in a travel brochure from 2015 when I rented a house in PEI for a month. I suspect I know how it got there. A friend visited on that trip, and I likely bought something, and she paid me in cash. There was $60!!! And I found a $100 gift certificate the other day. No expiry date on it, and for a local shop that is still in existence. I'm going back to see if they will honor it!! 

Money

This is my clear area now! And yes, I want to get into those two remaining ends of the desk and keep digging! However, I was starting to hold onto too many pieces of paper, and I knew I was getting tired. 

WOW!!!!

I made amazing progress. While I still have paper to deal with, I made huge leaps and bounds in getting rid of stuff. I'm extremely excited about that. The big thing was that most of it was garbage—or should I say worthless junk that I had collected over the years. There were no action items, no earth-shattering stuff—just junk. And it's gone!!! 

Now, I must deal with odds and ends, which keep getting consolidated into a box. I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and use the garbage bin wisely when I get there. But I must take some time every day. This is actually one of the most freeing things I've done. Dare I say (and I'm a chocolate lover) that the satisfaction is way better than what I get from chocolate! GASP!!!

I'm giving a lecture on Monday on Modern quilts and even found some of my notes related to the lecture. Sigh. 

I also found these dots in the nick of time! I use them to indicate the blocks I've assigned in the pattern, as in my Dear Jen quilt. So, how timely was that? They will go in a safe place (the desk drawer, where they belong) so I can find them each month. 

My little dots are found!

It is so unbelievable that I allowed myself to dig this hole. I like to pile papers on each other; before I know it, they are buried. I wouldn't have time to deal with the paper, and then it was out of sight and out of mind. I'm remembering almost everything I find! But do I need to keep it? Nope!!! Think of how much brain space I'm freeing at the same time as I clear the physical space! 

There are two large buckets of paper on the desk that I want to tackle next. One is of the current paper, which might slow me down as I find things I'm supposed to do, but there's also more junk. I can feel it!! And the other is a bucket of filing. Good god --- there's no room in the filing cabinet to file it, so that will be a bit slower. But YES - I know most of this stuff no longer needs to be kept, so it should go relatively fast. First, sort the bills and other paperwork by category, find the appropriate folder in the filing cabinet, and then PURGE. 

I have three Zoom classes today and two tomorrow, so I doubt I'll have time this weekend. I really need to be sitting at the computer writing, so I may have to leave the decluttering for a bit. OK—I get excited on the walks with the girls, anticipating coming back to the office to declutter more. What is happening to me? 

But the important thing is that I'm not just tossing. I'm learning from what I see, and that's the most important thing. Whenever I go to a trade show, or anywhere, I try to pick up NOTHING. I take pictures to check out their websites, but I pick up NOTHING. Accept NOTHING free, as it will become clutter. Now -- if it's something that you can use, then by all means take it. But if you don't have an immediate purpose, just say NO!!!!

All the homework and presentations are done for today. Wait, there's a bit more tweaking I want to do on the final one today, so I have time to make that happen. 

But look at my scrap box after making the blocks. It's so pretty!!! I'll share the photos tomorrow of my quilt blocks after the group has seen them. 

My scrap box

If you're struggling to get motivated to tackle a drawer or a door, try verbalizing it! I verbalize through my blog, trust me, that's a HUGE motivator. Even talking about it can help. And if your SO isn't on board and won't listen, talk to me!! 

DH has a few things in his office that need to go, and I keep talking about how much space I will have. He even mentioned at dinner that he needs to clean his space. I think he let it go because he saw how bad my office was, and now he doesn't want to be the messy one. 

DH was so impressed (GASP) at how much progress I've made; he even suggested I put a hospital bed in here for him for when he can't make the stairs - he has bad knees. I said I'd order one today for him and put my stuff in the bedroom, which is about four times the size of the office! I could dance amongst my crap! He said he wasn't quite ready! But now that he's put that bug in my ear - I won't forget that! Be careful what you wish for! 

On that note, I'm out of here! 

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!!!