How to get rid of clutter FAST

A sad note to start the day. My Uncle Bob passed away yesterday. For the lifestyle he lived, he lived a long life - he was in his 80s. He is now at peace. While we did get a chance to visit him when I was home, he was pretty drugged up. He did wake up and acknowledge that there were people in his room, but I'm not sure he recognized us. I'm glad I got to see him one last time.

That makes uncle number two on my Mom's side of the family that has died of cancer. They were the brothers in law, so that's the silver lining in this story.

I had to pick something up yesterday (no worries - it's just a loan for a month or two), but it was my first visit to a storage locker facility.

Inside a storage locker

This is how you get rid of clutter FAST. You rent a unit and then buy a lot of boxes and shove all your stuff in the boxes and move them to the storage facility. This is NOT a good thing to do. Have you noticed how many storage units there are around? A LOT. I know there's a show on TV about storage lockers. I think if you need to store stuff in a storage locker, then you have TOO much stuff.

Unless, you're really downsizing and it makes sense to store stuff in the locker. I guess you could set up your sewing machine in the locker space and sew all day and then go back to your mini apartment? I wonder if those units have electricity? I will have to downsize one day, but it's not today.

Anyway, I have no intention of renting a storage locker. I'm trying to get rid of as much as I can. I have a scheduled pick-up for stuff today. I need to get my butt in gear and get it all on the front step before 8 AM. There's more stuff that I want to pack up, I'll see how I make out for time. I can always schedule another pick-up. There's a LOT going out the door this morning. And now that there'll be a bit more room in the garage, I can start a new stack for the next pickup.

Since I have the computer for the long arm, I no longer have a need for all the paper patterns that I've bought over the years. What to do with them? AHA - a friend just bought herself a long arm and needs patterns. They are now spoken for and I deliver!!!

Two bags of paper patterns - GONE (or they will be in a couple of weeks)

M wants a sewing machine. She bought an inexpensive one, but I told her that I have a couple of extras so she is getting one of them and she returned the one she bought. It's going out this weekend. I need to find all the bits and pieces which are mostly in the machine's accessory box, but I'm not sure where the darn manual is. Well - the thing is online if I can't find the real thing. The machine needs to be packed in a box and ready to go on a plane this weekend. One more thing - GONE!!!!

However, she also has a rolling cabinet filled with stuff that she was going to work on before she left home. I had to rearrange the studio a wee bit to get to the cabinet.

Moving stuff to get to the cabinet

I found a ripped pair of stretch jeans. Garbage. I found some clothes that she had purchased at the thrift shop that she was going to modify. They're in the give away pile this morning. I found her sewing basket - I'm going to empty the tools and pack them with the sewing machine. There's no room to pack the toolbox on this trip. 

M's sewing stuff

 There's some fabric in the drawers. Clothing fabrics. I might have a look for myself as I've got a hankering to make some clothes for myself. I know - call me silly, but seriously, there's a strong revival in making clothes and I want to be in there with the rest. And I could use some new clothes!!!

I learned something about tea presses yesterday. Recently I purchased a travel size tea press. The lady explained how it worked and it even came with directions, but for some reason, I missed the word HOT for what temperature of water to add.

The other day on my errands, I was back at the mall, to get a large tea press so I wouldn't have to keep making small batches. A different person walked me through the instructions and I read them when I got home. OH - you should be adding HOT water to the tea press to let the tea steep. Hmm - I wonder if that will make a difference to the strength of the tea?

Tea steeping in the tea press

I let it steep for a wee bit longer as was recommended on the directions.

Iced tea ready to go

This is what I learned once I actually thought about the tea making process.  The tea is very fruity flavored and it's nice. It's not very strong but it's probably about the same strength as if you had made a "cold" fruit drink. Then it hit me - there's NO sugar in the iced tea (oops - there's ONE gram of sugar in a serving) and that's probably what I was missing. I just checked the cold fruit drinks at Tim's - A raspberry frozen lemonade has 26 GRAMS of sugar.  I think that's the difference that I was missing. Well, now that I understand the process and I understand why the taste is "weak", I'm good to go. I just thought I was doing something wrong.

And I learned that hot or cold, the water temperature didn't seem to change the taste of the iced tea. But I'll use hot in the future. I LOVE that tea press and there's always iced tea ready to go in the fridge.

And now onto the quilting stuff.

Despite spending the entire morning on the computer, and I was running an errand on the other side of the city, I got a quilt quilted. This is the second of this customer's quilts and it's DONE.

Customer quilt - DONE

 In case, you think I was cheating and showed you the same quilt twice - here are the backs. They are different!  Both quilts are trimmed and I"ll be sending a note to the owner this morning for pickup.

The backs of the customer's quilts

Two down for this week and four more to go. Not doing very well in that department, but I should be able to get two done today. The next one is already loaded. I cheated and put one of my own on the machine. Then a customer one will go on later today.

I'm going to be in trouble with my Mom. I searched high and low for that missing pattern yesterday. I put it in a safe place so I could make it for her and now I can't find the darn thing! GRRRR!  Will not admit defeat in that department yet. I know it's there. I saw it recently - it's just a question of where did I see it????

Lot's of paperwork to get done again today. It just never ends. All this teaching and designing requires a LOT of administration, but everything is almost under control for the moment. OK - who am I kidding - it's never under control. I wish it was as then I'd have some time to attack the paperwork in this office.

I was chatting with a friend yesterday and we were talking about clearing out stuff. While I know it would be great to set aside time and tackle the clutter problem once and for all, I don't work that way. I'm the slow and steady kind of person. I'm making inroads, just not super fast. But it's all getting looked at.

I've heard some stories from some of you and that's exciting that you're also making progress. The neater/cleaner/tidier our houses are, I find that our brains don't have to work as hard and has time to learn new things. I've managed to tidy up the kitchen (from a food perspective) and that has worked wonders. I deal with a few unprocessed foods and I don't worry about the rest. That's what my life seems to be about - removing all the unnecessary variables. I sure wish I did that when M was small, but kids seem to nag you until you give in or you do what is easy. Well, my new system is easy!!!!

On that note, I'd better get all that stuff moved to the front step and I still have to dig out a few things.

Have a super day!!!!!


Ciao!!!!