A simple life

This morning? I'm in Windsor, Ontario. Ronda's daughter went to school here and now has her first official apartment. She needed some stuff brought down from home and could her Mom please bring the van loaded with her stuff? Ronda, ever the great trip planner, realized that there was a quilt show this weekend in Windsor so she coordinated the two things.

We arrived last night, got the van unpacked and are hanging out in her apartment. She's not even here. Celeste works nights and so we took advantage of that and crashed at her apartment. I brought my folding cot (love my folding cot) and Ronda has the bed.

But this place has me laughing. This is such a starter apartment, but it's a great apartment. There's no furniture per se in the living room except my cot and a chair we brought with us. No kitchen table, yet. Boxes of stuff hanging around, but seriously, the apartment is very cute. It's small - one bedroom but loads of storage.

There's a charm to this place and as Ronda and I were sitting here, it made me think how nice it would be to live in such a small place. A small place would mean fewer things. Fewer things would be nice. Less time spent managing lots of stuff. Of course, one would have to be super organized or even a small place could be a disaster.

If there is ONE thing that I wish someone would have told me earlier in life it would be to BUY LESS. Buy only what you need. I think this is a lesson that we have to learn - I don't think we can be told. But wouldn't it be nice if we could spend our time enjoying ourselves and our hobbies, instead of spending so much time managing our things? I think that is a great goal and one that I'm trying to put into place.

At least if things have a home, technically they are not consuming time in being managed. That's my goal. Get things to a manageable level - well a more manageable level. Keep things organized, give them a home, blah, blah, blah.

Now that the decision for the basement has happened, I'm going to try and be very careful and conscientious about how everything goes back in place. I don't want to necessarily just get rid of stuff, I want to have fun with it before I get rid of it. I have some boxes of GOOD quilting fabric that someone gave me for making charity quilts. I think there are three tubs. I want to have some charity sewing days where people come over and we create kits or sew them or whatever. But I would love for those tubs to go away. Then we can have some marathon quilting days as I already have close to 20 charity quilts to quilt. The tops are made and for the most part, backings are ready to go. And there are three rolls of batting designated for these quilts.

I think I'm going to plan some technique sew days and the students will come with nothing - well their sewing machine if they want - but I have lots of those to go around. I just need the manpower to make that happen. I've got loads of ideas and if I could get all this extra stuff out of my house and only deal with my stuff? That would be awesome!

So I'm going to get creative with what I have. Share it with people for sewing/learning and then donating the end result. Together WE ARE going to have a lot of fun cleaning up that basement. Yep - not just me - but YOU and ME!!!

I've rounded up the next lot of stuff to deal with. I took pictures of it all, but I can't upload them this morning. Christmas and Halloween decorations. Gift bags and wrappings, and other bags. HUGE piles of stuff and I don't want any of it! Now that the basement is going to move forward, that stuff is going to have to disappear quickly. The more I look at stuff, the more I want it out of my house.

So back to the apartment. Does anyone remember the type of flooring that they put in the hallways and stairs of these older apartment buildings? I'm not even sure what you call it, but it was a style and this place has it in the hallway. The kitchen is long and narrow - oh - my first place wasn't nearly as nice as this. However, there is one small issue. Sometime in the middle of the night, I hear crash, bang, clang. Yep - that would be the radiators kicking in! OK - that's a wee bit noisy, but I'm sure you would get used to that real quick!

I have to say that I was very successful with my paperwork yesterday. One more monkey on my back that is GONE. Well, just a small item left to finish on that and then it's done. Now, why the heck can't I do these things when they are fresh in my mind? Get them done so they don't become the monkey on my back? I've got to focus on that darn paperwork, the same way I focus on the sewing. I think part of it is the piles of paper in that space. Loads of surfaces to work on, but none are technically free to work on. There is much less on the floor than there used to be so progress is being made, but I need to schedule a couple more cleaning days and get to it.

I'm also trying to be much more efficient with my time. As we were leaving the house yesterday, I remembered a friend who was having trouble with her long-arm computer. Could I help her out? Well, yes, but I won't be around her house for a while. Then as we were leaving, I realized that we would be passing right by her house. So we stopped, got the files and the computer from the long arm. I'm going to check it out this morning and then drop it back at her house on the way home later today.

Plus guess where we are???  Well, Windsor, but I remembered that there is a great used book store in Chatham so we're stopping there on the way home! I've got my lists and I'm super excited to stop. Yep - way more excited to stop at the used book store than any quilt store!!!  And when I'm in the used book store, I ONLY look for what's on my list and I ONLY buy what's on my list. These are books that I cannot get through my library.

I should check my lottery ticket this morning before going to the quilt show. If I won, then I can buy whatever I want because I could rent a huge studio to store it all in. If I didn't, then I'll be window shopping. On the way down, I did come up with a couple of things that I need. Better to have a list in mind or one can go totally crazy.

I love doing road trips. And on the way down, we talked about a couple more road trips that we want to take. The thing is - will we have time to do them all this summer? NO - but good to have plans for the future!!!

On that note, I'm out of here to see if I can get Diane's computer working!

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!