I want a robot!!

Yesterday wasn't quite as productive as I would have liked. I was doing great in the morning, but then I had an appointment to get my tires changed. My winter and summer tires are both on their own set of rims. You would think that would speed up the process.

When I arrived at the dealer, I had a wee bit of shock. Half of the building was gone! Now when did that happen? I see they're building a new, bigger, shinier showroom. I guess all the profit they made off my car??? 

Originally, the appointment was to last for 1½ hours. When I arrived, I was told that they were running behind. In the end, it took 2 ½ hours to get the tires changed. I could have done it in my driveway a lot quicker and I know not much about cars!!!  DH tells me to NOT go to the dealer to get that done and I guess he's right! I have my tires stored there but come the fall, I think I won't get them changed there - not if it's going to take that long.

How hard can it be to change the tires when they are already on the rims? And they put it on the hoist and use the pneumatic wrenches? Seriously??? I get it if the tires were NOT on rims  - it takes time to break the seal, move the tires to the other rims and then make a new seal. It's for that reason that I bought the extra set of rims. Oh well.....

Knowing that I was going to be there for a while, I hustled to get some pictures loaded on the internet so I could do some writing. When I opened my laptop, it was to discover that the darn thing was dead and I didn't have the power cord with me! GRRR - my own fault for not checking. I had a couple of other things with me, but it wasn't the same.

Last weekend, I went to a different library branch than I normally do. They were having an open house for their Makerspace. I absolutely love this concept. The library has a couple of sewing machines, some Scan n Cuts, robotic toys, a green screen and camera equipment for pictures/videos and a recording studio! All of this is FREE with a library card! Oh yes - they had a machine for converting VHS (remember those!) to CD or USB or something. I forgot to check that out. I just checked that website and OH MY - there is another branch closer to me that has all that stuff as well.

This branch was rebuilt and I've never been there since it was rebuilt. A visit is in order. Oh - now I"m excited!!!!

These are great spaces and unfortunately, there aren't a lot of people in the city that know about it. That's a shame. What fun to play with the video equipment and recording studio! They even had a fully loaded Mac with all the Adobe software. Well, I have the Adobe software, but what I need is a buddy to help me. And I need some time to really learn it all!

This is one of the remote controlled toys that they had. I think Murphy would love this. But we could never let her catch it as she would eat it.


It's called a Sphero. It was pretty cool and it glowed when you did stuff with it. Operated from a tablet. OH - I watched the video on the web site. I want one - they look like so much fun!!! But I don't need one.

Sphero

I had never been at this branch before so I had a look around. Jigsaw puzzles!!!  Oh yes - I didn't stop to put in a piece because I would have to put in more than one! I held myself back. But there's a place to donate my puzzles once I've made them.

Puzzle station

They also had a colouring station. I love it!!! I've not tried colouring yet, although I have tons of books. I might start donating those as I wonder when I'll get to them?  There are a couple of ladies at the apartment when my parents live and they colour together every day!!! The garage is papered with their handiwork!

Colouring station at the local library

We have a 3-D printer at my local library. Oh - this library branch also had an amazing program room. Just waiting to be used. It used to be that the library branch manager would be the one to "rent" space to local groups. Now it all goes through a central booking and they probably charge an arm and a leg to use it. So it most likely sits empty. Why not lower the cost and have the room full every day???? I must call and enquire - just for fun.

So, let's get back to that mess upstairs. I've mentioned that I'm starting to bring stuff up from the basement. All the bags of projects is what I'm focusing on. What exactly is in all those bags and how are we going to deal with it all???

Some of the bags of projects in the upstairs hallway

More UFOS in the spare bedroom

And even more stuff

As you can see - it's a huge mess. And how the heck am I going to store everything neatly and organized in those IKEA bags and laundry baskets? It's just not going to happen. I could buy a bunch of totes, but my goal is to get this mess used up and out the door. I don't want more totes.

Then I remembered that there are a bunch of similar sized cardboard boxes in the garage. These are the boxes that the magazine returned my quilts in. They would be perfect. I get it - cardboard is not our friend. These will not go in the basement. When I'm done, they can go in the recycling.

Cardboard boxes for temporary storage

I started to go through the bags and I'm sorting. Anything to do with rugs or rug making goes in one box. Bags and bits of bags (remember - this is project stuff only - no hardware or tools) go into another and clothing stuff in yet another and so on.

Once I get through all the bags, it'll be easy to pick a project (or a group of projects) and work on them. The boxes will be well labeled and they can be stacked to take up way less space than what they did previously.

This is something that should have been done years ago, but it never happened. When I started to have Sit n Sews, I literally winged those bags into the storage closet and well, the rest is history.

I feel really good about this organization step and quite frankly, dealing with those projects bags is pretty much the last step to get the entire place organized. OH - it doesn't deal with the quantity of stuff, but at least it'll be organized!!  And that will make me very happy.

On that note, I'm doing well on the prep for the weekend classes. STill, a wee bit of sewing to do and some assembly of some show n tell. It's my UFO project for Sunday that I'm worried about. It might be a late night on Saturday to get those two blocks finished!!!! I'm NOT giving up my $10!!!!

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!