Putting Away Childish Things

              

In the ongoing attempt to rid the house of excess baggage, I attacked Josie's art cupboard and a closet and a chest with lots of her toys stored therein. 

In the art cupboard I recycled old, used coloring books, trashed an assortment of broken bits and bobs and generally tidied. Some of her jigsaw puzzles are going to a thrift store, as are some unused workbooks and flash cards she no longer needs. I don't think she'll miss any of my removals. 

Her toy chest though is full of stuffies and a few baby dolls (Margo and Dolly and all their clothes,) I felt I needed her permission, even though she hasn't played with any of them in a long time. So, on the way home from school, I asked about the dolls and the stuffies.

She was excited to get home as a friend with a daughter almost Josie's age was coming for the weekend and Josie had a mandate from her dad to clean up her room.

So she thought a a few seconds and then said the dolls and stuffies could go. Of course I mentioned how much some little girls would love them and she agreed. "How about the doctor kit?' I asked. 

'Keep that,' she said. And then, 'No, it can go too.'

'How about the big building blocks in the living room closet?' I asked.

'They can go.'

I was amazed. And a little sad. (Not Margo and Dolly!) But pleased. I'd expected her to want to hang on to most of this stuff, even though she no longer plays with it, as books and podcasts, videos and art projects have filled the gap. And we still have the puppets and the dress-up box, as well as the amazing crocheted Octalia Octopus and the dolly llama from her Aunt Aileen.

Our little girl is a big girl now--almost nine, going on twenty-seven.

Ay, law!

                             

 

Reading Mary Stewart

In my ongoing book purge, I occasionally have to read a book to decide if it goes or stays. Such is the case with Mary Stewart, whose gentle mystery/romances I devoured in my younger days.

So I was surprised when, on rereading This Rough Magic, a book I'd loved,  set on Corfu and full of ties to Prospero and Shakespeare's Tempest as well as gorgeous passages of description, to find myself losing interest and being a tad annoyed at the well- worn trope of the young woman who is at first antagonistic to the young man with whom she will sooner or later fall in love.

I don't know--I still love Pride and Prejudice--possibly the grandmother of this trope. But I eventually put the book down and added it to the box destined for the next library book sale.

But then I gave Stewart another chance and am currently rereading her Arthurian quartet -- The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment, and The Wicked Day. And am delighted to say that the magic I remembered is still there. Her descriptions are gorgeous and if the Matter of Britain--the story of Merlin and Arthur--is more enchanting than the proto chick-lit of her earlier books, well it's not to be wondered at.

And on a blessedly rainy afternoon and evening, it's a delight!

                                     

       

 

What Goes Around . . .

A quarter of a century ago, when the quilting book a friend and I had written was published and being written up here and there, a woman I didn't know contacted me and asked if I'd like some fabric, as she no longer made quilts and needed to get rid of an accumulation.

Well, of course I would, and with visions of some really interesting fabrics from the past, my friend and I drove to Etowah on the other side of Asheville.

 What it was was a PILE of fabric in a back room full of junk. It didn't look especially promising --lots of synthetic stuff--but the lady was so nice and pleased that we were there that we loaded up most of the stuff and hauled it off, stopping at a Goodwill to offload the polyester pieces.

And now, here I am, no longer making quilts (my back won't let me sit at a sewing machine for longer than twenty minutes) but possessed of lots of interesting fabrics. I've been going through the collection and weeding out a first round but then I wanted to find a good home for the pieces, most too small for big projects but fine for patchwork or scrap quilting.

I  could just take it to a thrift store but then I bethought me of a quilter Facebook friend in the area. I asked if she'd be interested in 3 boxes of fabric and she said yes! Plus she's part of a quilting guild and can share with them.

Perfect!  

I still have lots of fabric left. As well as lots of unfinished projects. Maybe Josie will be interested in making a quilt. We'll see.

But it was strange to think how I've gone from trying to get fabric to trying to get rid of fabric.

I saved so much that, as I went through the various boxes of different colors and types, I found countless  tiny scraps which I consigned to a garbage bag.

I'm evidently in danger of being something like the old lady in a story John reminded me of: when she died, her family found a box labelled String Too Short to Save. It was full of short bits of string.

 

Things Left Undone

I've wrestled my workroom into a cleaner, neater, more organized place. But in doing so, I've been confronted with an embarrassing number of unfinished projects. 

There are a bunch of quilt blocks that were demonstration pieces, back when I taught quilting at our local junior college branch. And there are leftovers from larger projects. 

Like these 9 large squares--leftover from my niece Amelia's wedding quilt. Well, hell, thought I. I'll use them to make a quick pillow cover for that pillow form that's taking up room on my cutting table.

And I did. And it felt so good to have finished something--and to be sewing again -- that I determined to do some more.

This was an easy one--a basket block with the handle and heart needing to be appliqued.

I'd forgotten how much I enjoy hand sewing.

Done! I'll put it with a few other red/blue/yellow blocks I discovered and maybe someday put them all together in a little quilt. Maybe. First I need to finish some unfinished quilts.

Like this one. I think I made the blocks in one of my classes, using fabric reproducing Civil War era colors and patterns. Unfortunately, I really don't much like the muddy colors which may be why I never finished quilting it.

All but one block were quilted and the binding was on, but back then I'd begun an ambitious scheme of lots of quilting in the borders. Now, older and wiser, I thought about it and decided it wasn't needed--the three layers were already stable with the quilting in the blocks. So I picked out the one line I'd begun (20 years ago,) finished the unquilted block, and pronounced it done. Now I just have to figure out what to do with it.

But it feels great to finish these orphans. And though my quilting isn't what it once was, I was delighted to find I could still thread a tiny quilting needle.

Now I'm working on a House block which I evidently had intended to embellish with embroidery. So out comes the long diused embroidery thread and hoop.

As I began work on the cross pieces in the windows, I thought ahead to doing some vines and flowers around the door, some shrubbery, smoke coming from the chimney . . . And then, I thought, maybe I'll embroider Home Sweet Home across the top.

Then I looked more closely at the piece. There, in faint pencil across the top, I'd already written Home Sweet Home--twenty years ago. 

Better late than never. 

 

Buried in Paper

So it was time to tackle my workroom. It's cold up there in winter and hot in summer so this is my grace period. It 's where my quilting stuff is, and it's where I wrote five of my novels. Nowadays, I don't use it much--the light is better at the dining table  for painting and I no longer make quilts as my back complains after a half an hour at the sewing machine. 

Which means that the room has degenerated into a cobweb-covered repository for twenty some years of stuff, much the same as the scenario in my friend Gretchen's card above.

Currently I'm sorting through the paper trail of my alleged writing career: outlines, proposals, chapter by chapter records of various books . . .

. . . the occasional attempt at a haiku . . .

. . . more chapter by chapter records, as well as vast quantities of research for each book. And there were the talks that I gave at bookstores and other venues . . .

. . . and the accumulated lesson outlines of many years of teaching writing.

Really, it's sobering, tossing out  (recycling) the record of so much work. But it's that much less for the young uns to deal with eventually. And it's a pleasant look back at some interesting times.

And here and there, I come across something funny.

 

Up Close and Personal

Getting up close and personal with furniture stirs up memories. This little rocking chair, for instance, was given to our older son, back when we were still in Tampa but preparing for the move to NC. 

One of our students (I think it was Leslie Mead) told us that it had come from NC and was locally made of rhododendron branches, and she and her family thought it would be nice for Ethan to have it.

It traveled back to NC with us and was much used by three-year-old Ethan and later by Justin. And now it sits by our heater and is one of Josie's favorite reading spots.

This old cedar chest also came from Tampa. Just before moving, we were looking for a cedar chest and answered an ad in the newspaper. The seller was an older lady who, as it turned out had known John's grandfather. She was intrigued that were were moving to NC and told us to be sure to have a mud room--which we eventually did.

The chest was painted black--even its brass hardware, but John stripped  and refinished it. It's a beautiful thing and very useful--it holds most of my quilt collection and serves as  a coffee table.

I look around our house and it's full of memories--things from our parents and grandparents, things we've made or been given. Things that we're so used to that we hardly see them any more -- until we get up close and personal with the cleaning rag.

 

That Familiar Feeling

(Not my photo, alas)

All winter long I've been ignoring the dusty scruffiness of our house, concentrating, for the most part, on staying warm. But as the temperature rises and the days grow longer, I find myself in the old familiar mode of Spring Cleaning.

As if in a trance, I pull out the Liquid Gold and begin anointing the various bits of wooden furniture in the living room and dining room--chairs, tables, an ancient trunk, a secretary, two chests of drawers, a curio cabinet. . .

It's a slow process. My back begins to hurt after a bit and I have to sit down with a heating pad till the pain subsides. I could push through it but have learned that it will get much worse if I do. So I use my resting time to re-read a Harlan Coben mystery.

Meanwhile, John seems to have been struck by a similar urge. He has varnished surfaces in the mudroom and now he has pulled the kitchen table out to the porch and is refinishing the top.

It's a welcome seasonal affliction--like birds nesting, bulbs sprouting, forsythia blooming.

 

Another Spring Cleaning

 

Almost Spring and predictably my thoughts turn to Spring cleaning, organizing, and de-accessioning. Back in the fall I took many books to the library book sale but I still have two large bookshelves to go through. 

                                                     My workroom is my focus at the moment. It's become the repository for all kinds of detritus--like all the gift bags, and ribbons of the ages--really nice ribbons, some of which have gone through various seasonal cycles already. And the Amazon gift bags--of which there are an embarrassing many--good sturdy bags that ought to be useful for something other than gifts. I have a BIG bag of them and am going to see if our local thrift store could use them.   

On to the bookshelves. Now that I'm no longer teaching, I'm sending many books on writing to the library. And putting years of class handouts into the recycling bin. I had what I believe were some excellent lessons (and they are still on my computer,) but as I tossed them into our paper recycling bag, I felt a bit like Prospero, destroying his books of magic.

But, I've got to say, it felt good. That part of my life is done, and I have the freedom to piddle about with watercolors or read or sit outside in the sun and watch the wind stirring the daffodils.

                         

                                                                                    

                                                                                     

Ins and Outs

I've been trying to set myself a daily task of cleaning/reorganizing--something I I can do in the morning and then feel free to paint or read after lunch. Josie's stuff has been dealt with, as have the many food containers that used to leap off the shelf whenever I reached for one. My closet is tidier. As are the two shelves in the kitchen where I keep herbs and spices, etc.

Alas, no sooner were those first kitchen tasks done than I realized the kitchen cabinet doors were in sore need of cleaning--a revelation made all the clearer by the slant of morning sun that showed up the dust and grease and drips and drops of the past many months (years?)

So, yesterday morning I set in with sponge and degreaser. As I worked, it became obvious that, though the doors were cleaner, they still look pretty bad--hazy and dinged here and there.

John had a look and said it would take a bit of sanding and varnish which he would do in the next few days.  Great! And while he was in there, I prevailed upon him to lift down the long board that hangs above the cabinets. It's just that, a long board with a print of a Japanese scroll glued to it, the whole varnished over. It used to hang in our kitchen in Florida--so it's had close to fifty years to age into the nasty mess it had become.

But it cleaned up fairly well and, once the area where it hangs has been painted, back it goes.

And on I moved to the Blue Willow plates hanging above the window. Greasy and grimy no more, they'll go back in place after some painting has happened. They were a gift from my late friend Vicky and they had belonged to her grandmother...

As I was polishing the white china knobs on the cabinet doorsI remembered seeing those clickbait "articles" about what's in and what's out in decorating. White china knobs were out. Farmhouse decor in general was out--like those Blue Willow plates . . ,

What if you live in a farmhouse? Oh, well. On to degreasing my collection of Crabtree and Evelyn mugs . . . Pretty sure they're out too.

 

Josie as Cinderella

Oh, hi. I am having a cup of tea before I get started on my project. I am going to make a Big Mess.

I am taking everything off my shelves and putting it all over The Room. The books and plushies go on my bed and I am putting other things all around. Meema is watching quietly instead of fussing, for once.

So much stuff! But I got it done and said Look Meema, my shelves are bare! and she said, Good, I will give you an old towel to wipe the shelves with and then I will help you put everything back very neatly.  So that's what we did.

Then I wiped the window sills and the wood stove and everything. I told Meema I was like Cinderella, doing All the Work!

But that wasn't all. I went out on the little deck and wiped things there too. Cinderella has to work hard.

This towel is getting dirty.

But I keep wiping.

I even wipe the plant. (Meema says it is a juniper.) When there is nothing left to wipe, I see that there are some dead leaves in the corner by the wall and I pick up handfuls and drop them off the deck. It is a lot of fun making leaf showers. Now I am like Elsa in Frozen except instead of leaves, she did ice and snow.

I wonder who I will be tomorrow?

 

I Can See (a Bit More) Clearly Now

The willow is clothed in pale green 

And it's looking like spring,

So, of course, I'm washing windows.

In this case (the kitchen,) washing windows involves moving stuff, washing it before putting it back, and cleaning up all the crud that had accumulated under the table. 

 

The kitchen windows are the age of the house--forty-six years old--and I can't do anything about the fogging between the panes. But at least they and the knick-knacks thereon are clean now.

The dining room windows are a bit newer and clean up nicely, though in order to avoid having to drag a ladder t the deck below, I have to perform some weird contortions to get the both sides. But it's done, just in time for the rainy days ahead. 

Now maybe I can play with my watercolors.

 

And the Spring Cleaning Begins . . .

Even though there's still snow in the shady places, it's feeling like Spring and that urge to clean has come upon me. I know, I should fight that urge, but we'll be having house guests next week and the fact is it needs doing -- out of the way places are teeming  with cobwebs, dog hair, cat hair, and dust, plus the bodies of many, many defunct ladybugs -- are everywhere.

I devoted yesterday to the bedroom -- which tends to get short shrift when we clean and vacuum the other parts of the house -- off went all the bed clothes for a wash, out went the pillows, the quilt, the light blanket, and the duvet to air in the sun. 

John obliged by turning the mattress and I moved on to the most challenging part of the operation -- putting the clean duvet cover -- about twenty pounds of flannel -- back on the duvet.

Over the years I've found a way that works for me -- lay the duvet on the bed, turn the cover inside out, put a hand in to one of the top corners then grab the corresponding duvet corner and attempt to slip the cover on. Repeat with other top corner and, unless you panic and think you've got it all wrong (as I sometimes do,) the cover will slide over the duvet most satisfactorily. 

Then, of course, you're supposed to pick it all up and give it a shake to distribute the duvet within the cover but it would take a taller and stronger person than I to do it with my duvet combo ( did I mention the cover weighs forty pounds? At least. Plus, by this point, there's usually a cat or two sitting on the nice clean cover and it would be unkind to disturb them.)

But, looking for a video to describe my method, I found this --

the California Roll method HERE. It looks much easier -- probably any of you with duvets and covers already know about it. 

Take Everything Out of the Closet,They Said

This time of year I usually try to sift through my closet and retire things I haven't worn in years. But I know that in the past I just scratched the surface. So, taking my cue from de-clutter experts, I began hauling EVERTHING out of my closet.

I confess that halfway through I was feeling whelmed -- not overwhelmed but teetering on the brink.  The bed was piled high with a strange miscellany of stuff and I'd already forgotten what was on the bottom layer. So I decided to deal with just one side of the closet at a time.

After vacuuming the empty space (and annoying many spiders,) the next step was supposed to be holding each item in my hand and asking myself if it sparked joy. And tossing it if it didn't.

Ummm . . . not working for me. Those bleach -spattered stretch pants don't inspire much of anything except embarrassment but they are useful for housecleaning. And so it went, with many of the garments being saved for utility, not joy. 

An old jewelry box took a good hour of my time -- what does one do with sorority and fraternity pins? And monogrammed things? Some very odd odds and ends from my family and from John's -- I may talk about them another day. 

There were some, but not many, clothes to get rid of. But there were other things that evidently I'd shoved in because I didn't know where else to put them -- a elderly set of sheets, a heavy old denim bedspread, and an inordinate number of freebie type carry-alls.

It took pretty much all day but I've reminded myself of various garments I'd forgotten about and it's all in some sort of order.

And, aside from a industrial size garbage bag of trash, I have a nice little collection of things to go to My Sister's Attic, a local thrift store that benefits battered women, or the annual Madison Has Heart flea market that provides assistance with heating costs to needy local families.

Now that sparks joy!