So, no major disasters since my last post.

In fact, other than the usual chasing my tail, I’ve had time to clean the house and cook a few meals. Woohoo!

I’ve been tackling the house tidy/clean/organise issue with a plan. With being so busy for a while I was way behind on my housework to the point where I had no idea where to start. My plan is simple: divide and conquer.

I’ve broken the house down into areas and am attacking them one at a time. I began one afternoon while I still had energy after work. I started with the upper kitchen cabinets, inspecting, re-organising to make sense of things and tossing out anything I don’t use or had expired, putting things to give away into a box etc.

Then I moved on to other areas.

In-between I washed tons of clothes and dishes, swept, mopped and put down rugs for winter, made a vegetable stew and a spanakopita (spinach pie for the non-greeks).

So far I have a stack of clothes I don’t wear, and some odds and ends I don’t want. I’ve filled a box with crafty stuff to give away but have more to sort, so nothing is gone just yet… Things always get worse before they get better – and this is no exception. I have a stack of stuff to go to the basement and stuff to give away, all placed judiciously next to the door, within easy reach should the mood hit me to actually move them on to their eventual location.

My bedroom cupboard and wardrobe are organised, but the bookcase in the living room is still stuffed full of stuff ‘to do’ which need sorting into “Yes, I will do something with that one day in the not too distant future” from the “Nope. I’ll never use in this lifetime” stuff.

However, it was one step forwards and two steps back in the plan… Somewhere along the line I saw some very old books being given away so I collected them… hm. The packrat in me never seems to stay quiet for long… My excuse? They’ll come in handy one day – either as decor (who doesn’t love old volumes?) or craft projects for the too far gone ones.

Its ok. I’ll throw out some old stuff to make space for more old stuff!

Of the stuff I was going to get rid of, I decided to make a knife block a la pinterest – it’s not good for the knives to be tossed into a drawer – it dulls the blades, not to mention you risk losing a finger every time you reach in to grab a whatsit from the drawer.

The usual: I simply chose the books I wanted to sacrific use, painted them with some offwhite chalk paint I had, tied them together with some twine I had, and voila. Instant knife block. Done. One small thing achieved in a mess of things to do.

See? Made from things I’ll use “one day”. I knew I was right to keep them!

Yes, its hard to get rid of stuff when you live to make things, but some days I just have to take a good long hard look at myself and face it. I can’t do everything, no matter what my business card says.

Catchya later.

z