Making Space...

Checking in with a progress post on our move.  Tomorrow is closing day and it's hard to believe we're at this point already.  Packing continues, and life doesn't slow down for it.

There is so much I could write about things going on alongside all the packing, but one of the biggest highlights was that we had the opportunity to meet the sellers of the house we're buying.   They had a garage sale last weekend and while I stayed home on Friday to wait for a furnace tune-up, Hub went over to the sale and met the couple we're buying the house from.

As they talked, Hub & the sellers found they had some things in common.  Mr. seller graduated from Purdue, which Hub also did, and I attended.  Not necessarily unique around these parts, but it's always fun to meet another Purdue Alum.

Then they asked if Hub knew T...  B(ourlastname), and Hub was thrilled to tell them that was his brother.  Now... to our knowledge, Hub's family are the only people in the state with our last name. We live about an hour south of where Hub's brother & sister lives, so it's not very often that we run into each other's people.   You might be able to imagine when it does happen, people instantly are curious if we're related since our name is pretty unique in these parts.    

Anyway, turns out when this couple lived further north, they attended church where my husband's mother, father, sister and brother & his family all attend(ed).  What a small world!  

Then Saturday, I went over to meet them (and Hub went again, too).  We ended up buying some office furniture which will be great because we have an old computer table that is looking seriously shabby, and it probably wouldn't move well if we tried.  

I addition to that, when I saw in the garage sale a picture I had admired when looking at their house, I started to offer to buy it, and before I could get the words out completely, the Mrs. gave it to me.   And through our realtors they had previously offered us three nice bar stools they have at their kitchen island, so it looks like we're set in there, too.  It was so good to meet this terrific couple (and some of their family, even).  They seemed genuinely glad to meet us, too.  It's nice to know we're not meeting complete strangers tomorrow at the closing.

Immediately after the closing, we take possession of the new place.  We plan to take a couple of loads over tomorrow late afternoon.  I'm lobbying for getting Chinese take-out and having our first meal there at the kitchen island as a celebration.  

Meanwhile, packing continues...

I don't know how it is, but with each box packed and put in the garage, it seems I become aware of how much more there is to pack!  It feels a tad overwhelming, but then I remind myself that we get to make this move in stages.  The plan is to move small stuff ourselves during the week after closing.  We have a smallish moving van rented for next weekend and will move medium-sized stuff when we have more help.  Then finally we've scheduled (hopefully big, burly) movers to handle the truly heavy stuff - like furniture, an upright freezer, a piano, and anything else we're too pooped to deal with...  

We've never done a local move before and this concept of moving in stages is interesting to plan out, and I hope will be a lot less exhausting in the implementation.

This past Thursday a friend helped me pack up most everything in my china cabinet.  Before we started I told my friend I wanted to take some pictures of the process.  I thought I'd be artsy and get fun angles of her hands placing nicely wrapped dishes in boxes, reaching for dishes in the cabinet, things like that...  Half the time the dining room table was covered with dishes and packing material and even that would have been a great shot.  But do you think I could actually remember to do this?!?   Of course not!  I seem incapable of being part of the process and documenting it at the same time.  So instead of artsy pictures that could provide me great memories in my old age, I have pictures of stacks of boxes containing dishes and china cabinet stuff as they fill my living room, that will only serve to remind me of my aching back in my dotage.

Books have been the easiest thing to get packed, but I will tell you - packing is seriously making me rethink being a collector of books.   In order to not create too heavy of boxes, when I can't put my hands on a small box, I've found that packing books and yarn (or any soft, lightweight items) together is a great way to make sure I'm not packing boxes that are too heavy to actually carry.  

Who knew my closet full of yarn would come in handy in this way?  My books and yarn will possibly end up in the same room at the new house, so the items are a natural to pack together. 😄 

I know a few books slipped out during this challenge before I took a picture of them, but looking back through these posts and counting books pictured, I can see (including today's post) I've gotten rid of at least 194 books in the last year.  Today, I've just counted 50 that came out of the family room!

And lastly for today, I've finally decided I'm just getting rid of the rest of my Taste of Home magazines and am not going to look through any more of them to determine if there are recipes I'd like to save.   I think I counted 29 below:

So this week I have 79 more things leaving the house and I've more than met my goal of 1,000 things gone in a year's time.  If I could take this packing business slower, I could probably get rid of 1,000 more things in the next few weeks, but I can see that isn't going to happen. My decluttering journey (while I probably won't document it further here - at least, not in the same way) will, no doubt, continue at the new place.

I'll try to remember to keep a camera close and snap some pictures this next week.  Once we have possession, I'll feel freer to post some pictures of the new place (or at least spaces in the new place).  A whole empty house isn't going to be terribly interesting, but I'll see what I can do.  

Making Space Week 51:   1029  things gone!

We've found it!

I have been looking forward to the day I could share my good news, and I think it's finally safe to share it!   I haven't been writing much about our house hunting, but up until recently it's been going on in the background consistently since I first mentioned we were starting to look - back in June.

After visiting houses nearly every weekend from June through September, we found our new home on September 24th!  While we weren't sure about it just reading the listing description and seeing the pictures online, neither of us had any reservations at all once we saw it in person.  This had been my prayer from the beginning - that the house we would choose would feel right to both of us when we saw it.  If you knew Hub's and my personalities (not always in sync), how often we vacillated over what this next house should be (nearly weekly), how few houses that "checked our boxes" were showing up on the market (few to none), you would know that was no small prayer.

Whether or not you're considering buying a house right now, I'm sure you know that in today's market, good houses go fast!  The house we're buying was listed on a Friday afternoon, we made a 6:00 pm appointment to see it, and at 9:00 pm we were leaving the realtor's office after signing our offer to buy.  It sounds crazy, but that's what buying a house is like in 2021.  Whoever "they" are, "they" aren't kidding when they say buying a house in this market is not for the faint of heart.  

This house not only checked all the boxes of what we felt were important, but it also had everything on my personal wishlist, and then some.  I am so undeservedly blessed by that.  In four months, while we had seen some very suitable houses, this was the only house we both felt equally compelled to make an offer on.  And (no surprise) we weren't the only ones who felt that way.   

Knowing by Friday night there were already multiple offers, and knowing the chances were very low that the first time we'd make an offer on a house it would be accepted, we waited just over 40 hours assuring ourselves that we would be just fine if we got it or not.  By Sunday the 26th, we were becoming pretty sure that we were not the winning bidders and were truly okay with it - and then a call came when we were out to lunch with friends.  We were asked to provide bank records to prove we could back up our offer, and a few hours later the second call came telling us our offer was accepted - out of seven total offers made!  We were told the offers were competitive, and later heard (through the grapevine) that ours wasn't even the highest, at which point our delight expanded to wonderment. 

While the house and property please us, it is not really what we envisioned when we set out on this search.  Though, to be honest, our vision kept changing as we looked at various houses - none of them being quite right.   At some point in the process I began to realize that this house hunting was as much about us adjusting our expectations and hopes, and even being willing to walk away from many nice houses that just didn't feel right for us, as it was about finding the right house.  Walking away from several houses was sometimes a step of faith, but we always had peace about it, or quickly gained peace once the decision to walk away was made.  What a process this was!

So... we've begun packing and expect to close at the end of this month and begin moving the first week in November.  Hopefully, we'll not experience winter weather before we get moved in, but regardless, we look forward to celebrating Thanksgiving in our new place.  And this morning at church I signed us up to host a small dinner gathering in early December.  I'm already looking forward to it.

I hope to take some pictures of the process of moving, but I know that may be a challenge for me.  I'm either good at throwing myself into a process, or being a photographer, but rarely do I manage to do both very well at the same time.  We will see...

Meanwhile, as we try to eat our freezer inventory down, we sort and pack, sort and pack.  I am so thankful I've gotten rid of so much this past year (easily it will be over 1,000 things), but still I'm discovering things I didn't know we had.   Living in the same house for 23 years makes that happen, I suppose.

This past week I started packing books, so culling out those least likely to get read has been my goal. This is just one book case's worth, so hopefully, it's just a start:

And a couple of weeks ago, I had culled through my closet, so I have this little stack of clothing to go:

And, as always, there will be collections of random things we realize we don't need, and certainly don't want to move - like this:

The only noteable thing above is the cat drawing my artist sister made of our first kitty, Sy Snootles.  Sy has been gone for over 30 years, and we no longer display the picture so I asked artist sister if she'd like the picture back - perhaps to pass along to one of her grandchildren.  She seemed thrilled with the idea.  It's on its way to her as I type.  😊

With just three more weeks to my 1000 things gone goal:

Making Space Week 49:   950  things gone!

 

Making Space...

Things are pretty bustling here and I'm not finding time to blog much, but I do want to let my blogging buddies know I'm still around.  I check into your blogs when I can, and will try to post some more Making Space posts before the whole experiment ends in less than a month for me now.

The reason I haven't posted for a little while now is mostly due to busyness, but to be honest, I've had some struggles emotionally as I'm nearing the time for the closing of my brother's estate.   Closing the estate isn't the cause of my emotional struggles, but in going through records to do some final accounting and prep for next tax season, I have experienced some emotional "triggers" I didn't anticipate.  And there have been some hard days where the rug has felt pulled out from under me emotionally and even spiritually. 

On one hand, I've wanted to write about it here - to be known, to document my process, even to be beneficial for others who have perhaps dealt with loss that comes out of a complicated situation and family dynamic.  On the other hand, I've not wanted to inadvertently invite advice or even sympathy that is based on incomplete knowledge - because I don't feel I can share enough for a reader to really understand the situation.  I know... that was quite circular.  And round and round it goes in my head.

So I don't write much here about my loss and the head- and heart-work of dealing with it.  I may some day.  Or maybe not. For now I write this as much as a documentation for myself as anything - to record the existence of profound loss and often crushing regret alongside the good of life that is happening.  That's the nature of loss.  Of grief.  Of deep regret even, I'm learning.  Good often runs parallel to confusion and chaos.  Happiness can be experienced adjacent to profound pain.  It occurs to me that this is, perhaps, a small glimpse of a spiritual redemption that I hope to someday see more fully.  On that note, I do want to say I've gained great comfort and spiritual insights from others who share their grief journeys in a public way.  You know who you are, and I thank you.

So... yes, things are hopping here.  It is, perhaps, the hoppingness that helps me handle the hard moments of late.  The reason behind the hoppingess will be shared soon enough, but not yet on that either.  😉

So...  with all that said, let me share my recent decluttering.

Curious how many of you may have one of these around:

After 41 years, I finally opened up my hermetically-sealed wedding dress.

The blue around the yoke is tissue paper.  Someone seeing the picture thought it was fabric, so I thought I should clarify.

While it looks pretty in the picture (and I assume it did in person), my dress was not an heirloom-type dress.  It was made of polyester, and I bought it off the clearance rack in 1980.  I wanted something pretty, but I wasn't into the idea of spending a crazy amount of money on a dress I would wear exactly once.  Always practical - that's me.  Even so...  in 1980, off the clearance rack, I think it cost a little over $100.00.  I probably waffled over spending that much.

Anyway, the dress had at least one dark stain after 41 years of baking in different attics, and the white lace has myellowed to a beautiful shade of cream, but it made using the dress for some other purpose (other than a Halloween costume, perhaps) pretty much out of the question.  So I cut the skirt off, and am saving the still-intact bodice for now, and will hopefully remove the lace someday and make something else pretty out of it. 

I don't imagine it's the most beautiful of lace patterns, but it feels special since it's mine.  It's actually fairly substantial in weight so if I can remove it intact, I may find it has many uses.  We'll see!

Also, I saved a long skirt's, and a short train's worth of the lining fabric - I'm thinking it's probably taffeta.  Probably polyester, too, but it's a woven fabric - stiff and thick enough to provide some shape to the knitted polyester of the dress.  Not sure what it will be good for, but for some reason I felt compelled to save it. 😊  

That's all for this week.   

Making Space Week 48:  878 things gone!

Comments have been disabled for this post.  To anyone who commented and came back to read my response (which I usually leave), I have edited portions of one paragraph above that I think might have been better left unsaid for now.  Please trust that all comments were received in the generous spirit they were given, and I have saved them for my personal benefit.  Your kind comments are jewels to me. I just rethought the idea of having a comment section on this post. Thank you, kind readers.

Making Space...

Earlier today the video below popped onto my Youtube feed.  It's six months old, but its topic is timeless.

In this video Dawn fleshes out the concept of The Silent To-Do List, but gives credit to where she got the idea (the video below). 

Original video found at Simple Victoria: 

And Victoria got the idea from the book, Goodbye Things by Fumio Sasaki - which I'm now listening to on Hoopla.  

I think Dawn does a great job of simplifying and at the same time giving some very good everyday examples of things that end up on our Silent To-Do Lists.  The concept immediately resonated with me.  BTW, you might want to skip to 1:30 in the first video, though, just to cut to the chase.   And Victoria has some real gems in her video too.  

Seriously... if you're ever lagging in decluttering motivation, I suggest checking out this not-so-obvious idea.  

~~~~~

To be honest, though, I came up with this week's haul before watching the videos, but the idea of a silent to-do list is still very relevant.

First up, I went through a small storage cabinet in the garage this week, and emptied at least half of the cabinet:

Normally, I don't count recyclables, but I had put several more glass jars in this cabinet than I photographed.  For some reason I was collecting them out there and they were taking up space.  A few went under the kitchen sink for putting grease or other food stuffs in that I don't want going down the drain and the ones pictured got recycled.  And I just want to point out that this is a second ice cream bucket that has surfaced during this clean out. 😄  Otherwise, like most of my decluttering, I found quite number of little unremarkable things to rehome.  Thirty things in the picture above.

And then I remembered that I had decided some weeks ago to get rid of a shoe box full of CD's we'd obtained many years ago when attending and working at homeschool conventions.  Working meant we didn't have time to attend as many workshops, so we brought home bunches of recordings to make up for what we missed.  Some of these might have even gotten listened to.  😉  I can't help but think we have more than this somewhere in the house, but so far this is all that has surfaced:

Here's where I'm applying this concept of the Silent To-Do List:  I've held this collection of CDs back from my weekly Making Space posts because it is very tempting to think that I might like to listen to some of these recordings - not everything is homeschool related, and there are some topics that I might honestly find interesting still at this point in my life.  But you know what I'm going to do?  Scrub that idea out of my brain, and erase it from my Silent To-Do List!    What a relief!  Simply deciding up front I'm not going to listen (or re-listen) to some old CDs makes my to-do list 36 things shorter!  😃

If you're at all curious about this concept, watch the first video above especially.  And then look around and see what you can remove from your Silent To-Do List!

Making Space Week 46:  877 things gone!

Making Space...

With comfortable weather upon us, it was into the garage yesterday and today for just a little bit each day.  I think there will be yet another foray into this space soon, but for today's post, I am divesting myself of most of my silk flowers and greenery I store for seasonal decorating, but when it comes right down to it, I don't really use most of it.  Some items still have tags on them.  

Out it goes!

Most of it, anyway.  I saved aside a few pieces that I may find useful, but largely I'm done with silk flowers and fake plant material.  For now.  

I have no idea how many pieces are in the tub in the second picture above, but I count 10 different types of flowers or plants in the first picture.  Individually, there are probably nearly a hundred pieces (from the largest to the smallest), but I'm going to count 20 things gone from this category and call it good.

While outside, I took a picture of two 4-H posters two sons completed for Shooting Sports.   I asked them if they wanted them and I got a "Geesh!  You still have those?"   😆

Outta here!

I brought some boxes of miscellaneous stuff inside to sort through and I'm happy to count 10 items above (in all that fake greenery, there are at least 3 separate pieces).  

And one bow made of PVC pipe.  At least one of our boys enjoyed making these (and arrows from wooden dowels and some material for feathers) many years ago (when a young teen).  I think he may have sold a few to friends.   If son doesn't want this for memory's sake, it's leaving.  As much as it makes me smile remembering him making these, one way or another it's leaving.

Now... what I'd like to know is why there were these five Better Homes and Gardens magazines, dated from 2009 - 2012 amongst the stuff in the garage.  That one is a head scratcher. I'm assuming I just tossed them in a box to clean off a surface once upon a time, but they've been in that box for at least nine years (according to the newest date on the magazines).  Sigh.  The other things are just random stuff used at some point in homeschooling.  I did put a couple of books found in this box on the shelf.  You know... for those yet-to-appear grandchildren.  😉  

Not pictured are a couple of boxes of memorabilia that look like they're full of stuff from from my side of the family.  Since that's a project that will slow me down, I'll probably not sort through them right now.  Just quickly glancing at the contents of those boxes, I honestly didn't even know I had those things.

I think it's obvious more than 41 things are leaving the house with this post, but that's what I'll count - and be happy about it.

Making Space Week 45:  811 things gone!

Making Space...

Early in the week, I went through a medicine cabinet and gathered together stuff that had expired (mostly things like lotions or weird one-time prescription items someone had and didn't use all of).  Then Hubs came along and decided to discard what I had boxed up to take a picture of.  

I was annoyed at first, but then decided it's just as well - twenty year-old calamine lotion isn't very photogenic.  

Though I have to tell you...  I found three small containers of our sons' baby teeth!   I'm saving those to give to them just to see them laugh, and I imagine they will then discard them.  I'm amazed I saved them all. 

So, while most of that stuff is now gone with no picture to document it (and I'm thinking some of you are thankful now), I'm counting 10 items purged from the medicine cabinet.

Then mid-week painting started happening here.  With a few rooms turned upside down to accommodate that, I didn't imagine I'd have anything to show for a Making Space post this week, but hubs decided to help out by telling me he had more empty slide trays:

Whoa!  That's a lot of trays that represent a lot of slides that either got digitized or tossed this year. I think, though, we're all done.  Well... until I let the last 15 or so go that I'm still saving my family slides in.  Until I can make some prints or be utterly convinced they are saved properly, I'm hanging onto my family slides.  Total slide trays leaving this week:  37!

~~~~~

And I remembered that before things got all messy here (for painting) I had collected some plastic serving dishes from the furnace room that I hadn't used since youngest son graduated from high school. Let's see... how long ago was that?  Seven years ago!?!?!   How could that be?  

Quick! Outta here before I change my mind. 

A few of you are downright pretty. 

It's not that they're not perfectly usable, but the fact is, I haven't used them since our three sons' graduation parties (that I can recall), so I'm pretty sure I'm not going to miss them.  I bid them adieu and hope they bless someone else who's going to go to (or host) more gatherings than I am these days.  When I go to a potluck or pitch-in I rarely take items on trays.  It always seems I'm lugging a big ol' crock pot or large bowl of something or other.

So adding 7 plastic serving pieces and 2 Tupperware shakers, I've got 56 more things leaving!

~~~~~

And finally here, I need to readjust what week I'm on.  I don't know where I miscounted (probably - when I took several months off), but as I look at the calendar, I see I have 8 more weeks in this year-long challenge.  Which would make this week 44.  So yay me!  I have more time to reach or surpass my goal of 1000 things gone.

Just for inspiration, these are areas I want to go through yet:

My clothes closet - as the weather turns cool I'll naturally have a reason to go through it again.  And I have imaginings of being ruthless this time. 

The garage - I'm planning on rehoming some seasonal decorative stuff I am storing out there.

The laundry room and furnace room - these two spaces are adjoining and miscellaneous things are purposely stored there, and sometimes things just migrate there.

Books - we're still looking for our next home, and I'm pretty sure we're not going to end up moving to a house that has room for all the books and bookshelves we own, nevermind that I won't likely live long enough to read them all, so why not pare them down now rather than later?  Much easier said than done, but I'm still eyeing them with the thought to rehome more.

That's all from me on the Making Space front this week!

Making Space Week 44:  770 things gone!

Making Space...

I decided to go through all my kitchen cabinets and drawers this week, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I don't have a lot of superfluous stuff in there.  I imagined I would have all sorts of strange things in the deep recesses of a few hard-to-reach corners of my old kitchen cabinets, but I didn't.  Not much anyway.

That said, I did manage to painlessly purge some items that I never seem to use, or that are old and I have better versions of:

I'm not going to itemize everything, but I'd like to highlight a few things.  First of all, an old plastic ice cream bucket that's probably 20 years old (or more).  Normally, I wouldn't count garbage or recyclables in my Making Space challenge, but this bucket has been under my kitchen sink holding an odd collection of sponges, non-abrasive scrubbing pads, plastic scrubbies, rubber gloves (that I rarely use) and some cleaner I was given when we bought our glass top stove - 15? years ago.  I haven't used it since discovering how effective vinegar and baking soda are.  I threw away the old stuff, and put what I'm keeping in a nice rectangular basket I had in my stash so everything fits much better.  And I'm finally recycling this relic of bygone days when we use to buy ice cream by the bucket-full for our family of five.  

Also, there's a jar candle that needs disposing of. Again, normally, I'd just clean out and recycle the jar and not mention it, but this candle has taken a long time to burn down.  It's cause for celebration, so it gets counted.   The paper napkins are being removed from storage and put where we will use them up, but everything else is either being donated, tossed or recycled.

And I spent some time this week going through more Taste of Home Magazines...

And I culled through my recipe files and am recycling duplicates of recipes, or recipes that no longer look like something I'd fix.  I'm counting the pile of cards as one thing gone.  I have 22 TOH magazines above that will soon make their way to the library free shelf so added to the kitchen stuff in the first picture, I'm getting rid of 54 things this week!  

Making Space Week 45:  714 things gone!

Making Space...

I want to thank everyone who left comments on my last Making Space post.  I enjoyed and appreciated the responses to my question about any of your experiences in moving - whether you moved across the country or stayed in the same area.  There was some good food for thought there.  So thank you!

I'm getting to a point with books where I'm having to apply more thought than I want to (IOW, it's getting harder), so I'll probably be taking a break from them for a while.  While I'm sure books will show up again at some point, without too much brain strain I was able to get rid of 37 more books this week.

The picture is simply representative.  Some books ended up leaving the premises before I could get a picture.  That's just the way it goes sometimes...

And with hubs nearing the end of digitizing decades of slides, we're able to get rid of bunches of slide trays. We have found that a salvage store nearby (that specializes in vintage stuff) will take these items.  Hub informed me today that a couple of months ago he took around 20 trays there already (no one thought to take a picture), so adding the collection of the 25 pictured below to those already donated, we've gotten rid of at least 45 slide trays.  So far.  There are still some more that will end up leaving when Hub is truly finished with this task.

So adding everything together, I'm counting 82 more things gone from the house!

Making Space Week 44:   660 things gone!

Making Space...

A beautiful weekend here, I was up and out early (for me) for a spontaneous meetup with a friend for coffee (well, she had coffee, I had breakfast).  Sitting outside, downtown, across from the courthouse, I'm reminded what a quaint little town we live in.  We've been trying to decide if an eventual move will mean buying a house somewhere else in the county, maybe a little closer to the "city" (because there is a dearth of houses for sale here), or staying in Small Town USA. 

It would be interesting to hear from any of you who've moved from a home of many years.  Did you stay in the same area, or did you move elsewhere?  We're not interested in moving far away (like to warmer climes), but we're beginning to challenge the notion that we'll automatically stay in the same town we've lived in for the last two decades.  This is such a process...

Meanwhile, as we wait for the right house to appear on the market, I continue to whittle down stuff.  Today's haul is a hodgepodge, half-hearted attempt at decluttering.  

The posters I acquired many years ago.  I used a couple and the rest have been stored where they'd be safe from getting damaged, and where I would completely forget about them.  The zippers (all about 22" long), I'm sure largely came from MIL's stash last year, and I'm just now realizing that I'll not likely ever make something that requires a zipper that length.  The other things are just stuff I don't want or need.  An easy goodbye.

I don't know whether to be encouraged or embarrassed that, without much effort at all, I can pull together nearly 40 things to leave the house and I will never miss them.

Making Space Week 43:  578 things gone!

Making Space...

I almost wasn't going to post this week because I hadn't managed to declutter much, but then I remembered that middle son came last weekend and took away some things, and I have pictures!

Then, today I spent a bit of time going through a small linen closet I use to store scrap yarn balls, finished projects waiting for their purpose to be revealed, and some other miscellaneous crafty stuffs, and decided to rehome some of it.

So, in the end, I came up with a respectable amount of stuff.  I'll let the pictures mostly speak for themselves:

S-T-R-E-T-C-H!!!

Just couldn't reach...

Aahhh...  there we go, everything secure in back

Loaded up and ready to roll...

Humoring mom with one last parting shot...

So long, Son!  

And thank you for helping me with my challenge!  😁

Since much was boxed up by the time I got out to the garage, there was no way I could count items, but I'm going to declare 20 things gone that middle son carted off.  I know that under-represents what he took home with him, but I'm good with that.

For my haul today:

Some more things I've been saving for the yet-to-appear grandchildren.

I'm growing less inclined to save things for them.

I decided to rehome these crocheted and knitted items 

- just going to donate them.

One way or another these sewing tutorials above that my mother-in-law had and a "course" she completed are all going to find a new home.  The sewing lessons will likely be tossed, but I'm going to let sister-in-law make that decision.  All I know is, I enjoyed looking at them, but it's time for them to leave my house.

And hopefully, someone will find a use for these yarny ball scraps.  

Do you think?

So with some underestimating of what has left, or will soon leaving here, I count 43 items.

Making Space Week 42:  538 things gone!

462 more things to hunt down and clear out 'till I meet my goal! And 10 more weeks to do it - if I've counted correctly.

 

~~~~~

Now to address a question asked in regards to a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago where a reader was puzzled by the large number of dishtowels I own.  

I totally understand!  And I think I can clear up what may be puzzling, or at least give a glimpse into how I use the prolific number of kitchen towels I own.

In a week or week-and-a-half's time I almost always go through the 25 or so dishtowels that fit in the kitchen drawer I've assigned them to.  And when I have a load, I launder them - actually, I hope I don't blow anyone's mind with this, but I sometimes do two loads of kitchen towels and dishcloths a week because I separate the white towels from the colored towels and dishcloths. I try to stagger their use, though, and I often wash darks one week, and whites the next (putting the freshly washed cloths in the back of the drawer).  There is no schedule.  I just wash dish towels and cloths when I've run out of the whites and when I've run out of the colored towels and cloths.

It probably would have been helpful if I had explained that we wash and dry by hand every single dish and piece of silverware and pot and pan used. Every day.  Two or three times a day we do dishes.  I know it may sound a bit archaic in 2021, but we haven't owned a dishwasher for the last 23 years - since moving to this house that didn't have one, and without remodeling the kitchen one did not fit.  It seemed odd at first, but it soon became part of the pattern of our lives.  While studies have determined that some dishwashers may use less water than hand-washing does, I believe I can honestly say that washing dishes by hand doesn't take much (possibly, any) longer than rinsing, pretreating, stacking, unloading, and sometimes having to dry still damp dishes from a dishwasher.  

It's just doesn't seem like a big deal to wash dishes by hand.  In fact, it's often a peaceful activity for me.  When I stand at my kitchen sink I spend a fair amount of time looking out of the window.  I've watched the neighbor kids grow up, and my own boys playing outside.  I've watched the seasons change, and the shadows in the back yard and on the deck change their orientation as the year progresses.  I've been alerted to many beautiful sunsets that called me to interrupt the dishwashing and go outside and see the whole big sky myself.  I've also shared this task with the other members of my family. Hubs washes the dishes fairly often, and our boys grew up washing dishes by hand.  And while they all have dishwashers in their own homes now, they don't seem to flinch at the idea of washing dishes after a family holiday meal.  Sometimes they even volunteer.  

That said, all of this does take a number of dishcloths and dishtowels.  And when I say dishtowels, I mean tea towels as well as terry cloth towels.  I find, anymore, that I mix and match what I dry dishes with. Once I learned how to wash terry cloth towels so they didn't attract lint, I was golden - I often prefer them now for drying dishes.

Add to the daily dishwashing, when I'm doing serious cooking or baking, I can use several towels in a cooking session - washing and drying my hands after handling something messy, sometimes wiping up a spill, or even grabbing a towel to hold onto something hot, or to provide a quick pad for putting a hot pot on the counter. Sometimes I use a fresh towel to blot water off just-washed lettuce, or to dry any produce I might be washing off. Is it becoming clear how I can go through so many dishcloths?

Add to all of that, I am pretty fastidious about kitchen towels and dishcloths being fresh (for example, I never use a towel I've wiped my hands on to dry dishes or produce).  And while hub will try to get away with saving a dishtowel for drying dishes later in the day, I consider if it's gotten wet enough to have to dry out, it's used, and it goes into the category of "dirty" and into the collection of towels waiting to be washed. To dry them while they wait to be washed, I hang them on the oven handle or take them to the laundry room where I have a basket dedicated to dishtowels and cloths and I often drape the wet ones over the edge of the basket - tossing them into the basket to collect when they're dry.

So maybe by now it's not so puzzling that I would keep 25 towels handy in a kitchen drawer.  The 50 or so in storage are probably superfluous, but I do enjoy rotating different towels into the kitchen drawer with changing seasons (mainly, we're talking autumn, Christmas, winter and spring/summer. If we had an automatic dishwasher, I imagine the number of towels I'd keep could be cut down pretty drastically. Or maybe not. Having a generous supply of kitchen towels has become my habit.  I have a whole system for washing them, and rotating them in and out of the kitchen drawer on a near-weekly basis, and the linen closet seasonally.  All that said, I'm open to change.  Who knows...  maybe someday I'll have a dishwasher again and will only keep a skeleton crew of towels and cloths for the kitchen business.  

By the way, washing dishcloths by themselves is, I believe, what keeps them lint free.  And maybe my front loading washing machine.  I do love that thing.  Years ago, we had a top-loading washing machine that didn't have an normal agitator.  It left lint on darks when I washed them, so I imagine it left lent on everything.  I was never so glad that an appliance needed replacing.

And that, dear reader, is all I have for this weekend!  Thank you for stopping by!