What I’m Working On…

I had a great week.  The stars aligned this week that I would have only had two kids here on Thursday and two on Friday so I decided heck with it.  I was taking those days off.

I am so glad that I did.  I was swimming in to-do stuff, so deep it was starting to wear on me, so taking the time and catching up was exactly what I needed.  I did decide a couple things for sure….I am going to take time off more often.  It’s totally worth missing the money I would have gotten for taking care of the kids to have a better handle on things around here.  I find a HUGE peace of mind to being more on top of things.  With Kramer gone, more falls on my shoulders and it’s easier to get behind.  So a day off here and there is going to happen.  Actually a day off at least once a month is going to happen if not more often.

I told myself I could do whatever I wanted and only put a few things on my must do list.  I know me and knew I wanted to do a lot of cleaning and organizing and sorting…so that’s what I did most of the time and it was HEAVEN.

I think part of the reason I was getting overwhelmed was that there was just too much stuff to do.  I had a million little things to try to tackle once I got to the sewing room and one by one I tackled them.  There isn’t a lot to show.  I cleaned my African Violets up…I patched Karl’s pants.  I organized the cotton shirts and even deboned a few.  I put away all the leftover piece from projects.  I finished taking the borders off this project….

I so vividly remember starting to take the borders off of this.  I had put them on and hated it.  I decided to take them off.  On one of our trips to Lacrosse with Kramer’s cancer, I threw it in the truck and started taking the borders off.  Kramer was driving and I was doing what I could to stay busy.  I didn’t get all of the borders off.  I put them in quilt top with the partially removed borders in the back seat. The cancer started to be too much for Kramer to do any of the driving.  It was one of the last times he was able to drive to the clinic.  The quilt stayed in the back seat for some time and eventually made it way back to the sewing room and sat.  This weekend it was finally time to get those borders off.  Who knows when I’ll get to finishing it.  For now, at least that part is done.

I took my cross stitch stuff out of my sewing room and bought totes for it, reorganizing it all and I’ll now keep it in the garage.  I know that sounds like an odd place but with the way our house is situated, it’s perfect.

I pick up pieces at our thrift store all the time thinking the items will be good for mounting cross stitch pieces on.  Many of them are a 25 cents or 50 cents.  I paid up to $2 for some.  Before they were crammed into a box and I never used them as I had to dig to get what I wanted….now it’s organized and easily accessible.  I’m so happy.

Here are a couple of the totes….all labeled.

I have some more organizing to do with the shelving in the garage.  I ended up measuring and I can fit another set of shelving there so I ordered that and hopefully it will be here soon.  
I’ve learned in life that accessibility makes all the difference on whether I actually do something or not.  If I have to dig for something….I don’t do it.  It’s taken about 54 years of my life to learn that.

I hate pulling things out and then putting them back.  I don’t clean up the mess and I know that so I don’t even pull it all out to start with.  UGH.  So…everything has to fit on one layer…thus the new totes and shelving.

I so admired my husband’s mother.  There was a place for everything and everything was in that place.  She was so tidy…I aspire to be her.  I am determined that will have a specific place for everything or I’m getting rid of it!  Sadly, she didn’t pass on this wonderful trait to her son, my husband.  Kramer was so messy.

I got so many things done.  Seriously, I feel like a new person.  One would think that I likely didn’t get much sewing done.  I actually did get a few things done.

I finished this cross stitch piece….

…but ran into a little trouble.  Notice that space on the side of the basket?  Well there is supposed to be a rabbit charm to go there.  I have no charm.  I don’t know if my pattern didn’t come with one or I lost it.  Dang.  So now I am on the hunt for a rabbit charm.  I changed up the colors and like it a little better.  It will for sure look better in my house.

I actually finished this too but it’s tiny.

I ended up going on and started another stitchy piece too.  I didn’t get much more done on that.  I’ve been trying to make myself stop working at 9pm.  If I am sewing I can keep sewing but no blog writing or housework after 9pm.  That means I’ve been stitching a little more.

I set up a dog bed in the sewing room after I had all the things I could get up and off the floor away from Rosie, I loaded this quilt, shut the door to the room and Rosie let me machine quilt it.  Ahhhh…Maybe there is hope I can get back in the sewing room.

This is just a baby quilt so it didn’t take long.  Rosie was good though and I am ever so thankful for that.

I also got Jasper’s quilt out again with some determination that I was going to finish that.  He’s going to be 2 months old.  It’s time.  I think I’m over the frustration of the quilt directions being troublesome.

I probably should have buckled down over the weekend and finished it but it’s not what I needed for me most.  I really needed bigger chunks of time to get organized and caught up….Mentally I needed it.

The quilt will happen…This week I hope.

I had an amazing few days off.  I can’t begin to explain how much better I feel as a more and more things have fallen into place.  I hope it stays that way.