Not Quite Vintage

focus

Do you ever feel like the universe is sending you a message? For the past few weeks, it seems that I have been bombarded with a similar message. Whether while catching up on blogs, reading email newsletters, watching tv, looking at magazines or checking out links friends send me, everything is telling me to FOCUS.

I shouldn’t be surprised. I often try to do too much, too many things with my time. Sometimes the too much and too many things are important things, other times they are quite unimportant, spur of the moment things. When I try to juggle too much of both, the important things tend to suffer. And worst, sometimes I am moving so fast that I can’t even tell  what is important anymore. 

Enter my summer blogging vacation. I needed a break to free up some time. Not active doing time, but brain time – thinking time. I needed to put blogging and crafting on the back burner so I could unclutter some of my to do lists and free up my thoughts.

I have spent so much of the time since my Momma passed away and since my Pops got sick (no worries now, almost a year cancer free now) taking care of my family, trying to keep my emotions treading water above the depression line and working to keep my job. I fit in crafting when I could and did the bare minimum I needed to around the house and the yard. My social life was pretty much nonexistent. After more than a year and a half I needed to take stock and figure out where I go from here.

Goodness, I have to say the ultimate where do I go from here part is still a big question mark, but I have been able to make a big dent in the physical uncluttering of my world. I have gotten back close to my fighting weight, I have cleaned the house thoroughly, I have donated a lot of my old clothes and home goods, I have reorganized my craft space, I have started checking off home improvement projects from my list. I could keep going, honestly I can’t believe how much I have accomplished this summer. Little things really have added up.

The physical uncluttering has given me some freedom. The freedom to take some time to relax, to reconnect with an old group of friends I really, really missed and to start contemplating anything I want to. I think it also got my brain going so much about all the possibilities that I cluttered it right back up – just with different subjects, too many subjects. This is where my next phase of uncluttering comes in – mental unlcuttering. I really think that is what universe is telling me to do now. All those messages couldn’t just be coincidence.

So I start a new journey of reclaiming attention and focusing my intention. I am sure there will be ups and downs along the way, but I am actively inviting goodness and can’t wait to see where the journey takes me. 

Don’t worry, there is plenty of room in this journey for blogging. All of you make this worth while and help me feel connected, inspired and grateful. I missed you while I was on vacation!

long weekend recap

I am such a bad blogger... this is going to be my second post without a photo. Oops. There were photo ops early in the weekend, but then the rain came and set up shop.

When I posted my tentative to do list for my long weekend, I got a few responses wondering if I would even get any of it done. I totally understand that, because sometimes things just don't go according to plan. And this weekend was the same way with the rain, but I did get a ton done and even some of it was from my list:

• no alarm clock! this was the best, even if my internal clock goes off much earlier than it used to.

• comfy clothes and flip flops. This weekend was all about tank tops, shorts, yoga pants, flip flops and slippers. It was really hard to put work clothes back on this morning.

• tons of yard work. I planted geraniums in my front pots, mowed the yard and edged (this is not fun with overgrown zoysia. I swear if you gave it the chance it would grow a plush lawn over the entire sidewalk). I even power-washed the west fence, back steps and garage before the rain came on Sunday. There is still more power-washing to come, but goodness is it fun to see a bright white vinyl fence and old wood steps look like new wood again (now only if the rain would stop and let it dry out so I can waterproof it).

• spent Saturday afternoon and evening with Pops.

• organized my work clothes closed and recaptured the guest room bed from the piles of clothes on it. I need to find a good place to donate my too large clothes as I do not ever want to give myself the opportunity to fit in them again.

• finally cut up the watermelon yesterday and enjoyed a bowl and brought one with me to work today. I will be eating this all week.

A few things I added (I blame the rain for these):

• finished a collage project I have been working on for a while

• caught up on laundry

• cleaned the entry closet

• organized my embroidery floss

• took in the recycling

• caught up on season finales

• general house cleaning

Things I skipped:

• shopping at JoAnn's. I realized I had plenty of supplies and projects to finish before I even think of letting myself inside that new superstore.

• with all the rain, I wasn't able to put together the new patio chairs

• didn't start any summer sewing projects, but dreamed about them

Do you ever wonder how things get so unorganized and out of hand? I have been feeling that way for weeks. I have been overwhelmed by rushing from place to place that things just keep piling up. This weekend gave me the opportunity to catch up on a lot of it. There is much more to do, but I feel like I have really made a dent and will continue to make progress.

How was your weekend?

my spot at the kitchen table

As inspired by Kath Eats Real Food, I decided to clean all the clutter off my kitchen table (yes, again) and set a nice place setting. I thought it was about time that I sit down, relax and enjoy my meals.

This is actually really hard. I am used to sitting on the sofa and watching TV while I eat. I even grew up in a house that had a TV prominently displayed, and always on, on the top of the refrigerator. No wonder I always need "company" while working around the house, studying, sewing... and by company I mean TV noise.

I know, not such a good thing... but I am really going to give eating at my table a good try. It will help me be more mindful of what I am eating and pay attention to when I am full.

But, I have to be honest... I still flipped casually through a magazine for a little bit of dinner. But at least it was health and fitness oriented, right?

The entree last evening was Agean Bean Stew with Winter Squash and Quinoa from the New York times. It was quite yummy. It was easy to make, just took a good amount of time with all the soaking, simmering, cooling, simmering and all. Wish I had some crusty bread to enjoy it with... but TJ's multi-grain thins were a pretty good substitute. Next time I think I may break out the laughing cow.

Seriously, this was my second stab at this post... I tried first from my iPhone and got a phone call in the middle and poof, no more post. Ugh. And of course, I think the first post was much better. Oh well.

computers, groceries, budgets and organizing - whew!

Is it Monday already? This weekend was busy. Lots of running around, planning, thinking...

I got up early on Saturday to help my Pops with his computer – well, lets be honest here, I tried to fix it on Friday without luck. See, I am a Mac person and I try with Windows, but it isn’t my specialty – luckily I have a friend who specializes in both and he was able to meet me at my Pop’s office and work his magic. All I am left with is adding some memory once it is delivered. That I can handle, yay.

When I was finished, I made a quick stop at the store and was amazed at some of the prices. $4 for a loaf of good bread, close to the same for milk and oddly $4.50 for really bad for you light mayo (I know, but I needed it). I am really trying to cut down on my grocery bills. When I balanced my checkbook last week, I realized that I spend a lot at the grocery store and at places like Walgreens and Target where it is really easy to throw just one more thing in the cart because “what is an extra 2 dollars going to hurt?” Those extra dollars really do add up. In reaction to my spending, I decided to challenge myself to two things this month (yes, I know it was a fourth over when I came up with my challenges last Monday): spend only $50 at the grocery store till the end of November (thank goodness I am not cooking Thanksgiving dinner) and allow myself only one out to lunch each week now through Christmas. Oh, and almost forgot, never go to stores like the grocery store or Target without a list. I figure these three things will help out my finances a lot. So, when I saw that mayo was going to take a 10 percent chunk out of my grocery budget I was taken aback. Yes, I still bought it, it will last forever, but still I had second thoughts.

Those second thoughts told me I need to really plan my meals and use what I have. I have to admit, I am a pantry hoarder. I love a full pantry – it makes me feel safe. I got this trait from my Momma. Problem is, sometime things go bad before you get to them – in the panty and the fridge/freezer too. This is not good. It is wasteful and really not a good use of money. So, in conjunction with my grocery budget, I figured a good way to make it stretch would be to use as many staples out of my pantry and freezer as I can. Then I can supplement them with fresh fruits and vegetables.

This plan inspired me to clean out my pantry. I needed to see what I really have on hand and to be honest, once I cleaned it out, it is still pretty full and has plenty of options to help get me through the month. Oh, and is it sad that I had so much fun organizing it? I used a bunch of the jars I have been collecting for dry goods – it feels so Martha. I just want to keep the door open so I can look in :)

With the pantry items I had on hand and a butternut squash I had in the fridge, I was able to throw together a stew recipe Kelli forwarded me last week. It is made with beans, winter squash and quinoa. It said to make it a day ahead of time... I’ll let you know how it is after I have it for dinner tonight. It made a lot for a rather small investment, under $5 for supplies I think and I will be able to eat it pretty much all week and share some with a friend too.

So, how are you facing the growing grocery prices? Any ideas for getting through the holiday baking season on a budget? I welcome all ideas...

Sorry for the rambling, I think I could have made three posts out of this one...

new life for a gray sweater

A couple years ago, prompted by an “all sale sweaters are an extra 50% off” sale, I bought a cute gray sweater. I guess I was feeling pretty skinny that day because I bought the wrong size.Sadly the sweater has sat nicely in the closet ever since. Each time I cleaned the closet out, I thought “It is too cute to donate” and “maybe I will fit into it someday,” so it just stayed there... Until now. No, it didn’t just magically start to fit (I wish) - I was inspired by some sweater refashioning I saw around blogland and on Flickr and thought I would give it a try. Mix in a special friend’s birthday and the motivation to get moving on the project was there!

This was much easier than I thought – and quick too, less than 30 minutes start to finish. I just cut the front of the sweater down the middle with a scissors following a rib in the sweater. Using some blue check shirting fabric from my stash, I made some  bias tape and used stitch witchery to attach a little eyelet to one side before sewing the bias tape onto the sweater. When that was all done, I searched my button jar for the perfect one and ended up with two – a large blue button and a smaller light green one. The hardest part of the project was the buttonhole. I had to rip it out twice before getting it right – the machine kept turning back before it got to the beginning. I think the thickness of the fabric had something to do with it. Third time was a charm. Knowing the thickness of the fabric, I was sure not to sew the buttons on too tight – I placed a toothpick between the button and the sweater to help.

I really like how it turned out... And since it was a gift, I am thinking I need to search out another sweater (that fits) from my closet so I can make one for myself.

its been all about cleaning

I really don’t know where the urge came from, but I have been all about cleaning this week. When I returned home from taking care of my Pops last weekend, my house just felt closed up, stale, dusty... just icky. It really wasn’t that bad, but there is something about being away from your surroundings for a while that enlightens you to some things you were just avoiding. I have been cleaning, but just the necessities, no deep cleaning. I am not sure I even “Spring cleaned” my house. Spring was just a blur - basic functioning was an accomplishment for me after my Mom died and Pops was diagnosed with lung cancer... so, I am not giving myself a hard time about it. I am just glad things have settled down a bit, Pops is doing well and I am starting to get some motivation back.

This week I have been motivated to clean, clean, clean. It started a bit oddly around 5:30 on Sunday evening. I just got a wild hair to dust and clean all the windows and shutters. I was feeling a bit allergy-ish and thought the windows would be a good place to start. A couple hours later, sweating and sneezing I was finished. I was tired, but it felt so good. And I knew I had to do more... soon. So, I made a plan. Each evening this week I am attacking a different room. Monday was the living room and dining room. Last night was my bedroom. Tonight the guest room. Tomorrow the kitchen and bathroom. By attack, I mean every surface is cleaned including furniture, fabric, woodwork, floors, ceiling fans, vents. All dust bunnies must be eliminated! It felt so good to sit back on the sofa last night and breath in the fresh air (windows are open and nights are getting cooler) and look at all the sparkly surfaces.

A lot of “friends” have helped me through this cleaning frenzy. Let me share my favorites:

Method furniture polish and floor cleaner. If you haven’t used this, you must try it. It smells amazing! Almond, yum. I love the furniture polish because it isn’t at all waxy and doesn’t leave an extra, fake shine on my furniture.

Orange Glo mop. My sister gave me one of their wood floor cleaning kits a couple years back. The other products are long gone, but the mop survives. It has a detachable microfiber pad that can be rinsed out or thrown in the washer. I use it with the Method floor cleaner and my wood floors look great.

Swiffer sweeper and duster. These are a great invention. I don’t really like the use and toss part of them – too much waste – but I need to use what I have. After I have used up my current supply, I hope to make some reusable covers.  Check out these ideas: microfiber swiffer duster by Merwing, fleece sweeper and duster by Merwing, knit sweeper by Knit Playground (see downloadable free pattern in right column).

Murphy’s Oil Soap. Old school, but really good for wiping down woodwork. I think I get this from my Mom.

Shop Vac. Great for cleaning corners, window sills and vents. After wrangling with a coat hanger and the hose, I finally got mine working as it should. I swear it could pick up rocks!

Recycled t-shirt towels. When old t-shirts pass their prime in my house, I cut them up into rags and use them for a variety of cleaning tasks. Plus, I feel like I am being less wasteful if the t-shirts have a second life.

Those are just a few of my favorites. I haven’t even gotten to the kitchen and bathroom yet... Do you have any favorites? Or have any good sweeper and duster replacement tutorials to share?

uncluttered clutter accumulation

Yesterday I was checking out the new posts on Uncluterrer and was instantly inspired by the task of uncluttering clutter accumulation areas within your home.  Last night, I hopped to the task and tackled two areas of my kitchen that always accumulate junk. Sometimes the junk is very useful, but really doesn't have a place on the kitchen table or on top of the microwave.

I keep a basket on my kitchen table for things I use pretty often, like my iPhone charger, but before I started the clean up, it was overflowing with magazines, receipts, a screw driver, medicine and more. Actually, the entire table had been a dumping ground, leaving me not much room to sit down and enjoy a meal. Now, it is clean. Yay. And I even brought out a little embroidered table cloth to commemorate the occasion.

And the platter on top of my microwave was full of take out menus and other pretty useless paper, an extra key chain and more. Now, it is clean. Double yay.

Unclutterer recommends monitoring your clutter accumulation areas after you do this. Oh yes, this will be key for me. I really hope to keep it under control. Next up, the basket in my living room and the mail center.

Do you have any places where you are always fighting clutter?

labor day weekend catch up

Goodness, I love long weekends. I feel so much more energetic today. My weekend was refreshing... only a little productive, but I think the refreshing part was most needed.

Today, I want to catch up on a few things:

First, lookie, I finally purchased a lovely print from The Black Apple. A couple weeks ago, Emily had a  sale to help pay for some vet bills. How could I not partake with it would help little Miette. Plus, I have had an idea for an art wall for-e-v-e-r and have been very slow collecting. This print "The Little Tree" was my choice. Now I just need a frame.

Second, head over to Kelli's to learn about her great fall project "Jars of Renewal." Basically, she is providing lots of creative ways to reuse glass jars. So far, there is lemoncello and bbq sauce. I can't wait to try the bbq sauce recipe. It would make a great holiday gift.

Third, my health and fitness challenge is going well. I am half way to my 5 in 5 goal, but honestly, the real progress isn't in the pounds, but the inches. My 9 ways to pain is totally working - in just three weeks of completing it every night, I have shaved 1.5 inches of my waist. I am totally on "cloud 9" today :)

And finally, last week I posted a to do list for the week. How did I do? Pretty good I think. 9 ways to pain - check. Quinoa recipe - check. Read at least one hour a day - 5 out of 7 days. Craft project - sorta check - created logo, does that count? and tell my tennis captain I am not playing USTA - check. Overall a good week.

Now on to this week.

unclutter July recap

One thing I learned from declaring July Unclutter July is that there is much more clutter in my life than just July can handle. By just focusing in on the physical clutter in my life, I cut the list down rapidly, but there was (and still is) a lot to do. Goodness. Is it possible to feel more overwhelmed by the amount of uncluttering I have left to do, than satisfied by what I have accomplished?� Whew. Not going to let my mind stay on that thought for too long. So what did I accomplish:

Guest Room

• Closet – Only clothes that fit and I will actually wear survived the purge
• Night stand – now and organized gift wrap and school supply center
• Under bed – recycled the old shoe boxes I was so sure I would put to good use at some point
• Laundry basket – what started as a place to put dry cleaning, had turned into a place where old clothes, hangers, dry cleaning and other junk collected
• Deep cleaning – woodwork, floors, shutters, ceiling fans, everything got a old fashioned cleaning

Still to do: armoire

Kitchen

• Pantry – thinned out the spices (need to go to Penzey’s), stacked the reusable containers, weeded through the cookbooks
• Rolling cart – organized the baking supplies, weeded out the stack of recipe print outs and cleared out a basket to hold the nice set of skillets my Pops got me for my birthday
• Drawers – emptied, washed out and organized all the cooking utensils
• Under the sink – simplified the selection of cleaning supplies
• Fridge – general cleaning, organized the freezer drawer
• Deep cleaning – woodwork, floors (even behind the fridge), ceiling fan etc.

Still to do: fix that darn cabinet door hinge

Bedroom

• Dressers – purged some and happily realized some old clothes fit again
• Night stand – lots of magazines recycled
• Under bed – no more dust bunnies
• Deep cleaning – woodwork, floors, shutters, ceiling fans, everything got a old fashioned cleaning

Still to do: closet

Bathroom

• Medicine cabinet – nice and shiny and only half full
• Deep cleaning – oh so clean, totally scrubbed the old tile floor (not fun)

Still to do: closet (it is really hard to get rid of smelly good lotions and shampoos even though I tend to use only one kind)

Living Room

• Armoire – papers and movies organized
• Mail and file car – filed a huge stack of paperwork

Still to do: coat closet and the stacks of books under the sofa

Hallway

• Linen Closet – freshly folded towels and sheets and a simplified selection of cleaning supplies

So... What is missing? The basement. I tried, I really did. I straightened up a little, but nothing really good to report. The goodwill corner is still as full as before (if not more so) and while the craft area looks pretty good, there is a huge closet that has been a really good hiding place for everything that doesn’t have a home. I need to start working, bit by bit to get this done. First, I need to get to goodwill before the pile is way unmanageable. If I add to it, it may just fall over. From there, I can start back adding to it again. Even thinking about the basement is overwhelming me... Oh and there is the garage too. Ugh.

Have you been doing any uncluttering lately? How is it going?

hi, did you know it is "unclutter july"

So, I attempted to get crafty over this long weekend, but it didn’t really stick. Friday after work, I thought to myself “goodness, its been a really long time since you did anything creative, you need to get moving – you haven’t posted about anything but annoying little bunny rabbits for weeks! Maybe something simple and manageable, like embroidery.” Yes, this was my though process... And it led me to my old suitcase of embroidery transfers. I even picked on out and ironed it on a nice flour sack towel and picked out my thread. But, the embroidery didn’t get very far – maybe an eight of the way through the pattern before I got distracted.

Hey, at least I tried. I do plan to get back to it, but my distraction actually inspired me a bit more. I actually traded embroidery for cleaning and I kept going all weekend. I know, crazy stuff. Over the past few months, my guest room had turned into a closed door room. One pile turned into another pile, then the bed was covered and the closet was stuffed. It was rather embarrassing. My Mom would never have approved of my housekeeping. I planned to get to this long ago, but life kept getting in the way. Every extra day I have had always ended up focused on something else, like taking care of my Pops or... So, when the inspiration struck, I had to keep going.

So, now the bed has no piles and sports clean bedding and fluffed up pillows. The old magazines have been removed from under the bed, the shutters and fan are dust free and the floors sparkle. The closet is even clean and I can move things around – but, the dark side of this is a lot (I mean LOT) of non-fitting clothes have been moved to the basement. Yes, even a clean, sparkly room can be a bit depressing when you have a concrete realization of the extra pounds that have crept on over the past six months... But, I am not letting that get me down and I have a plan for that  and for the displaced and remaning first floor clutter.

The first plan is what I call the “31-Day Shred Mini-Health and Fitness Challenge” and I will post (I promise) about that later this week... The second plan is “Unclutter July.” So much for Spring cleaning, mine is taking place this Summer!

I think some of this inspiration comes from what I have recently seen around the blogosphere. Have you seen the site Unclutterer? Love it. It will make you want to pare down, find new uses for old stuff and want for new multi-tasking gadgets (oops... that might not be good). But, more poignant was a post I saw on Apron Thrift Girl about how losing the clutter and loosening our attachment to things can open ourselves up to a much better, more meaningful life. I get this. I really think that clutter causes stress and utilizes much more of our time than it needs to. If simplifying my life and my clutter can help reduce my stress (yay!) and provide me with more time to work on say crafty, cooking, fitness, friends, family etc., than I am all in. Hence, Unclutter July has begun. A good month (maybe more) of organizing, cleaning and cluttering will be happening around my household this month. I’ll keep you posted, although I may not be brave enough to share all the before and after pictures...

Anyone else have any good goals for July?