I am sick of our food again. We are eating at home every night, because it's cheaper and because I don't want Boogie thinking that restaurant dining is a normal part of her week. It should be a special-occasion type of thing, not something we do all the time. Luckily she's been to enough of them that she is mostly inclined to behave herself. We don't go to fine dining restaurants, even if we could afford it, but we do stick to the types of chain restaurants and local places where there is the reasonable expectation that kids might be there and they might get a little rowdy. But lately we've been strictly eating at home, and eating homemade food, so we're starting to fall into a rut. Pasta, red meat one night, chicken or pork another night, meatloaf or some other ground-beef dinner (it was tacos this week), something a little different once or twice, then pizza. I always know we've hit the wall when we give up and order pizza.
So I'm sitting here thinking about what we can have that would be a little different, while also being somewhat affordable and quick to prepare, and I have decided on Teriyaki Beef. It's just as easy to make the teriyaki sauce as it is to buy it, and you can have the ingredients on hand in large quantities so you can vary the taste according to your preference. Teriyaki sauce is just soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, mirin (Japanese rice wine, or you could use sherry, which is what I do) and ginger, and it's easy to find recipes for the proper quantities on the internet. My recipe comes from a book called Substituting Ingredients- An A to Z Kitchen Reference, by Becky Sue Epstein & Hilary D. Klein. This book has been priceless to me- I bought it on a whim when I first moved out on my own, and it is just... people, I love this book. It's an alphabetical list of ingredients both exotic and commonplace, and the ingredients you can use to substitute if you don't have something or if it's something so specific that you just don't want to buy a lot of it. Like, say you for some reason ran out of ketchup. Look up ketchup and it lists all the different things you can use instead to achieve the same taste. Or if a recipe calls for something you don't have in your spice cupboard and you don't want to buy a quantity of it 'cause you're not sure when you're going to use it again. Look it up and chances are good there will be a substitution involving more common ingredients you have on hand. I don't usually gush about cookbooks to people-- I collect them rabidly and read them like novels, but it's not something I babble on about to others-- but this one is gold, people. Seriously go out and buy this book if you can find it.
But I digress. At length. I use their recipe for teriyaki sauce, which I will share with you when I have access to the book. The neat thing about making your own sauce, to me, is that depending on your choice of protein you can vary the quantities of the ingredients. I'm making beef tonight so I want a heavier flavor-- thus, more soy sauce. If I were doing chicken, seafood or tofu, I might put less soy sauce and more mirin and vinegar for a lighter flavor that doesn't overpower the food. For pork, maybe more ginger than I would put with other proteins just because ginger and pork go so well together, and I might add some citrus juice instead of the vinegar. It isn't the true Japanese way, obviously, but I'm not striving for authenticity here, just good tasting food.
A tip about ginger if you haven't heard it before. If you like to use fresh ginger but don't use it a lot, there are two ways to store it long-term. The first involves sherry and the refrigerator. When you're putting the ginger away, put it into a non-porous container (like a glass jar) and pour in enough cooking sherry just to cover. Store it in the fridge and you can save it for another day, up to a month. If you need to store it longer, put it in a zippered bag in the freezer and squeeze all the air out. When you need to use it just chop off what you need and put the rest back. I do this and the ginger is usually good for about 6 to 8 weeks before it gets all freezer-burny and dull-tasting. Fresh is always best, but wasting perfectly good food is never a good idea.
The preparation is really simple here. Put together the ingredients for the teriyaki marinade and slice your protein thinly. I am going to use a flank steak, cut across the grain into thin slices. Place the meat or tofu in a zippered bag, add your marinade and let it soak until the rest of your ingredients are prepped. I happen to have leftover white rice, so to perk it up before I serve it I'll be placing it in a big serving bowl, covering it with a wet paper towel and putting it in the microwave for one minute. Then I'll just leave it there til I'm ready to serve dinner.
The rest of the ingredients: Broccoli, garlic and scallions. The broccoli will be cut up into bite-size chunks, garlic will be minced and scallions sliced into thin ribbons. I've been watching Kylie Kwong lately and I like the way she chops things. Rather than slicing the scallions into rings, I will cut on the diagonal so the pieces are bigger but still thin-- more scallion in a bite. And pretty. Common stir-fry instructions state to cut up all your components and have them prepped before you cook. Do this. It's worth it just for not having to scramble while you're cooking, and you get to play Cooking Show Host while you make your dinner. But don't narrate unless someone's actually in the kitchen with you. Otherwise you look like a dork.
When you're ready, heat up your wok and drizzle some oil in it. Use a light oil- no need for the olive here unless that's what you've got on hand. Canola oil or another flavorless oil work wonderfully. Add the garlic and scallions and stir to release their flavor into the oil. Take the meat from the marinade- put the meat in the wok and the marinade in a separate saucepan to cook. You need to cook it to lose the chance there might be bacteria from the raw meat (not likely, but who takes chances with that?) and also so you can thicken it. Stir-fry the meat, add the broccoli and any other veggies you want- sometimes I add carrots or snow peas if I have them. Meanwhile, mix together a teaspoon of corn starch in enough water to make a slurry, and add it to your teriyaki marinade in the saucepan. Stir until thickened and pour the whole thing over the meat and veggies in the wok. Stir to coat evenly, then cover and let it steam until the broccoli is tender.
Go back to your rice in the nuker. Toss it with a fork, replace the wet paper towel on top and re-nuke up to a minute if necessary.
There you go! Tasty teriyaki dinner for me, and a recipe for you.
Have a special weekend!
Friday, February 6, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Gettin' There...
Almost done with the poncho, and having looked at the yarn I believe it might have been a discontinued colorway or one that didn't come out as planned. It's not a perfect match to either Orchid or Peppermint Stick. It almost looks like Rhubarb... who cares- it's pink, it's fluffy, and it's almost done!
I need to have a finishing party. I've completed a Haiku cardigan and a Sunflower Dress for Boogie, and now her poncho, and they'll all need the finishing touches applied. The sunflower dress is made in Kraemer's Little Lehigh Pebbles, and needs blocking and some buttons. I got some little sunflower buttons, so my child will look like a minion from the Land of Precious. The cardigan needs blocking, assembly and buttons, so it's a little less done than the other stuff, and the poncho might just need a little steam blocking since I used stockinette stitch instead of the garter stitch that was recommended in the pattern. Kinda feel like putting ribbons through the eyelet increases for the arms, but it might be too much... or Boogie might eat them. Probably best not to.
Then I can get started on the earflap hat for my boss's nephew. I found a few patterns on Ravelry for them, and can begin the Frankenstein process of cobbling together parts that work to make the hat. My main concern is that it's for an 8-year-old boy, and he wants a Steelers color motif, so I want to make it fit the specs without being dorky. I think it should only take a little bit of time to make... hopefully maybe a week if I can get the time to do it.
We're getting the household routine down, too, and I have actually remembered to take my multivitamin and drink a glass of OJ every morning for the past two weeks. I'm feeling a bit more energetic, and having a neater house is kinda cool-- looking around surveying a shithole of a house is kind of a downer. After a while you just sort of look at the mess and say, "Screw it, I'll clean and it'll just be messy again, so why waste the time?" I think it might be the same deal with your body, too, at least I'm noticing it in my case. I've been trying to take better care of myself- eat better food, get more sleep, make a bit more of an effort to look nice when I get ready for work. I'm not a total style superstar or anything but I'm at least trying to do something with my hair besides put it in a ponytail, maybe put a little makeup on, accessorize. And I never would have believed it for myself, but I actually do feel a little perkier these days, even if I still crash out on the couch by 10 every night. At least nowadays it's not 9 at night, after an evening of running around and feeling like shit. It's a start...
OK, so I promised kitchen adventures and have so far not delivered. We haven't done anything adventurous lately. I am making cinnamon buns this weekend for my inlaws' visit, so how about tomorrow we tackle those? Not exactly in line with my whole self-improvement kick, but nobody says you have to eat the whole batch, right?
I need to have a finishing party. I've completed a Haiku cardigan and a Sunflower Dress for Boogie, and now her poncho, and they'll all need the finishing touches applied. The sunflower dress is made in Kraemer's Little Lehigh Pebbles, and needs blocking and some buttons. I got some little sunflower buttons, so my child will look like a minion from the Land of Precious. The cardigan needs blocking, assembly and buttons, so it's a little less done than the other stuff, and the poncho might just need a little steam blocking since I used stockinette stitch instead of the garter stitch that was recommended in the pattern. Kinda feel like putting ribbons through the eyelet increases for the arms, but it might be too much... or Boogie might eat them. Probably best not to.
Then I can get started on the earflap hat for my boss's nephew. I found a few patterns on Ravelry for them, and can begin the Frankenstein process of cobbling together parts that work to make the hat. My main concern is that it's for an 8-year-old boy, and he wants a Steelers color motif, so I want to make it fit the specs without being dorky. I think it should only take a little bit of time to make... hopefully maybe a week if I can get the time to do it.
We're getting the household routine down, too, and I have actually remembered to take my multivitamin and drink a glass of OJ every morning for the past two weeks. I'm feeling a bit more energetic, and having a neater house is kinda cool-- looking around surveying a shithole of a house is kind of a downer. After a while you just sort of look at the mess and say, "Screw it, I'll clean and it'll just be messy again, so why waste the time?" I think it might be the same deal with your body, too, at least I'm noticing it in my case. I've been trying to take better care of myself- eat better food, get more sleep, make a bit more of an effort to look nice when I get ready for work. I'm not a total style superstar or anything but I'm at least trying to do something with my hair besides put it in a ponytail, maybe put a little makeup on, accessorize. And I never would have believed it for myself, but I actually do feel a little perkier these days, even if I still crash out on the couch by 10 every night. At least nowadays it's not 9 at night, after an evening of running around and feeling like shit. It's a start...
OK, so I promised kitchen adventures and have so far not delivered. We haven't done anything adventurous lately. I am making cinnamon buns this weekend for my inlaws' visit, so how about tomorrow we tackle those? Not exactly in line with my whole self-improvement kick, but nobody says you have to eat the whole batch, right?
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
P-p-p-p-poncho!
So I'm makin' a poncho for Boogie, and I have to get it done soon. I'm using Kraemer Yarns' Bear Creek in what I believe is their Orchid colorway. Either that or it's Peppermint Stick, but it's not quite exactly that either. See, I live very close to their yarn shop, which is just so lovely, and they have bins filled with bargain yarn that I shop religiously. I also buy their regularly priced yarn, but I always troll the bargain bins when I am just coveting yarn but not sure what I'm-a do with it. Then it'll sit in my stash until I figure out what it needs to be. Originally I made a comically long scarf with it, figuring that it would be something bulky and cozy for our increasingly cold winters (whatup, global warming!). I cast on a ton of stitches using my size 15 circulars. I don't even know how many, it was probably around 100 or 150, just long enough that I could work the scarf longways, and just randomly started knitting. After two garter stitch ridges (4 knit rows) I did a yo, k1 row, then two more garter stitch ridges, then bound off. I share the pattern here basically because it did come out rather cute, but just way too long on my 5'2" frame. It was like, all scarf with a head perched on top. Too bulky.
But Boogie LOVED the scarf! She's 18 months old, and loves to play dress-up with stuff she finds around the house. My gardening hat, DH's big old shoes, the scarf and her musical learning purse, and she's all ready to go. The scarf, however, made me nervous as hell. She could trip over something on the floor, it could get caught on something, and she'd choke herself. Not good, obviously, but she loved loved loved the scarf! So I frogged the scarf and I am making her a poncho. It will be perfect for the late winter-early spring time frame, and if I knit it a little big, it might even take her into the summer- though the yarn is really bulky and warm (Kraemer describes it as being like knitting with roving, just a little better contained because it's wrapped round with a nylon thread to keep it together), it will be good if there are chilly summer nights, and she might be able to wear it even into late fall.
I'm using the Poncho Recipe from Knitlist. It is the world's most simple pattern, and since I'm not sure about the whole copywrong issue (and wouldn't want a dollipede attack at any time) I'm-a just link it so you can click. And when I am done, a picture of the Booginator will be posted. I have modified the pattern slightly. Rather than duplicate garter stitch by doing alternating knit-purl rows on the circs, I am just knitting each row. The colors in my Bear Creek are so pretty, and the yarn is already so nubbly, I just want to show it off with the simplest stitch possible. Also, the increase for the poncho is really pretty and should leave a neat little eyelet row down the front center and back center, as well as the two sides. I already know she'll be sticking her fingers through the eyelets on the arm sides, because she does that with her blankie already. When I get to the bottom of the poncho I want to include a bead row- since I will be at the end of the skein by then, I can just string the beads on from that end. I have to go bead shopping, but I'm looking for something that's wooden, a little glossy, and perhaps something in the pinky-brown range. Or not. Something entirely different might catch my eye. I need to leave enough yarn to do one bead row, and then I think perhaps 2 or 3 rows of seed stitch or garter. I forget how many rows of ribbing are at the neckline, but I think it should mirror that.
How do I know she's gonna love it? Well, I have no set plan on how long this poncho can be, it just needs to be "long enough." So every little while when I'm knitting it I have been slipping it over her head to see how long it is, before I start finishing it. Not to be Braggy Mommy or anything, but she's so damn cute when you put the poncho over her head. She starts wiggling back and forth and swooshing her shoulders around, and goes, "Lalalalalala" and tries to take off with it. Which I can't let her do right now since it's still attached to my knitting bag. Plus, the pointy needles. Toddler + pointy needles = trip to St. Luke's.
So that's why I gotta finish it- she needs it because I need to see her in it. Plus, I want to knit two baby blankets for some impending babies, an earflap hat for my boss's nephew (he wants Steelers, and I just need to find the right type of pattern to muck about with), and the Divi Toddler Hoodie from Caron with some Little Lehigh Pebbles I picked up at Kraemer. And the hat I'm making for myself ("Guinan," from Ravelry), the Monkey Socks I started before the holidays, and the diamond-square afghan I'm working on when I don't feel like working on other stuff.
Crap, I have a lot to do.
But Boogie LOVED the scarf! She's 18 months old, and loves to play dress-up with stuff she finds around the house. My gardening hat, DH's big old shoes, the scarf and her musical learning purse, and she's all ready to go. The scarf, however, made me nervous as hell. She could trip over something on the floor, it could get caught on something, and she'd choke herself. Not good, obviously, but she loved loved loved the scarf! So I frogged the scarf and I am making her a poncho. It will be perfect for the late winter-early spring time frame, and if I knit it a little big, it might even take her into the summer- though the yarn is really bulky and warm (Kraemer describes it as being like knitting with roving, just a little better contained because it's wrapped round with a nylon thread to keep it together), it will be good if there are chilly summer nights, and she might be able to wear it even into late fall.
I'm using the Poncho Recipe from Knitlist. It is the world's most simple pattern, and since I'm not sure about the whole copywrong issue (and wouldn't want a dollipede attack at any time) I'm-a just link it so you can click. And when I am done, a picture of the Booginator will be posted. I have modified the pattern slightly. Rather than duplicate garter stitch by doing alternating knit-purl rows on the circs, I am just knitting each row. The colors in my Bear Creek are so pretty, and the yarn is already so nubbly, I just want to show it off with the simplest stitch possible. Also, the increase for the poncho is really pretty and should leave a neat little eyelet row down the front center and back center, as well as the two sides. I already know she'll be sticking her fingers through the eyelets on the arm sides, because she does that with her blankie already. When I get to the bottom of the poncho I want to include a bead row- since I will be at the end of the skein by then, I can just string the beads on from that end. I have to go bead shopping, but I'm looking for something that's wooden, a little glossy, and perhaps something in the pinky-brown range. Or not. Something entirely different might catch my eye. I need to leave enough yarn to do one bead row, and then I think perhaps 2 or 3 rows of seed stitch or garter. I forget how many rows of ribbing are at the neckline, but I think it should mirror that.
How do I know she's gonna love it? Well, I have no set plan on how long this poncho can be, it just needs to be "long enough." So every little while when I'm knitting it I have been slipping it over her head to see how long it is, before I start finishing it. Not to be Braggy Mommy or anything, but she's so damn cute when you put the poncho over her head. She starts wiggling back and forth and swooshing her shoulders around, and goes, "Lalalalalala" and tries to take off with it. Which I can't let her do right now since it's still attached to my knitting bag. Plus, the pointy needles. Toddler + pointy needles = trip to St. Luke's.
So that's why I gotta finish it- she needs it because I need to see her in it. Plus, I want to knit two baby blankets for some impending babies, an earflap hat for my boss's nephew (he wants Steelers, and I just need to find the right type of pattern to muck about with), and the Divi Toddler Hoodie from Caron with some Little Lehigh Pebbles I picked up at Kraemer. And the hat I'm making for myself ("Guinan," from Ravelry), the Monkey Socks I started before the holidays, and the diamond-square afghan I'm working on when I don't feel like working on other stuff.
Crap, I have a lot to do.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Bein' and Doin'!
Ah, my pretty, I haven't forgotten you... and I haven't been slackin' neither! I've been busy! For real! I finally decided that instead of complaining about my lack of storage space, I will use this wretched time of year to audit everything. Forthwith, my progress.
I'm sick of winter, sick of cold. Sick of dark at 6 and freezy-cold mornings! I want blooming! Sunshine! Life! Birds I don't feel sorry for! Spring, folks, I wants it. But Phil saw his shadow, so 6 more weeks of this crap, says he. I can sulk, or I can get doing stuff so that when my precious warm spring days arrive I'm not stuck dicking around in the attic getting rid of old crap, or reorganizing our closets, dressers and cupboards to make my house more tidy. I can be out digging in the soil, showing Boogie how the plants and flowers grow!
To that end I've been sorting through things. Perhaps it's just the result of having been a big slacker in my younger years, but I've accumulated a lot of garbage that I've been hauling from house to house. Instead of going through boxes and bags before we'd move, we'd wait until the very last minute and then, in a mad frenzy, lop everything into every vehicle we could wrangle to help transport things and hump it over to the new place, promptly depositing it into the basement, attic or spare room with every intention of going through it "someday." Then we'd run out of room, get pissed and start hating our current place, and start looking for someplace new, and the whole bloody cycle would repeat itself again.
Well, we own a house now. And we're far from being able to afford to move, pretty much for at least the next decade. Which is fine, since I love my house. So I gotta start getting rid of this crap. We have plans for many of the rooms in which we've stowed things we don't feel like dealing with, and we can't move forward until all the shit is dealt with. And I find my current self becoming extremely mad at my former lazy self.
I spent some time in the attic the other day. DH and I hope to eventually make this into our master bedroom with a full bath, but were you to see it right now, you would laugh at our obviously unattainable goal. We started ripping it up when we first moved in, and DH was able to pull off all the old lath-and-plaster walls, run proper electrical wiring, insulate and drywall. He even did the mud, which I then sanded--
A note here, a DIY FYI, if you will. When you are sanding a rather large room in your house on a warm sunny summer Saturday, it is never a good idea to keep the windows closed but leave the door to the room open. Rather, try for the reverse. Otherwise all the flying dust will coat everything in your house that it can reach. That is all.
So you get the drift- we are about 75% done with the room, but decided to move on to more important and immediately necessary projects. As it stands, though, the room is done enough that it makes wonderful storage for all our stuff. And lawd, do we have stuff, which is why I am going through it all, and why I find myself so extremely peeved at my former self. One particulary aggravating afternoon was spent as follows: See box. Open box. Find box filled with old celebrity and fashion magazines, old junk mail, stuff with pieces broken off of it, pieces broken off of stuff (not the same stuff, mind you, but entirely different stuff), cassette mix tapes (we do not own a cassette player anymore), cat toys, one stretchy glove covered in hair and lint, pipe cleaners, one partial skein of embroidery floss, blank paper, some pictures that are stuck together so you can't see who's in them, and some old bills from two apartments ago. Really? REALLY?? I needed to drag an entire box of absolutely useless junk from not one apartment, but two? To this house, where six years later I am finally going through it only to find that not one thing in it is of any use to anyone? And even if it at some time was important, it sure isn't now after it's been sitting in a box in my attic for at least the last 4 years since we bought the house! Really, old self, you were too damned lazy to just put the shit into a Hefty bag and throw it the hell away? Seriously. Post-diatribe, see another box. Open box. Repeat above.
I actually found four contractor-size garbage bags filled with Goodwill clothes. Stuff from my younger years, stuff that doesn't fit, some stuff that I'm not even sure why we own it. Clothes from my husband's various style phases. Things I actually took the time to remove from whatever receptacle it was in and put into a bag for Goodwill. Which I then left in the attic for four years. All that stuff has got to go- I'll be taking a trip over to Goodwill to drop off my discarded bounty this weekend. I've also found some new ways to deal with my junk-- they might work for you, too!
1. Underbed storage bags. I don't keep clothes in them because I tend to forget about them when I can't see them. However, I can never forget about yarn, so all my yarn is stashed under the bed in those cheap storage bags from Wallyworld. They're clear on top so I can see what's in there, and because they're soft-sided, I can smoosh them under the bed when I'm done using them. Also? When you buy bedding or curtains, a lot of times they come in those plastic zippered bags. I store my bedding in a spare dresser and my hope chest, so I use the zipper bags to sort out yarn for projects. They're big enough to hold both the yarn and the magazine or pattern book. Evidently I am not the only one who does this, as you can now buy these things from craft purveyors, with a handy-dandy pocket to hold your pattern in it. Or, you could just use the ones you have from the last time you bought a shower curtain or sheet set.
2. Our paper shredder is right next to where we read the mail. When the mail comes in I sort it out and all the junk gets shredded right away. Tax stuff has its own bin on my desk, and bills go next to the printer/computer setup. I keep thinking I should use the shredded paper as cat litter or something, but I think it would freak out the kitties because it was different and they'd end up peeing all over my laundry or something.
3. Speaking of laundry, everyone in my house gets a laundry basket of their own. When I fold clothes, they go in their specific basket so that I know where my stuff is if I don't get a chance to put it away right away. Or if I just don't feel like it. That way when DH is hunting for socks, he doesn't mess up my stuff, and when I am getting dressed for work I don't have to dig through 50 million band t-shirts to find one good pair of undies.
4. This one's a work in progress. As I go through my stuff, I create a container for it if I don't want to throw it out immediately. Like, when I went through the bookshelf to try and organize it, I got an old diaper box and as I came across a book I didn't want anymore, I put it right in the box. When I'm putting away Boogie's clothes I have another empty diaper box and started filling it with the clothes she's too big for now. When the box is full, it goes in the attic with the other castoff baby stuff for the next time we have a kid, and the box of books has already been shopped through by my mom and my best friend. Most of them came from my MIL, but I think I'll let her rifle through the box to see if she wants anything before I take it to work to unload at our lending library (it's not that fancy- it's just a bookshelf in the ladies' room where people take/leave old novels). When I find broken things, if I want to try and salvage it, it goes in the box of broken things and every once in a while I take the box and my Super Glue and play puzzle pieces for an evening.
I'm working on more ways to keep myself organized- these are just the things that have started to work. Maybe tomorrow- kitchen time? We haven't had kitchen time in a while.
I'm sick of winter, sick of cold. Sick of dark at 6 and freezy-cold mornings! I want blooming! Sunshine! Life! Birds I don't feel sorry for! Spring, folks, I wants it. But Phil saw his shadow, so 6 more weeks of this crap, says he. I can sulk, or I can get doing stuff so that when my precious warm spring days arrive I'm not stuck dicking around in the attic getting rid of old crap, or reorganizing our closets, dressers and cupboards to make my house more tidy. I can be out digging in the soil, showing Boogie how the plants and flowers grow!
To that end I've been sorting through things. Perhaps it's just the result of having been a big slacker in my younger years, but I've accumulated a lot of garbage that I've been hauling from house to house. Instead of going through boxes and bags before we'd move, we'd wait until the very last minute and then, in a mad frenzy, lop everything into every vehicle we could wrangle to help transport things and hump it over to the new place, promptly depositing it into the basement, attic or spare room with every intention of going through it "someday." Then we'd run out of room, get pissed and start hating our current place, and start looking for someplace new, and the whole bloody cycle would repeat itself again.
Well, we own a house now. And we're far from being able to afford to move, pretty much for at least the next decade. Which is fine, since I love my house. So I gotta start getting rid of this crap. We have plans for many of the rooms in which we've stowed things we don't feel like dealing with, and we can't move forward until all the shit is dealt with. And I find my current self becoming extremely mad at my former lazy self.
I spent some time in the attic the other day. DH and I hope to eventually make this into our master bedroom with a full bath, but were you to see it right now, you would laugh at our obviously unattainable goal. We started ripping it up when we first moved in, and DH was able to pull off all the old lath-and-plaster walls, run proper electrical wiring, insulate and drywall. He even did the mud, which I then sanded--
A note here, a DIY FYI, if you will. When you are sanding a rather large room in your house on a warm sunny summer Saturday, it is never a good idea to keep the windows closed but leave the door to the room open. Rather, try for the reverse. Otherwise all the flying dust will coat everything in your house that it can reach. That is all.
So you get the drift- we are about 75% done with the room, but decided to move on to more important and immediately necessary projects. As it stands, though, the room is done enough that it makes wonderful storage for all our stuff. And lawd, do we have stuff, which is why I am going through it all, and why I find myself so extremely peeved at my former self. One particulary aggravating afternoon was spent as follows: See box. Open box. Find box filled with old celebrity and fashion magazines, old junk mail, stuff with pieces broken off of it, pieces broken off of stuff (not the same stuff, mind you, but entirely different stuff), cassette mix tapes (we do not own a cassette player anymore), cat toys, one stretchy glove covered in hair and lint, pipe cleaners, one partial skein of embroidery floss, blank paper, some pictures that are stuck together so you can't see who's in them, and some old bills from two apartments ago. Really? REALLY?? I needed to drag an entire box of absolutely useless junk from not one apartment, but two? To this house, where six years later I am finally going through it only to find that not one thing in it is of any use to anyone? And even if it at some time was important, it sure isn't now after it's been sitting in a box in my attic for at least the last 4 years since we bought the house! Really, old self, you were too damned lazy to just put the shit into a Hefty bag and throw it the hell away? Seriously. Post-diatribe, see another box. Open box. Repeat above.
I actually found four contractor-size garbage bags filled with Goodwill clothes. Stuff from my younger years, stuff that doesn't fit, some stuff that I'm not even sure why we own it. Clothes from my husband's various style phases. Things I actually took the time to remove from whatever receptacle it was in and put into a bag for Goodwill. Which I then left in the attic for four years. All that stuff has got to go- I'll be taking a trip over to Goodwill to drop off my discarded bounty this weekend. I've also found some new ways to deal with my junk-- they might work for you, too!
1. Underbed storage bags. I don't keep clothes in them because I tend to forget about them when I can't see them. However, I can never forget about yarn, so all my yarn is stashed under the bed in those cheap storage bags from Wallyworld. They're clear on top so I can see what's in there, and because they're soft-sided, I can smoosh them under the bed when I'm done using them. Also? When you buy bedding or curtains, a lot of times they come in those plastic zippered bags. I store my bedding in a spare dresser and my hope chest, so I use the zipper bags to sort out yarn for projects. They're big enough to hold both the yarn and the magazine or pattern book. Evidently I am not the only one who does this, as you can now buy these things from craft purveyors, with a handy-dandy pocket to hold your pattern in it. Or, you could just use the ones you have from the last time you bought a shower curtain or sheet set.
2. Our paper shredder is right next to where we read the mail. When the mail comes in I sort it out and all the junk gets shredded right away. Tax stuff has its own bin on my desk, and bills go next to the printer/computer setup. I keep thinking I should use the shredded paper as cat litter or something, but I think it would freak out the kitties because it was different and they'd end up peeing all over my laundry or something.
3. Speaking of laundry, everyone in my house gets a laundry basket of their own. When I fold clothes, they go in their specific basket so that I know where my stuff is if I don't get a chance to put it away right away. Or if I just don't feel like it. That way when DH is hunting for socks, he doesn't mess up my stuff, and when I am getting dressed for work I don't have to dig through 50 million band t-shirts to find one good pair of undies.
4. This one's a work in progress. As I go through my stuff, I create a container for it if I don't want to throw it out immediately. Like, when I went through the bookshelf to try and organize it, I got an old diaper box and as I came across a book I didn't want anymore, I put it right in the box. When I'm putting away Boogie's clothes I have another empty diaper box and started filling it with the clothes she's too big for now. When the box is full, it goes in the attic with the other castoff baby stuff for the next time we have a kid, and the box of books has already been shopped through by my mom and my best friend. Most of them came from my MIL, but I think I'll let her rifle through the box to see if she wants anything before I take it to work to unload at our lending library (it's not that fancy- it's just a bookshelf in the ladies' room where people take/leave old novels). When I find broken things, if I want to try and salvage it, it goes in the box of broken things and every once in a while I take the box and my Super Glue and play puzzle pieces for an evening.
I'm working on more ways to keep myself organized- these are just the things that have started to work. Maybe tomorrow- kitchen time? We haven't had kitchen time in a while.
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