Catch Up

As I mentioned yesterday, a lot has been going on here in the last two months.

1.
I've finished some knitting projects, are you surprised?

The Princess's Cardigan

Morgan (I know this is a very bad picture)

The Bear's Happy Birthday Vest. I finished last night!!!!

(I still have to get some good pictures of him wearing it.)

A baby gift (vest and hat) for the Bear's teacher, she had a beautiful baby boy at the beginning of April.  I'm sorry to say that I don't have a picture. I was up against one of those pesky knitting deadlines (she left on maternity leave 2 weeks early) and I plum forgot!

2.
I found out that I'm going to be an Aunt, twice! Both my sister, and my sister-in-law are due in October. Needless to say there is much baby knitting going on around here. I have already finished knitting Part 1 of The Epic Baby Project!  Sorry no pictures at this time as this is a big surprise, and I don't want to give anything away.

3.
Other than my spare bedroom (which I think will be a separate post), I'm woefully behind on my house cleaning and decluttering. Fly Lady and I have become more of occasional acquaintances than everyday friends over the last two months. I really need to reconnect!

I think I'll leave it here for now.  I wouldn't want to overwhelm you with two full months all at one time. Besides, I have to stretch this catch up post out a bit. I don't really have any ideas right now for the rest of the week.

Going overboard in the process

**Warning**  This is a LONG post!

I had originally intended for this to be two posts, but since I didn't get a chance to blog yesterday, you get to enjoy one big blog today. Lucky you!

Let's start with Post #1:

As you are probably aware, I'm in the process of cleaning and organizing our house. This is a difficult task for me as I'm a bit of a pack rat. I know that we have way too much stuff, but I can find an excuse to keep almost anything.

So to keep me on track, I'm going to start posting pictures of some of the items that are in the process of finding new homes. I'm not near as good as my Knit Sib Deb over here at The 100 Days Cleanout, but let's just see what we have.

These came from a picnic basket set that we had many years ago. I had to get rid of the basket a while ago because it fell apart, but for some unknown reason I hung on to these.

I think that the kids have out grown their plactic IKEA dinnerware set (at least I'm getting tired of trying to find a place for it in the cabinet.) I seem to have collected just a few glass measuring cups. I know they're useful, but really how many do I actually need?

There are also some random items, like old coolers and clothes the kids have out grown, but please forgive me for not taking a picture of those. 

Moving onto Post #2:

The last holdout.

I was very much focused on getting my main floor cleaned and organized. I tackled the kitchen (including most of the cabinets), the dining room, the foyer and foyer closet, even the laundry closet.

All that was left was the sitting room (so called because I like to sit in here and knit). But it was overwhelming! I just didn't know where to start. Let me show you the chaos that has run rampant. (As before please don't judge me on the before pics.)

I started attacking it very meticulously. I set my timer for 15 minutes and started with one small corner. Overall, it took me about a week to cleanup. Since I know you're just dying to see how it looks now lets get going with the after picture!

This is about the point where I went overboard. In the process of cleaning out the room, I decided that something had to be done about my picture wall. At one point I had just slapped some pictures on the wall and they'd been there ever since:

What was I thinking? Please don't answer that!

So I pulled down the old pictures and went running around the house looking for more pictures and frames. This took about an hour or so. Then came the fun part. I laid all of the picture on the dining room floor and started arranging. 

Once I was happy with it, I snapped a quick picture (so I wouldn't forget the placement) and started to put them up on the wall. I have a lot of nail holes that I have to go back and fill in! But in the end I was was very pleased with the gallery wall I created.

Please excuse me while I take a moment and pat myself on the back. Ok, moment over. Before I leave you for today, I wanted to draw your attention to the piece in the middle. This is a shaddow box that the Teacher made for us after our wedding.

I'm embarred to admit tha this wonderful piece of artwork has been hiding in the guest room for the past ummm cough cough eleven years. I want to say "I'm sorry" to the Teacher for having negected it for so long. But, it really is very happy in it's new home. (Please excuse the lousy picture, I'm not a very ood photographer.)

Flying

Well, I meant to post this yesterday, but I lost track of time cleaning. Yes, I said cleaning. This doesn't happen to me. Ever! Sure, I've lost track of time taking on the phone, running errands, and yes knitting, especially knitting. But rarely, if ever, cleaning. We'll blame Fly Lady.

Today I want to introduce you to Fly Lady. This is Fly Lady.

Why Fly lady? F.L.Y. stands for Finally Loving Yourself! I really like this concept.

I stumbled on her website a few years ago. She has an entire website dedicated to getting rid of C.H.A.O.S. (can't have anyone over syndrome). I was doing really well for a while, and then I fell off the wagon, and the wagon moved on leaving me suck firmly in the mud. Fast forward 2 years. To my utter surprise and amazement, the wagon has circled around. It even slowed down enough for me to climb stumble back on.

Because I had been gone so long, I decided that I would go back to "Getting Started". How does one get started? I'm glad you asked. You shine your sink. You take everything out of your sink and you clean it, I mean really clean it. I won't go into details, you can find them here. So, I shined my sink.

Here it is, my newly shined sink.

Well, this clean a sink can't sit in a messy kitchen, so I straightened the kitchen. I have been moving slowly around my main level for the last week of so. Which brings me to yesterday and my sitting room.

The sitting area was the biggest holdout. I was ever so slightly overwhelmed by the chaos and clutter that had collected. But what's a girl to do? The other rooms were whispering at me "you can't leave us sitting here all nice and clean with that mess lying around". In comes Fly Lady with her saying:

You can do anything for 15 minutes!

So I set the timer for 15 minutes and away I went. I was so proud of what I accomplished in the first 15 minutes, that I set the timer for another, and another... Anyway you can see where this is going. Before I knew it, the morning had just disappeared. I won't post pictures yet, because it's not quite where I want it to be.

 Glove Update:

I was definatly disusional in thinking I could have my gloves finished by yeaterday.  I made a valiant effort however, and I have 1 1/2 fingers and the thumbs remaining.