Valentine's No-Nos

As the official day of love is fast approaching, here are:

Ten Things I Don't Want for Valentine's Day

Bath Products: While I love soaking in a hot tub, most of the products made for that purpose either irritate my skin or smell weird to me. Also, I have a thousand bath bombs from holidays and birthdays past that will likely last me until the end of time.

Candy: Hello, diabetic here (everyone forgets except me.) Sugarfree is fine, but I keep a healthy stock of that at all times to keep me from the temptation of the sugary stuff. Also, the older I get, the less I want sweet things. Salty chips, on the other hand, are my kryptonite.

Flowers: Too expensive. I just sent my mom roses for Valentine's Day and they wanted an arm and part of a leg.

Fuzzy Socks: While I love them, I currently own most of the fuzzy socks in the world. Seriously, like three drawers full.

Gift Cards: I'm really not shopping much anymore. I still haven't used all the ones I got during the holidays.

Nonfiction Books: Alas, I have enough stacked and waiting for me to keep me reading until 2025.

Perfume: Allergic to all of it in my old age, I'm afraid. Plus spending the day of love itching a rash is not my idea of fun.

PJs: I don't wear them (gasp!) If I'm cold, I sleep in an old t-shirt and even older leggings.

Romance Books: How to say this diplomatically . . . I'm too straight and soft-hearted to find reverse harem or motorcycle gang orgies or bully (really, we love bullies now?) stories romantic, how about that? Seriously, unless they're written by Mary Balogh, whose backlist I already own and who won't have a new book out until November, no thanks.

Smart Phone: I still hate them. The kids keep threatening to get me one. I keep threatening to accidentally on purpose drop it in the washing machine. Stalemate.

My guy and I are going out to dinner as our mutual gift to each other, which has become our habit for nearly all the holidays now. What don't you want for Valentine's Day? Let me know in comments.

Comments

nightsmusic said…

We don't exchange gifts for Valentine's day. We generally don't for Christmas either and the older I get, the less I 'want' anything because I can pretty much afford anything I'd want or need. The girls don't get us anything and they usually go out to dinner with their husbands. Occasionally, hubs and I do that too. That suits me just fine :)

February 4, 2020 at 10:02 AM

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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