Shrieking at My Laptop

The Japanese drama series In Time with You is probably the best low-key, slow-burn romance I've ever watched, and the most infuriating. There were several times as the storyline progressed that I actually yelled at my laptop and then walked away from it so I wouldn't punch the screen. It also had the most satisfying wrap-up of all time, I think, in Asian romances, which made up for all my frustration.

Since high school Yo Mitarai (Rika Adachi) and Ren Ishida (Jin Shirasu) have been best friends -- the real deal, too, as they confide everything in each other, laugh and enjoy themselves like pals in every way, and otherwise support each other's ambitions and dreams. Long-term, genuine male/female friendships seem to be extremely rare in Asian cultures, but Yo and Ren make it work.

In the present Yo works as a section chief at a luxury shoe brand (she has a thing for shoes, too) while Ren is a rising star at a property management company. They seem very happy with their lives and their friendship. As Yo turns 29 and is still unmarried, however, she freaks out a little, which leads to her making a bet with Ren. Whoever gets married first will get a very nice cash wedding gift from the other friend. What she doesn't realize is that Ren has secretly been in love with her since high school. Things only get worse when a conniving temp at Ren's workplace decides she wants to marry him, and then Yo's heartbreaker ex shows up to try to make ammends for the terrible things he did to her and get her back.

If it wasn't for the friendship between Yo and Ren I probably wouldn't have finished watching this drama, as Conniving Temp annoyed the hell out of me, and Heartbreaker Ex was quite possibly the biggest, most manipulative scum on the face of the planet -- and both Ren and Yo seemed incapable of resisting their traps (Yo especially -- God, I wanted to smack her a thousand times.) I thought both were too intelligent to fall for this crap, too. Yet a lot of Japanese culture comes into play in male/female romantic relationships, and I think both of our main characters were handling too much (emotionally speaking), so I hung in. It was worth it, too, as the resolution of the drama is both realistic and wonderfully touching. Available to watch on Viki.com.

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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.

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...

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