Down That Road Again

The other night I dreamed I was back in the military, and stationed with a bunch of interesting men and women stateside, maybe in Washington DC. We lived in a pretty nice dorm, and for some reason I was in charge of KP. I spent most of the dream cooking (just the same as when I pulled KP duty in real life; you spend all day working in a huge kitchen), prepping my uniform and listening to my roommate's stories about home while I waxed and polished the hallway floors with a buffer (did that a lot in California.)

Every detail was very vivid, as were the people in the dream. There was an older officer with silver hair that I looked up to, a brunette who was very nice to me, and a couple of younger soldiers who had just enlisted. I looked after those two as they adjusted to our way of life. Everything I liked about serving my country was in the dream, so I didn't want to wake up. Yet when I finally did wake, I felt glad that it was over. I liked being in the military a lot, and it straightened me out and made me a better person, but I don't want to go down that road again. Too old! Too tired! Ha.

It's funny that I'm having all these vivid dreams at this time of life. I've always been a busy dreamer, with long, colorful and interesting stories that take all night to get through, and sometimes end up becoming stories and books that I write. But lately I seem to be dreaming overtime. It's fun. :)

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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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