Fish or Wish, Nixed

In September my guy took me for a drive, during which we stopped at this huge lake bordering one of the largest cities in our area, not too far from our home. It was a bit like an inland sea, and I asked if he could come here to fish (his only hobby.) He told me that while they've been trying to clean it up for years the water is still too polluted, so they don't allow fishing. You would never guess that just looking at it.

It was a sobering moment for me, as I've always comforted myself on the fact that we live in a county of 1500+ lakes. I thought that if we had to after a disaster or whatever we could fish for food. How many of our lakes are like this? I have no idea, but I guess I'd better add some more protein to the emergency pantry.

My guy found somewhere a photo that showed an election sign that read "Everyone Sucks 2024" which made me laugh. I wanted to post a copy on the blog because I thought it was so funny. In a way it reflects a little of how I feel right now. For me it's just very hard to believe in anyone with what candidates do these days in order to get votes. Then someone I respect started talking about people shooting each other after the Presidential election this year, and maybe starting a civil war over the outcome.

Twenty years ago I would have scoffed over such a ridiculous prediction. Only what he said made me remember the terrrible events after the last election, and the fact that my great-grandmother was a nurse during the last civil war. It can happen. Suddenly the thought of declaring that all the candidates suck -- even as a joke on a blog where I use an anonymous handle -- didn't seem like such a good idea. By the time this post publishes it will be decided, hopefully in a peaceful way (but I'm not optimistic.)

The world has become too toxic in too many ways, my friends. Be careful what you fish -- or wish -- for.

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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

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.

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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