Choosing Your Fam

South Korea finally did something to get back in my good graces: they remade Go Ahead, one of the first Chinese dramas I ever watched (and loved) into their romantic drama Family By Choice, starring one of my favorite actors Hwang In-youp (who was brilliant as always), Jung Chae-yeon (a very luminous and talented young lady) and Bae Hyun-sung (another inspired choice) as the two brothers and sister who are not blood related but via tragedy are brought up together as siblings with two fathers (Choi Won-young, one of my favorite older male South Korean actors, and Choi Moo-sung, who stole every scene he was in.)

The drama stays faithful to the story for the most part, although it tidies it up and condenses it so that it can be told in 16 episodes. It's done beautifully, and the trio of actors who play the brothers and sister worked so well together and in their roles that they floored me. Hwang In-youp was absolutely perfect as San-ha, the tortured and abused son of an evil narcissistic controlling bitch of a woman who blames him for all her mistakes before she abandons him and his father. Bae Hyun-sung is a new-to-me actor, but he was so perfect Hae-jun I can't think of anyone else who could have portrayed a troubled, terrified little boy abandoned by his mother, who shortly thereafter goes to prison, forcing her son to be raised by strangers. Between the two boys is Ju-Won, the motherless little girl who just wants a brother and is everyone's ray of sunshine.

I cried through this drama so many times my eyes are still red. It's that good. I knew the story so there weren't any surprises for me and still I held my breath at the crises points. This is a wonderful, emotional, wildly romantic drama. but most of all it reminded me of how fortunate I am that I was able to rid myself of all the toxic narcissistic people who just used and abused me in the name of family. Building a new family and surrounding myself with people who genuinely love me is the best present I ever gave myself.

Family by Choice is, hands down, the best drama I've seen in a couple of years -- maybe since Happiness. Available 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.

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.

Valerean

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