5 is Not My Number Today

Five can be a strange number sometimes in my life.  Today was a perfect example.  I decided to spend about 5 minutes cleaning up the table in the knitting room.  Well I feel into the rabbit hole I call deep cleaning.  I went through every kit that I had.  I decided that I did not want to do about 20 of them so I put them in a box to go.  That lead to every shelf having a through clearing.  I went through everything.  Then I decided to go through my yarn.  Let’s just politely say that in 22 years of knitting I many have kept a few to many skeins that I acquired.  Over the years my skills have vastly improved. My projects have changed quite a bit. My taste in yarn has improved. I tried to follow a few fads like lace knitting, not enough time, but I still acquired a lot of lace yarn.  Sock knit was also a fling that did not last long.  Sock knitting was hard on my hands even before all the hand surgeries.  I stopped doing some charity knitting but failed to pass on the yarn. 

So today’s 5 minutes of cleaning turned into an almost all day cleaning spree.  I have bag's and boxes of yarn ready to get out of the house. Except that I will have to go through all ten bags to pull the sock yarn for my current favorite scarf knitting project.  That should not take long tomorrow. 

I am trying to keep only the projects and yarn that I like.  The same goes with books too. Too much of any thing is clutter.  I am going for a clutter free lifestyle. I have even found a few projects that are almost finished.  That should help even more.   

Now my other problem with 5 happened at lunch.  I ignored the 5 grams of fat rule. I had 1/2 of a piece of tempura. That was a mistake that I will not ever repeat again.  Let’s just politely say that my body had a temper tantrum.  I guess when I can taste the fat it is not under 5 grams.   

Well even though I am very hyper from a fantastic day of cleaning, I should try to get some sleep so I can have another fantastic day of cleaning tomorrow.  De stash, de stash, de stash.  

More Organized

 The 3 boxes that I washed yesterday were put to good use today.  The boxes held just shy of 4 roving braids. The area used to be crammed to the bottom of the closet shelf and I was not always sure when I opened the closet door if everything would fall down.  As you can see the bottom of the closet shelf is not even visible.  I will count that as a win.  As I get more projects done I will be able to tackle more of the closet, 1/4 down 3/4 to go.  Just taking baby steps with my 5 minute Zenning style. I give myself 5 minutes, then choose to stop or work more.  I find myself working more now than when I started 5 minute Zenning.    I will be passing the vinyl bags to a friend of mine who doesn’t have to worry about things falling down, she has lots of space.  

As you can see the boxes look a lot neater with the added bonus of holding more.  I thought it would take me a couple of hours to do. I was done in 45 minutes. So after I see if I can order food to cook for dinner or will have to run out, I will just have to find something else to deep clean or craft.  

3 UFO’s From 2016

This month I will try to finish 3 modular baby blankets that were started in the spring of 2016. This should be an easy endeavor because I only have to count every other row. I also love modular knitting.  I will add a crochet edging. I will also be writing up the pattern as most of my notes are ready to be typed.

As I finish  projects they will go into a box for gifts.  Right now there seems to be something in the water at Eric’s day program.  I think I will need a few baby blankets in the next year.  

I also managed to go through my knitting books today. I filled another bag for Bookman’s. So far I have cleared 12 inches of shelf space. I still have several shelves and a foot high pile of book covering a dresser.  I am still following the book Zenning in 5 minuets a day. I am trying to curate my knitting books to keep the ones most relevant to me, instead of getting every book as they come out.  The exception will be books authored  by friends.  Less is more.