It Fell

Last night as I was putting a hat on the pile of hats and scarfs it fell over. Luckily for me it leaned against the wall. So how many hats, scarfs and cowls did it take to tip over? Here are the numbers: 29 hats, 4 scarfs and 1 cowl.

I will let you know how many rows are going to added for the 1 million row challenge on Raverly when I count them up.

Parenting

Parenting and in particular the parenting of special needs children and adults is the parent's job. In speaking to more than a number of parents on the subject more often then not I hear them complain about the lack of long term commitment from teachers, medical professionals and aides. This just rubs me the wrong way. Don't get me wrong sometimes there are just so many new people in Eric's life that I think my job should be called Training Specialist and not Mom.

I think that it is fantastic that ordinary people take time out of their lives to learn about and help our children. We have a lot of aides who need the volunteer credit, even if it is a paying job with a non-profit to get into medical or nursing school. I really love these people, they learn quickly are usually great at the task at hand and then move on when it is time for medical school. If we get these people from a year or 2, I am extremely happy. The things that they learn while caring for Eric can then be transferred to other families and enhance their carers. But they are not his parents and are not meant to be in his life forever.

Then there are the heroic Special Needs Teachers that not only have to learn a whole lot of things about their students medical and emotional needs even before the education process can even start. Also, every year there seems to be more paperwork required for each student, think of the 504 Plans, Individual Education Plans, paperwork to prove that grant money is being spent within the terms of the grant. Accident reports if a child stumbles and the corrective action that will be taken in the future so the child learning to walk will not stumble again. Did I mention parents with unrealistic goals for their children. From the start of teaching special education to leaving the field average is 10 years. No they will not be there forever. Neither will the teachers of your healthy children.

As for the wonderful people who staff our Adult Day Care Programs, please be very nice to these people. The pay is lower than I would like to see it. The hours are long. Our young adults are sometimes very difficult to work with. If you have a chance schedule a day to shadow your adult child and see how the staff works with them. I am always very happy to see these caring people go back to school to further their carers wherever it takes them. They are not meant to be in our adult children's lives forever.

Ending on a note that no one wants to think about is what happens if you as the parent gets hurt or you can't do your job as a parent? Do you have a backup plan in place? Does your support coordinator have this in writing. If you have guardianship for your adult child, the courts must approve the plan. Talk to your lawyer about this. Your relatives might not be up to the task. Planning is a must.

Just remember that nothing is forever.

Tilting

The pile of hats and scarfs is now 2 feet tall and starting to tilt. It's almost time to tag and bag them.

More Changes

More deep cleaning in the garage and Teri's old room. More of my the past left the house too. The bicycle that I bought when I was 13 made its way to Goodwill today along with a few other things. All my fiber is off the floor in Teri's old room. I am closer to getting a workbench into the room. The garage looks a whole lot better.

I have also moved some summer shirts that were too small last summer into my daily shirt rotation. My diet is simple, elimated all artificial sweeteners and high fructose corn syrup. My excersice plan is just as simple. I do more cleaning house,including deep cleaning and more walking. Just keep moving. This works for me,but please check with your personal physician before starting any diet or excersice routine.

Little Things

Today was a day of getting a lot of small things done. Days like this are necessary for the overall project, but are not as satisfying as getting lots accomplished. I think slower days are sometimes good for my body too.

3+3

Three boxes plus a pair of roller skates left for Goodwill today. Thee bags of recycling let the house too. Eric and I spent most of the day recouping from yesterday.

I have also come to the conclusion that engineers and artists look at mass in different ways. This is especially true when it come to de-cluttering and reorganization of the household.

90 Percent

Much to my own surprise the deep cleaning of the garage hit the 90% completion mark today. I lost count at seven boxes today, but kept going. Although we did not make our usual Sunday run to Goodwill because of Easter Sunday, I am sure I can fill the center of the van one more time for two good causes on Monday. The first being a cleaner garage for me and a new space to store my overflowing yarn for weaving and the second being good for the environment by help keep my local Goodwill shop stocked. We also topped of the recycling bin today too as an added bonus.

It's Finished

Last month I said I would make a dog pillow for my hairdressers
Great Pyrenees Puppy. Today I finished it. Since it was to big for the sewing table I had to use the kitchen table, it was even a bit big for it too. So the things I used, 1 yard by 66 inches wide heavy canvas cloth along with over 10.75 pounds of stuffing. Yes it weighs 11 pounds, but I understand it still weighs less than the puppy. This was a great community effort, I want to thank all the knitters, weavers and spinners for their scraps of fiber. Eric also contributed his worn out shorts and socks. John even threw in a few pairs of old socks to get the pillow done sooner.

Sorry for the sideways picture. As you can see the pillow is almost the size of the kitchen table.

Happy Holidays

Nothing says it's holiday time around our house like someone being sick. Tonight it's Eric's turn. I just wanted to check on Eric because he looked a bit rough around the edges at breathing treatment time. He still looked a bit under the weather so I checked his stats, they were exceptionally good tonight. Next was the awful look and the eyrping started. Two loads of laundry later he is calm and sleeping again. Happy Passover everyone.

What I was really going to write about tonight was our fantastic cleaning spree this weekend. We filled the middle of the van again with stuff for Goodwill. This time almost 2 layers full. I even sent my wedding dress so another bride can use it to start her happy life. The recycle bin and trash can were also filled to overflowing. I even got John in on the cleaning project. His work room is looking great. The end is maybe in sight all that is left to go through is in the corner. Now this might not seem like a lot, but imagine a 2 car garage with bins two deep and a little over5 feet tall, that is where I bagan. Most of it has left the house. My plan for the future is no more than 3 bins high and only one row. Wish me luck.

A Blast From The Past.

This is your lol* for the day. I just found this in the garage while cleaning. It is a fully loaded earthquake kit that moved with us from California in 1994, complete with Sesame Street cups for the kids. It was replenished after the Northridge earthquake and John got transferred shortly afterward. 

We have not needed it in Arizona, but I think I will still replace the batteries and dried food. This goes along with being prepared. I think even dried food has a life span and I am sure it is less than 20+ years.

*lol is laugh out loud. 

Buttons

I love buttons. I have lots of buttons. I have been just throwing them in quart size jars without regard of size, shape, style or materials for years. This meant that every time I needed buttons for a project I had to sort through at least a gallon of buttons to find the ones I needed.

That ended today today when I was looking for four buttons to finish a scarf that I finished knitting yesterday. Because of a few decades of looking for the right button set, the buttons were spread over six different jars. So today I decided to sort all most all the buttons. Now I only sorted the loose buttons in the jars, not the ones in the boxes. I think I might just have a lifetime supply of men's dress shirt buttons. I have less children's buttons than I thought I had. I really should have done this years ago. I still have a few more buttons to sort. I am hoping that this will speed up the button find process for me.

An Open Letter to Realtors

Dear Realtor,

You might have read in this blog that I have been doing a really good job of purging our house of items that we no longer need. Please don't assume that I am doing this because we are moving. It is quite the opposite, we are zenning the house to make more room to do the things we love to do. We are getting rid of items that we no longer use and passing them on to people who need them. This is good for the environment and our well being. We do not need to keep everything we ever bought, really. We are also supporting the works of our local Goodwill.

So my one request to you is stop calling. The answer is NO we ARE NOT SELLING OUR HOUSE.

Sincerely,

I Love my Cleaner Home

High School Reunions

It seems hard to imagine that my 40th High School Reunion is right around the corner. I have been going back and forth on whether to go to it. On one hand I would be seeing people that I have not seen since graduating high school. Then there would be that room full of old people, yes I know that we are all within a couple of years chronologicaly. Some have been posting pictures of kids and grandkids and a few who started families at a younger age are posting pictures of great grandchildren. That's not me, I am not even there yet. I am in no rush. Most are still working full time, I am still in the stay at home mom mode, still driving my car pool of 1 child. What would we talk about. I am sure that it is not important to many of my fellow classmates to know the PBS, Sprout and HBO kids tv schedules. Fiber arts may bore them to death.

Then there are other considerations. I was not a popular person in high school. I was always on the outside. That much has not changed in my life. If I was Important enough in their lives they would not only contact me on a 10 year cycle. If they really wanted to contact me, I am not that hard to find.

Then there is the fact that the event is not in Tucson. That would involve either 2 days flying, car rental and a hotel room or 4 days driving and hotel rooms. Is it worth the time and money? I would rather stay at home with my guys. Go out for a quick dinner with John then spend it with a roomful of strangers.

I think I will will follow the path of a few of my classmates who had extraordinary lives after high school and skip the event. Sheri CHS Class of 1977.

Trying to Find Balance

I told myself to take a day off from cleaning out the garage, instead I only worked 2 hours in the zenning project. I am sure the good folks at my local Goodwill store will think that I am a silly mom. This batch will be mostly Hot Wheel Cars that Eric can no longer safely play with and even more McDonald's Happy Meal Toys. I think they lost some of their appeal to Eric when he could no longer see them. I also think that Teri will agree with John, "it's time to pass the toys on to other kids, so that they can have toys to play with". John already has plans for the space in the garage.

The hard part for me in letting go of some of Eric's old favorite toys is that he has lost so much ground over the years that he can no longer make the toys "work right". "Play time" is mostly hugging his favorite stuffed animals with John and I making up stories about what the friends are doing. Or even watching Sesame Street with Elmo.

I am finding it hard to make a balance between getting the garage finished before it hits the 100's in Tucson and spending enough time resting. As much as I would like to get the whole garage cleaned by this weekend, I know that much of a push will not be good for my arthritis. My body has not yet fully recovered from the yarn reorganization when I pushed it too hard this weekend to get the next project done. I have been fighting with a body that just wants to sit and sleep today.

The funny thing about this whole cleaning process, is that when I started zenning the house after reading "Zenning Your House in 5 Minutes a Day" I had a hard time just working for 5 minutes to throw things out. Now I only stop when exhaustion hits. This varies from day to day depending on my body. For the most part I can part with stuff without anxiety. I have learned which stuff to keep and which I just don't need anymore. I also learned that it is too time consuming to have a garage sale. Goodwill is the lazy woman's garage sale with a lot less work and no clean up afterward. With the added bonus of the people that Goodwill helps.

I wish I could say that it is bedtime at 11:00 pm, but I started Eric's meds late so I still have a while to stay awake. I am sure that this will not help my arthritis flare up either.

The Garage

Today I managed to empty and sort 3 more boxes from the garage. I ran out of steam for box number 4 filled with knitting magazines. Considering that they have been in the garage since we remodeled the bathroom I might not have a use for them. I have a lot for Goodwill that I am hoping will leave the house this week. Instead of looking at the pile going of my goodness, I am instead think of just one box at a time. My goal this weekend was 2 boxes so getting 3 boxes done is fantastic in my humble opinion.

I found a whole whole lot of sewing projects and a sweater pattern that I have been looking for. So my plan going forward, is to get a few boxes done each day in the morning at the peak of my energy level for the day. In the afternoon body permitting I will get some sewing or craft projects done. I am trying to do this without an afternoon caffeine boost so there might just be more napping than crafting in the afternoons.

My my hope is to turn Teri's old bedroom into an electric workshop for John for the holidays. Although I think I will leave building the work bench to John. I really need to save my hand time for knitting, weaving, spinning and sewing.

A Ganga*

Well if you have been following my blog for awhile, you know that I have been going through a long term lifestyle change. These changes have resulted in a healthier me. This has also resulted in my clothes mysteriously growing in my closet. It can't be me though because the scale has been steady for a few months. Today I did Teri style shopping when I found a pair of pants that I liked, I bought all four pairs that they had. Even better they were a full size smaller than the same pants I bought last year. As if it could not get any better than 4 new pairs of pants and a smaller size, they were 70% off. So that was 4 pair of everyday pants for less than $60.00 plus local tax. Thats right 4 pair of pants for less than $60.00 total dollars. Just $14.83 for each pair of pants. They also asked if I needed any hangers and threw in 10 at no additional cost. I do love a good clearance sale.

I might have to start tagging and bagging my charity hats and scarfs because the pile is getting a bit unsteady. So look for the million row challenge row counter to jump in the near future.

I also plan on sending John on a Goodwill run sometime this weekend. De cluttering has hit the garage. With any luck I should have inside the house and garage done by December even with the hiccups life has been throwing us this year.

*A Ganga is Tucson speak for a fantastic deal

A Replacement

I did the unthinkable a few weeks back and destroyed my favorite Le Creuset pan I know I voided the life time warranty when I burnt dinner so badly that a small fire started in the bottom of my favorite pan. I managed to burn off some of the enamel. So this week I bought a replacement pan, it arrived today. The old pan will probably be turned into a very expensive dye pot because I can't use it for cooking anymore.

The new new pan has a slightly different shape and different style of lid. I am sure that it will become a new standard pan for my kitchen and cooking dinner.

A Contest

I was out grocery shopping today and ran across a new product. It claimed to be "Homemade" yet the second ingredient was high fructose corn syrup. Because this is such a bad labeling offense, I really should share the name of the company, but I also don't have deep pockets. I will tell you that it is a new summertime treat in the frozen food aisle. Read the labels before you buy. This leads me to the question of who really buys and stocks high fructose corn syrup for your kitchen at home? If this is something that you keep in your kitchen at home, I really want to know why and what you use I for.

Food labeling and mass marketing are so full of hyperbole, it is just as bad as it was in the 1960's. When sun tans were healthy. If you were pale like me, you were considered sickly. We now know that fabulous tan came with a high price, skin cancer and premature aging. When smoking was cool, yet ever spokesman for the product died of lung cancer. When sweet treats replaced fruit in school lunches. Is it even a wonder why, my generation and our kids and grand kids have weight issues. Even the European sewing machine company who's salespeople and management claim that everything they make is made in Europe, but has a label on the bottom of my sewing machine that says it is made in Thailand. I was under the impression that Thailand was an independent nation in southeast Asia and not a European city. Do the marketing firms believe that we are so under educated that all of this is fine?

What are some of the bad labeling offenses that you have seen? There will be a prize of my choice for the funniest one or two. Please feel free to comment.

A Slow Saturday

The reorganization of the yarn last weekend has has a positive effect. I have found a lot of UFO's that are now back in progress. Some of the projects are so old that I no longer have the outfit that I was making the hand knit item for. For these I will finish them and put them in the box to be sold for the Taglit fundraiser later this year.

I also finished 2 more hand knit hats today and cast on 2 more hats. One hat is in cotton and the other is wool. Below is a picture of the pile of hats, 19 hats and still standing. The hemming of the 5 skirts also got started today. No deep cleaning was done, I took a nap instead.

My Spinning Chair

I have found only one downside to losing weight. You have to promise not to laugh though. It involves spinning more specifically my spinning chair. As the weight has come off I have lost a lot of my padding and this makes it hard to sit for more than an hour or two.  The spinning chair will need a pad to make it more comfortable. Time to get out the sewing machine.

It's Done

The big yarn sort was finished this afternoon. 100 gallons of yarn has left the house. No, I did not count the skeins of yarn leaving. I need you to use your imagination to think how many skins of yarn that is. Everything has been rearranged by weight. Some empty project bags will also be leaving tomorrow. The project shelf space is full of things that I will knit. My closet has a lot more space so I am very pleased with the results.

My next project is to knit up a pattern that a friend has had to tink several times now. I started the pattern tonight and am keeping copious notes as I go. I am pretty sure that there is a problem with the pattern and will make corrections to give to my friend and the pattern designer.

After that I might do a small project or 2 before I tackle the next big deep cleaning project. I might even try to come up with a better system for my circular knitting needles. Any suggestions for circular knitting needle storage would be welcome.

Progress, Maybe?

I am hoping that it is a sign of progress that the items in the picture are no longer going to be needed for yarn storage. The cracked plastic items will be recycled tomorrow. I will offer the good roll away bin to one of Eric's aides, it is not a good container for yarn, if I can not see the yarn in the drawers with out opening them. I will also give some of the excess bags to the advocates in Eric's day program. I am sure that they will come in handy. I also filled another 13 gallon bag of yarn for Amber, it is leaving tomorrow.

I still ill have a few things to put away, but I am waiting for the glue to dry on 2 containers before I make my finial storage choices. I expect to be done by tomorrow night so that I can move on to my next project, which is hemming 5 skirts. The more inches I lose the longer the skirts have gotten.

John also got into the spirit of the de cluttering of the garage today by helping me get to the final yarn boxes. He also found a lot of boxes to cut down for recycling. Who knows by the end of the summer I might even have the garage finished. I am not as hopeful for the spare room, it I will give it a shot.

More Gone

I sent a 13 gallon bag of yarn home with a friend this afternoon. I also found a sweater that I want to knit that has been missing for a while. I am now a few sizes smaller than when I bought the kit, so it will be a little less knitting to do. A win win afternoon for both of us. So that I can do more de stashing today, John is bring home dinner. A win win for me. Deep cleaning has some great rewards.

I am also revising my storage system so that all the yarn and fiber will be in clear containers from now on. The better to see what I have. I am not quite ready to set up the inventory system that John has suggested. Maybe when I have the hard part done, if I am very, very brave I will let John set it up. Does anyone know of a good inventory control program?

Yarn Destash

Yesterday was my first day of yarn destash 2017. This is from the first round. This was mainly yarn that was given to me. By friends and a few miss buys. Yarn that I wanted to try, but was not talking to me telling me what it wanted to be. I have learned that if I don't have an idea in mind for the yarn not to buy it. This will be delivered to a new home today.

A New Rhythm

With Eric home more than he is at program my life has a new rhythm to it. This includes napping when he naps and making a few special Eric outings a week. Today was knitting for me and a haircut for Eric. This was followed by a very long nap for both of us. I am also trying to stay on top of things and not let them slide, wish me luck on this one. 

I am also trying to finish all my knitting UFOs. This I am afraid is a never ending project. I finished a poncho and a hot mitt today. They were in the UFO pile for finishing work. My knitting time is still not what it was up to pre-surgery, no more 6 to 8 hours of knitting a day. Most days I am very lucky if I can use my hands intensely for 2 hours. I am also trying to channel my energy to keeping very productive. I am trying to maintain spring cleaning clean, so far it is going well. Even though I am near the end of decluttering the house, I have 1 room and 1 closet to go. Then I will attack the garage. This by the way leaves me more time for knitting and such even though I can't do much knitting. My life gets strange sometimes. 

Late spring temperatures have hit Tucson this week. Today it was in the 90's. Does Mother Nature know it is only mid March? So I am getting ready to move my laundry times around. In the summer once the temperature reaches 100, the appliances go off for the afternoon. I wonder if my hand will be up to more once the temperature gets a little warmer. My body prefers summer to winter. 

Crazy Busy

Tonight is the first night in almost 2 weeks that I have not fallen asleep on the couch before it was time to put Eric to bed. I have been busy with spring cleaning. All but on room is clean. Each time I think there is nothing left to clean, I just find more to do. More to recycle or donate to charity, or more to trash, there must be an end in sight, I just can't see it yet.

Eric has settled into going to his program 2 1/2 days a week. Just enough time for Eric to connect with his friends and not enough time to get over tired. For me this is just enough time for a few quick errands or part of a day of cleaning and napping. Eric is just not as springy as he use to be. Recovery time is taking longer.

We we also had a surprise visit from Teri and Tej last weekend. I know that the five of us had a great time. Although I wish we lived closer to them, it is just not possible at this time. I am so lucky to have such a great family.