Paper, Paper, Paper!

I used newsprint to wrap and cushion my belongings when I packed them for the move.

This is two reams of newsprint.

I used three reams of 24" x 30" newsprint. A ream is 500 sheets, each of which, when stacked (and unrolled), measured about 1-1/2" high.

The paper worked great. Nothing I packed was damaged at all. But 1,500 sheets of crumpled paper fill up a lot of garbage bags when you try to throw them away, so I got the bright idea of flattening them out to take up less space.

It sounded like a good idea at the time.  But by about Saturday afternoon, I almost cried every time I opened a box and pulled out the crumpled paper. It was one thing to pull the paper out. It was another thing to sit on the floor and flatten it out. 24" x 30" is big. To flatten it out I had to lean forward and sweep my arms in big circles across the paper. My shoulders, knees and back were aching, and I was taking pain killers every day.

So, WHY didn't I "take my time" instead of unpacking all the boxes between Thursday (moving day) and Sunday (I had to go back to work on Monday)?

Well, what ELSE was I going to do? I had been living with these boxes for four long weeks. I wanted my stuff. I wanted NORMAL.

So how big a stack is one thousand four hundred ninety-seven pieces of flattened out crumpled newsprint? (I had three sheets left over after packing everything.) It's bigger than you think.

I was kinda surprised.

Actually, I was VERY surprised.

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wait for it...

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ok, here's how big.

Yeah.

Hanging Quilts

Even before I emptied all the boxes I wanted to make the house feel like home so I hung up some quilts. It's so good to see them again.

Once again, Wanda Hansen's quilt occupies a place of honor in my living room. That's Tonya Ricucci's "Live, Love" quilt on the back wall of the living room.

I had wanted to hang the Too Much Chicken quilt on the wall in the dining room, but it was a bit too tall. I decided the two Rules quilts would look good instead. I had always intended them to hang side-by-side. They need to be moved apart a little bit, but that's an easy fix and I have a lot of other stuff to do.

There aren't a lot of big walls in this house suitable for hanging quilts, but I think where I hung "The Quick Brown Fox" was positively brilliant.

The wallpaper is covered in rabbits.

That's it for now. All the boxes (except three of small, framed artwork) have been unpacked and all the big things are in place. I organized my kitchen, pantry, dining room hutch, and bedroom. I still have to do the master bath, the office and studio. Then I need to clear the extra stuff that doesn't seem to have a home.  Wait until you see the pile of paper I have left over.

I was just thinking...

Pat left a comment yesterday. She said, "I haven't moved for thirty years and expect to do so next year so I'm really watching your progress with interest."

This post isn't quilt related, but I had to have some kind of photo. Fortunately Millie volunteered to pose.

 Well Pat, I have something to tell you. START NOW! If you've lived in your current home for over 30 years I guarantee you have more stuff than you think you do. Start with one room, and go through every single thing. Every closet, every drawer, every box. Don't just rearrange. PURGE! If you haven't used it in over a year, get rid of it. If it's torn, worn, out-of-date, or it doesn't fit, get rid of it. You don't have to throw it away, you can donate it to Goodwill or your local Homes in Transition. But don't set it aside "for now."  In my experience, "for now" becomes "forever."

It's a whole lot easier to do all this when you aren't up against a deadline.

You all know I'm moving, but what you didn't know is that I've been on a de-cluttering mission for over two years. By the time I started packing four weeks ago, I knew that if it was in my home, it was coming. All I had to do was pack it, I didn't have to think about it.

So Pat, get going. Set a deadline, make a plan, make a schedule, and follow through.

Is it work? You bet.  Is it easy? Hell no. Is it (was it) worth it?  Ask me next week, but so far the answer is yes. Having done all the de-cluttering ahead of time has taken a lot of the stress out of it.

Naked

When you're used to a fridge that looks like this:

this just looks wrong:

And for those of you with extremely sharp eyes, the notepad on the wall to the left of the fridge is a countdown. The number of days until Moving Day is now in the single digits.

Thank Goodness for the Internet

I spent last night parked in front of my laptop filling out change of address forms.

The Post Office

The Division of Motor Vehicles

The Bank

The Credit Cards

Paypal

The Magazines

AQS

The Online backup service

EZ Pass

The Utilities

AAA

Voter Registration in the new town.

And I also have to change my next-of-kin contact information also since my Son and DIL have also moved.

I've already ordered new checks...

I'm really glad the internet has so much of this readily available.

Because I'm really getting tired of this.

What Lies Beneath

I'm packing (still), and as in all rentals, I've got to leave the place more or less the way I found it.  That means removing the burlap from the walls, revealing the style-less fake flock wallpaper underneath.

I will not miss it.

Smart Thing, Dumb Thing

OK, so I'm packing. I'll be moving in less than a month. Boring boring, I know. Believe me, I'd much rather be sewing...  A couple of things I have learned so far:

Smart thing:

Taking pictures of your belongings in the drawers or locations where you store them so you can put them back the way you had them before you move. Trust me, your head will be so full of stuff you won't remember.

Dumb thing:
Underestimating just how much stuff you have. I never thought I had "a lot" of fabric. After putting it in bins and boxes, I can see how much space it takes up.

These six bins

and these five (soon to be six) boxes are filled with fabric. When I can make a quilt solely from fabrics in my scrap bins, like this...

and I hardly put a dent in my stash, that's a wake up call.  I need to make MORE quilts, not less, and I need to be LESS fussy and Arty. After all, like I keep telling my students,

"It's only fabric. It isn't Gold. It isn't doing you any good in your stash."

Must Make More Quilts.

Oh gosh, I can't wait!

Pack and Stack

I tell people my stash "only" fills one bookcase. 

To me it's just my stash, but Julie called it "amazing."  I thought it would be a piece of cake to pack. Pick up the fabric, put it in a container, repeat.

Ah, no.

First I had to stack the fabrics better so they weren't wrinkled, then I put them in plastic bags to keep them clean and organized.

This was just the first bin.  I filled three more. It took all afternoon.

and I am not finished.

Sigh.

I decided I have way, Way, WAY too much fabric.

Well, there's only ONE fun way to get rid of it... Make more quilts!

Fee, Fie, Pho!

Obviously this post is not going to be quilt related.

This is a bowl of Pho, or Vietnamese noodle soup (this one has rare beef that is cooked when the hot broth is poured over it). It's # 25 at The Golden Bowl, a local restaurant. I love the stuff.

I've submitted all the paperwork and had an interview with the Membership Committee for the co-op I'm hoping to move into.  It's probably just a formality, but still. I've lived in my current apartment for over twenty-seven years. In that time you collect a lot of junk. Over the last couple of years I've done a lot of de-cluttering, but there's a lot of stuff that still needs to go.

When my son came back last year, he took a lot of stuff, but left some cardboard boxes and plastic storage bins, as well as a gigantic bin full of college textbooks. The basement is a bit damp, so the cardboard smells of mildew. They had to go. So I went down there and flattened out the boxes, and sorted through a couple of other boxes, filling another bin to bring to Goodwill. I also brought all the textbooks up and piled them in the trunk of my car.

After that I cleaned out the hall closet, (which is where the vacuum cleaner lives), the linen closet in the bathroom, the bathroom cabinet (I found six, count them, SIX, travel sized bottles of shampoo), and sorted thru the cleaning supplies under the bathroom sink.

I put three garbage bags out in the trash bin, and left four under-bed plastic storage bins on the curb (where they disappeared inside an hour.) Then I made the trip to Goodwill. (It was the fourth trip in the last month.) After a trip to the big box hardware store to pick up light bulbs, extension cords and buy a floor lamp, then a trip to the health food store for garbanzo beans and farro, I was famished, tired and sore.

Nothing like a comforting bowl of noodle soup.




After which, of course, I didn't stop. I did the groceries, cooked up a batch of garbanzo beans, ordered new towels for the potential guest bathroom, brought a ton of stuff out to the recycle bin, made dinner, watched a lot of great tennis and did the dishes.

Yeah I know. blah-blah-blah.