Hoarding...

I watched this rather disturbing documentary last night about this Swiss film maker and his brother who had to contend with the contents of their mother's apartment after she had passed away. She ended up being a hoarder in her later life, and long story short, it took 7 dumpsters and four weeks just to clear out and clean up her flat. After that was finished, they had the vacation home in Greece to contend with, not to mention the 20-some odd cats that were congregated there as well. Then there were two storage lockers filled to brim. Yikes. Anyhow, it got me motivated to finally face the growing number of boxes that have migrated from the garage into my craft room that I told the constable that I would 'deal with later.' I don't want to end up being crazy cat/ 7 dumpster lady.

It was a sit down and plunk away at it kinda job, which is perfect for me in my present condition. The first garbage bag I filled was easy peasy...all stuff that I instantly knew I didn't want or need. Just accumulated stuff. The daunting part of the task was the first of two purple totes that I've been avoiding for not just months, but years. Years and years and years. I had carefully packed it's contents and thought to myself, 'There. I'll deal with that when I'm old.' Letters from friends long phased out of my life, notes passed in various school hallways, love letters from childhood sweethearts. This part was a little more difficult. These were all parts of me, parts of my life at one time. To keep or not to keep? That is the question.

But I found as I perused the seemingly endless pages of kindly written (and some, not so kindly) words was that, more than anything, I needed to make space. These things that I had been holding onto were good and great and wonderful in and of their time. Which has passed. So I winnowed. Considerably. That which is still relevant stayed. All else did not.

I think the funniest thing I re-discovered about my adolescent self was that I
wrote...a lot. I desperately wanted to be a writer back then. Somehow that just slipped quietly away. But there are volumes of random thoughts, (very deep ones mind you...wink) bad poetry and false starts at short stories. Some of it wasn't all that horrible either.

All of this was in my highschool notebooks. Gives you an indication as to how studious I was. I flipped through each trying to sift out any kernel or nugget worth keeping. I did end up keeping most of it. My most favourite find by far was the following.

Ya know when you're young and you're thinking about someone, you tend to write their name down? I was hurriedly flipping through one of my history notebooks looking to see if there was anything other than notes on medieval feudalism and my current last name happened to flash by. Which was a bit unusual, as I didn't posses it back in 1995. So I found the page. The date in the top right hand corner was Dec. 6, '95. Below that, written in large letters, was my first name, my middle initial, my maiden name. Below that, in equally large letters and a much fancier font was my husbands first name, middle initial, surname. We went to highschool together, but we never dated. Well, we had one sorta date, which I think was later than '95. We traveled in different circles. But on Dec. 6, I must've been thinking about him. Must've had a little crush, even back then. I had to show him. He thought that was pretty amusing. He strutted around for the rest of the afternoon. I don't even know how I knew his middle name back then. Anyway, it was fated I guess.


Debbie Bliss Cabled Tank Top in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in navy and white, sized 6 months-ish Started Jan. 5/09, finished Jan. 12/09.


Enough of the jibber-jabber. I finished another one of these DB Cabled Tanks, this time for miss Pinta and it's as cute the second time around as it was the first. I love this little thing. It's so adorable.



And here's what I might do with it...hehehe. Needs pants though.



What I am currently working on. Not so bad so far. I wanted to use my Tanis Buttercup for something baby, and this seemed like a good choice. I think the pattern calls for almost 400 yrds., which is what the yarn label states, so hopefully I'll have enough. It's nice and sunny and looking like a 6-9 month size or so. May I rave about the yarn again? It's wonderfully soft and stretchy. Great for baby knits methinks.

That's about it. Until later...