Towels

So now 2019 has begun and the house is free of contractors for a day or 2, I decided to round up and sort out our vast selection of towels.

Here's the stats...

• Bath towels - 20
• Hand towels - 18
• Bath mats - 6
• Beach towels - 6
• Face cloths - 7
• Total Items - 57

I definitely do not think we need this many between 4 of us.  I have whittled it down to this...

• Bath towels - 10
• Hand towels - 10
• Bath mats - 4
• Beach towels - 5
• Face cloths - 4
• Rags and cleaning cloths - 6
• Total Items - 39

That's not a very round number is it?  I now have the problem of how to get rid of the remaining 18 without putting them all in landfill.

I have 5 that are good enough to donate to thrift, they are hardly used because they were too big or too thick or have Ben Ten emblazoned on them.  The other 13 pose a bit of a problem as they are well used or have mysterious bleach stains on them.  My first thought was the Humane Society but they have a prominent note on their website right now to the effect that they don't need any towels so I guess I'm not the only one with that bright idea.

So after a bit of research I've decided to try to re-purpose them.  Here are some ideas I found online...

• Reusable Swiffer pads
• Dish cloths
• Ironing board cover
• Make up scrubbies
• Home made pillow form
• Spa slippers
• Draft excluder

I'll be trying out a few of these over the next few weeks, my One Monthly Goal jobs will have to come first but I'm quite excited about some of these especially as I might get to use up some of my stash and scraps as well.

Does anyone else out there have any great ideas for reusing or disposing of old towels?  If you do I'd love to hear them or see some pictures.

Garage Miscellany

Last week I cleared out the garage.  I put all of my gardening equipment in a big plastic deck seat/box, relegated outdoor toys to tubs outside the backdoor and stowed away the fold-able deckchairs in the cold room.  There was an alarmingly large collection of never used cleaning products (mainly speciality stuff that had been left by the previous owners) that went to the dump and quite a lot of odds and ends of timber which was donated to the next door neighbours, I hope they find it more useful than I did.

All that left was bikes.  Gary has reclaimed Jacob's bike because he never uses it and today we donated mine and Rose's old one to Recycle Cycles, a community project in downtown Kitchener.

I now have a weirdly empty garage.

While I was clearing out I discovered that we had managed to collect a whole load of car window cleaning implements:

• 4 snow brushes (1 broken)
• 3 squeegees (that spelling looks really weird)
• 5 ice scrapers

We only have one car.

Again I ask ask how does all this stuff creep up on you, I know we used to have 2 cars but still that's an implement to clean each window on each car.

In order to put a picture into this post I am now going to share a quilting innovation...

Can you guess what these are for?  All will be revealed on Friday, or whenever I get my quilt sandwich finished.

The Basement Part 2

Over the weekend I've been very busy in the basement as we now have less than 2 weeks until men arrive to frame it.  Arghh.  Will I get everything out in time?  Things are even tighter because I've set myself the 'goal of the month' with Elm Street Quilts of finishing a quilt top and that is due very soon.

Today's offering comes in the form of 3 lists.  First is the donate list, all packed up and delivered to the Salvation Army Thrift Store

• Set of green plastics in-trays
• 2 framed Dali prints
• Cranberry glass bonbon dish
• 2 small picture frames
• 1 pair curtains
• 6 pillow covers, not used since 2005
• dog lead, found in the garage when we moved in and doesn't fit the kids
• Ornamental toy car
• Plastic bag of clothes
• Shelf with coat hooks under it
• Brush and shovel set for hearth
• Assorted Christmas ornaments and lights
• Coffee machine
• Miscellaneous plastic toys from McDonalds

This list went out to the curb on garbage day.

• Broken iron
• Broken kettle
• Broken mason jar, broken since 2015
• Suit case with broken handle
• Half a pound of party balloons

And this lot has been packed into a big plastic box for a yard sale in the spring.

• 4 Christmas side plates
• 3 glass vases
• Set of 6 wine glasses
• 5 glass ramekins (kept 14 which is still pretty excessive)
• 4 matching mugs
• 2 cup and saucer sets
• 2 antique cups
• Assorted coasters with cats on
• 'Fashionable Coasters' 20 of them in a now very rusty tin

I also found these items and couldn't bring myself to bin them.

You just never know when a moustache might come in handy, especially an edible one.

Memory Boxes

Last week when my contractor suggested December 3rd as a start date for our reno's I panicked and spent a while flinging things at random into boxes in the basement.  After some deep breathing and a coffee it occurred to me that wasn't the best approach so I went through the kids memory boxes instead.  That took a while because some of the stuff was pretty cute, I particularly like the things they write about us on Mother's and Father's Days.  According to Rose I am a chef and a chauffeur, and my favourite thing to do is watch Downton Abbey.  Oh dear, so much for 2 degrees.

I threw quite a bit of stuff out because I couldn't remember why I'd kept it, but I also kept some pretty ridiculous things.  For instance I have all of their school reports from age 4 onward.  Maybe the time will come where you have to present a full education portfolio to get into University and my children will get into Oxbridge, Harvard or similar as a direct result of my hoarding.  Ha!  I'm sure I'm not alone in this kind of hoarding but it would be good to know that for sure.

I have kept a few of the kids tiny clothes, like Rose's teeny, sparkly dance shorts that she would still be wearing now if I'd let her, but I think these might be my favourites, Jacob's first pair of shoes.  How did he get so grown up?

Scrap Metal?

This is a complete cheat's post and comes to you courtesy of my husband and father-in-law.

I've been quite busy over the last few days getting things ready for Rose's birthday party, making llama bags for favours and prepping jewellery for the girls to make.  As a result I've had no time for de-cluttering.  The men on the other hand have been busy going through the big pile of tools in the basement.  They have done very well and this is the resulting pile of things that will be going.

On the whole I am very impressed.  However, I did find this rather humble looking bag in the keep pile.

Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to what's in it? No? 63 Allen keys that's what.  Please understand that I am only revealing this to prove that I am not the only person around here with a weak spot, see Drowning in Gloves and Winter Wardrobe.  I told Tom how many there were in the bag and in the name of accuracy and thoroughness he went round the house searching through untouched tool boxes, bedside tables and other likely Allen key habitat and found a further 18.  Wow.  That's a lot of IKEA furniture.  Here's a picture of some just to prove I'm not fibbing.

What on earth am I going to do with them all? Is there a special place where you can send Allen keys to retire or must they all go into scrap metal and be melted down to make new Allen keys?  Perhaps I could try to sell them all back to IKEA then buy some furniture with more free Allen keys.  Please help, all Allen key disposal/recycling/crafting ideas warmly received.

Winter Wardrobe

The weather here in Southern Ontario is being typically capricious for this season.  A couple of weeks ago it was a balmy 26 degrees, but now we are barely in double figures and it snowed on Tuesday.  Here's photographic evidence and more can be seen in my Instagram feed.

So time for the biannual wardrobe change over I think and a jolly good clean out while I'm at it.

I read quite a bit in my resource books about cleaning out your clothes.  One good technique is to take everything out of your wardrobe, get rid of 5 coat hangers and then put back only what will fit on the remaining hangers.  Another is to throw out everything you haven't worn for one year.  I'm feeling quite good about streamlining my possessions right now so I decided to disregard both of these methods and just go on a trashing binge.  I did pretty well and managed to get rid of all this...

• 8 summer tops and t-shirts
• 4 hoodies and sweaters
• 3 skirts
• 2 pairs of trousers
• 2 dressy tops
• 2 pairs of shorts
• 5 pairs of tights

Summer stuff has been stowed under the bed and in the back of the spare room closet and everything else is sorted into trash and donate.

My problem area in the wardrobe department is jeans and I'm only writing about it in order to shame myself into getting rid of some more.  I have 2 pairs of skinny jeans (1 white, really?), 4 pairs of boot cut and 3 pairs of gardening and painting jeans.  A grand total of 9.  3 pairs don't really fit, in fact I bought 1 pair 4 years ago after a few weeks of very strict dieting and they haven't really fitted since the day I tried them on in the store.  Also, why 3 pairs of gardening jeans? I don't spend that much time in the garden.

I fear that this is not the full extent of the jean hoarding and when I tackle the basement I will find more in my sewing stash waiting to be turned into something else.  They may be waiting a very long time!

Am I the only person who holds onto denim or do other people?  Do you have an irrational fear of throwing other items of clothes out?  Please tell, I'd love to know that I'm not the only one.  Tune in next week to discover if I have managed to part with some more of the Jeans.  After all I can always buy some more!

Drowning in Gloves

The front hall closet is home to baskets and bins of all the hats, mitts and other paraphernalia that help keep us warm, dry or shaded when we go out.  Everyone was available to help at the weekend so we changed over ball caps for toques and went through the giant box of winter stuff that vacations in the spare room closet in the summer.

I'm starting with a list of everything I found in all the closets.  There may be more that I've not found yet lurking under beds and in other forgotten corners but this is plenty for now.

• 26 toques (see this post for definition of toque if you're not Canadian)
• 38 pairs of gloves
• 9 neck warmers
• 11 baseball caps and summer hats
• 4 pairs of earmuffs
• 4 scarves that don't belong to me

That's a total of 91 items of outerwear between the 4 people living in this house.  These statistics suggest that I have 2 problems.

1. I don't seem to be able to pass a bin full of bargain Thinsulate gloves without buying at least 2 new pairs.  This goes for tiny stretchy ones in all different colours too.
2. I like to knit and have a knitting-itchy-hats-for-children-who-don't-really-want-one habit, might be in training to be someone's grandma.

If it's neither of these things then i think there might have been an outerwear breeding programme in the cupboard.

I found these tiny gloves that belonged to Jacob when he was 4, not sure if he's going to wear them again.

To illustrate the extent of my glove-retention issue here's a picture of the rest (except for the pair in Rose's school bag).

We've gone through it all and got 3 bags all packed up and ready to be donated to people who need warming up this winter but somehow there are still 62 items.  I could blame it on Rose who insists that she NEEDS 8 winter hats but really its me and my glove thing.  I've got 8 pairs in the closet and 6 'just in case' upstairs.  I think I need help!

I've reread this post and it has struck me how ridiculous it is that I own 14 pairs of gloves just for me, I shall endeavour to cut that further to 7/8 before I get to the thrift store.  I might regret it when the apocalypse comes and there is a world glove shortage but for now I'll probably be OK.