Wednesday Ramblings

Even Santa Claus is interested in self-improvement   : )

Yesterday John left early in the morning to spend the day with Santa, i.e. do his Christmas shopping for me.  I knew I was going to have a few rare hours of alone time & my plan was to do the final finishing on some pinkeeps I've been working on.  They are already sewn & stuffed, they just need some trims.  

The first thing I did was head upstairs to get my bag of rusty bells & rusty pins.  I went to where they were supposed to be.  I saw the bells but not the pins.  I went through 2 moving boxes filled with trims.  Nothing.  I came downstairs & looked in the pie safe & in the hutch.  I didn't think they'd be there & they weren't.  Back upstairs I went.  I looked in the guest bedroom which is sort of the waiting room where things are kept until I put them where they're supposed to be or find a place for them.  Not there.  I looked in the 2 moving boxes full of trims again.  Still weren't there.  Looked in the sewing box & the sewing machine drawers.  Nada.  By this point I was not a happy camper.  There was nothing else I could do but visit Etsy & eBay to buy more pins.  I found a seller in a nearby state which meant the package would get here quickly, hoped she'd send it out right away, put them in my cart & paid for them.  

I then decided to start in on trying to get things cleaned up a bit for Christmas.  I started with the boxes of candle/tart making supplies that have been piled up against the front of the breakfast bar for months.  I took all the wax, with the exception of the beeswax, & filled up a trash bag with it.  Not a smart thing to do ... it was like dragging a dead elephant while moving it to the garage.  Why did I keep the beeswax? I don't know ... beeswax is kind of special to me.  Here I sit with I don't know, 20 pounds of it?  It will probably be thrown out in the future.  I then grabbed another trash bag & threw out most of the other stuff ... the colorants, the fragrance oils, etc.  I did keep the molds ... maybe I can sell them on Etsy, maybe not.  If not, they will join their wax cousins at the dump.

I did save a package of bamboo skewers. They come in handy for various things.  I went over to the buffet to put them inside one of the 3 drawers.  The first drawer I opened had various spices inside that I use in crafting.  I noticed something underneath one of the spice bags ... 3 packages of rusty wire!  I had forgotten that I wanted to try using that for one of my pinkeeps!  How fortuitous!  Then I noticed something underneath another spice bag.  Yep, it was my rusty pins.  It figures   : )

You would think that the obvious thing to tell you now is that I started working on my finishes, but that is not what happened. After removing those boxes from in front of the breakfast bar it was no surprise to find oodles of dust behind them.  Therefore I pulled out my little stick sweeper & took care of that.  I then decided to move my trunk & Sophie's precious box in front of the breakfast bar to make a space for our tree. This left another floor area full of dust so once again I grabbed the trusty stick sweeper & had at it.  By now I felt like I was on a roll & should run with it.  I decided to go ahead & sweep the rest of the livingroom floor, moving the furniture to sweep behind/underneath it.  The furniture was dusty so I grabbed a Swiffer & took care of that.  I then couldn't help but notice the windows in the french doors.  They had not been cleaned since who knows when ... probably last Christmas.  Off to the kitchen I went to get the Windex & a roll of paper towels.  Their resultant sparkle & the ability to see through them was quite pleasurable. Then I turned & my eyes were drawn to the hallway which is plainly visible from the livingroom.  Dust & clutter.  Needless to say I couldn't let it remain as such so the clutter was taken upstairs, everything was dusted, floors were swept, & I felt pretty darn proud of myself   : )   I went back into the livingroom & my gaze drifted to the master bedroom which is right next to the livingroom.  The dust made me think of snow covering Christmas card landscapes.  Armed with the stick sweeper & Swiffer, I went in to tackle that.  Moved furniture again (what I could move ... most of it was too heavy), crawled on my hands & knees sweeping under the bed & under the dresser, & Swiffered the furniture.  The Swiffering just didn't do a good enough job though, so back to the kitchen I went to get my trusty bottle of Murphy's Oil Soap & some cleaning cloths. MOS'ed the furniture from top to bottom, side to side, back to front.  Saw that the stick sweeper, although it did tackle the heavier mounds of dust, did not take it all away.  I then went to get the dust mop, sprayed it liberally with Endust, & obliterated the remaining dust from the floor ... but this was not the end of it.  I could still see dust on the livingroom & hallway floor that the stick sweeper left behind.  Mr. Dust Mop to the rescue!  

By this time I was moving around as if heavy weights were strapped to my body.  My back was screaming "Enough already!!!" Reluctantly I stopped my cleaning regimen. It had been rough going but the Mona Lisa smile upon my lips as I embraced the dust & clutter free-ness of these few rooms made my heart sing   : )   A good dose of Tylenol & a good night's sleep have revived me.  I don't know if it will be today but I am actually looking forward to tackling the remainder of the rooms here on the main floor.  The upstairs rooms will have to fend for themselves until the new year   : )

I did bring the tree downstairs.  It kind of gets lost in the space but it is what it is.

Wow!  Look at that!  Not a speck of dust to be seen   : )

Sophie doesn't seem to quite understand what happened to her box.  

I showed her that I put it here ...

... but this spot apparently does not meet with her approval.  Poor Sophie.   : (

I will be putting a skirt around the bottom of the tree.  I will also be hanging some ornaments but I'm really not wanting to dig into the closet underneath the stairs to get them.

My plans are to hang any stitched ornaments I have acquired on the tree & maybe add some antique ornaments that I was going to sell at a flea market.  I decided a while back that I might actually want to keep them so I took the box & put it upstairs. Amazingly I found it where I thought it was.  I don't think there are very many of these ornaments but hopefully enough to make the tree look nice, at least in a Charlie Brownish sort of way   : ) 

Have a wonderful day everyone!  Just 19 days left till Christmas!  Unbelievable!