Garden Possibilities

By now it has probably become painfully obvious that I do not want to clean the hall closet. I have employed every method of procrastination I can think of, I’ve jogged through my neighborhood and critiqued (and pissed off) my neighbors and today I even worked on the garden project (from April 1 blog – I’ve Got To Clean My Garden.) I have made major headway in the garden, so I should be excused for blowing off the hall closet project. So for now, while there are no mosquitoes and it isn’t too hot, I am giving the garden priority over the hall closet. As soon as the mosquitoes land I will be driven back into the house.

I have moved trash, raked, hoed (no hoe jokes), hauled soil and planted. I am really excited about this summer’s garden. Spring brings out the optimism in a gardener. One must be an optimist to plant a seed and expect the final result to be food. I have a lot more work ahead of me, but I have made tremendous headway. My garden area was formerly the hidden junk area of our yard. We opened it up last year for a garden, but I got sick mid-summer and couldn’t see the project to completion. I am psyched to finish the clean up and have a summer crop. Anything is better than cleaning out the hall closet!

Wednesday

It is Wednesday, not a good day to try to write a blog; much less to try to clean anything. Wednesday is the day of my family dinner - Wednesday Winers. And please take note - there is no "h" in Winers, ergo not a good night for a blog.

And another thing...

I am really on a roll with the neighborhood “stuff” critique. Thank goodness this blog is fairly anonymous (and judging from the old newspapers in some of my neighbors’ driveways I don’t think they are big readers). I took a different route on my run this morning and these are some of the things I observed (I swear I don’t make this stuff up):

• Barbeque grills in the front yard. Since when has having a cookout in the front yard been the thing to do? Do you fire up the grill and invite all of the neighbors over?
• The rotted out skateboard ramp is an insurance liability. Move it; your punk-rock skateboarder is probably an engineering graduate student at a fancy university by now and doesn’t want it anymore.
• Unless your front yard doubles as an auxiliary landing strip for the airport you don’t need the rows of landscape lighting outlining your driveway.
• That tree you had to have cut down last year because it was dead doesn’t look good piled up on the side of your house. I am guessing you thought you would use it for fireplace fuel, but it is a breeding ground for termites and God only knows what else.
• The aggregate rock driveways that were all the rage in the early 80s now look like hell. Every time I jog by your house I get little pieces of gravel stuck in the bottom of my running shoes and it is very irritating. If I live long enough I might possibly carry your driveway away one piece at a time.
• If your fence has blown down it only means we can see how ugly your back yard is.
• I know there is a city ordinance limiting the number of dogs one can have. Why do you have six dog houses in your backyard? Yes, I can see them through your raggedy fence; which scares me to think you might actually own six dogs – that fence won’t keep them corralled.
• Was your McDonald’s meal good? The wrappings and the remainder of your hamburger and French fries are still at the curb next to your parked car. But don't be too embarrassed about it, only a few doors down there is a dirty baby diaper that has been run over in the street.
  

Maybe I should move? If any of my neighbors ever read this I may not have a choice.

Neighborhood Stuff

Several years ago the “powers that be” in my town hired an outside agency to do some major analysis of our fair city. There were pages and pages of results for which our city fathers paid big bucks, but the only thing I remember from the whole report was that my neighborhood was destined to become a slum. Not exactly what I wanted to hear.

My town has a tendency to discard the old and move on to the new. This is evident with the housing situation. My fellow townspeople are making a major exodus away from the central district to the new subdivisions in the outlying areas of the city. Old houses are not in vogue here as they are in some other cities. Never was this more apparent than a few years ago when a developer bought up at least a square mile of beautiful architecture, razed it and put up shoddily built (in my humble opinion) campus housing.

My neighborhood, the future slum, was built in the 1950s and we have owned our house here since the early 1980s. Sturdy, three and four bedroom, brick homes; I would choose my house over any newly constructed home just for the workmanship alone. But unfortunately, the neighborhood isn’t what it was in the 1950s. This becomes apparent to me on my morning run. I pass houses where the owners or renters obviously take no pride in their home. Overgrown grass and weeds, junked cars and peeling paint are just a few of the signs of things to come. There are plenty of exquisitely kept homes; homes where the pride of ownership is evident, but sadly, many of these are sitting next door to a home that appears to house the Beverly Hillbillies before they struck oil.

A few observations and suggestions to my neighbors:

• There is a limit to how much crap one should have in their front yard. Five gazing balls, two fake deer (you are fooling no one), a wooden wishing well, a toy windmill, and pots and pots of fake plastic flowers is overkill. If you enjoy this crap so much please move it to the back yard where I don’t have to see it.
• There is a new invention called an edger, please use it.
• If your car won’t run - fix it or sell it or haul it off. It is causing an oil spill in your driveway that is beginning to rival the oil tanker Valdez.
• If you can see bare wood it is time to paint. The fourteen colors of peeling paint is not a good look.
• Take down your Christmas decorations.
• Take down your McCain/Palin signs. Obama won, get over it.
• If you must use a sheet for your front room curtain please use a solid color. A teenage mutant ninja turtle sheet just doesn’t do it for me.
• Trees look better if they are trimmed every decade or so.
• Your cat litter box really doesn’t need to be on your front porch and your dogs shouldn’t be let out in the front yard to do their business.
• Driveways and garages are for parking cars, lawns are for growing grass.
• I’m all for having an occasional party, but please pick up the beer cans and red plastic Solo cups the next morning. Your neighbors don’t want that blowing in their yards.

The next time you see a middle aged woman jogging past your house with a pained look on her face, wave; it just might be me.

Hall Closet - Day One

Today I summoned the nerve to begin the hall closet purge. This is the "stuff" just on the floor of the closet:

• Vacuum cleaner - KEEP
• Vacuum cleaner bags – KEEP
• A purple and pink plastic tote box full of scrapbook supplies – KEEP
• A teal and green plastic tote box full of stamping supplies – KEEP
• A navy blue suitcase/roller bag (carry-on size) with an incomplete scrapbook project in it – KEEP (and hopefully finish one day when I get my house cleaned and can enjoy craft projects)
• A plastic wrapping paper storage/organizer system that is so full I can’t get the lid on it – KEEP
• A step stool – KEEP (I am going to need this when I get to the top shelves)
• The bunny ears to Muffy’s bunny costume that I found two days ago – KEEP – put in Daughter #2’s closet with the rest of the Muffy Vanderbear stuff
• An empty bottle of silver metallic paint - TRASH
• A Hefty-bag full of “soft” Christmas decorations (throw pillows, tree skirt, fabric wall hanging, etc) – KEEP – try to store it on the top shelf with the other holiday decorations
• A really great storage box designed to hold a portable c.d. player and c.d.s, belonged to Daughter #2 - GARAGE SALE
• A set of 3 nesting hat boxes – USE – surely with all of the stuff I have I can find a use for these
• A portable sewing machine – KEEP – my daddy bought this for me when I was in Junior High School – it still comes in handy for small repair projects
• Leftover fabric from bathroom curtains and shower curtain – KEEP – I may want to make something else for the bathroom (a toilet tank cover perhaps – please know I am just kidding!)
• A pretty piece of Indian cotton fabric I bought at a garage sale and thought I would do something with – KEEP (it is really pretty)
• Navy blue star fabric with white stars – GARAGE SALE
• 14 boxes taped closed with bold black marker proclaiming DO NOT UNPACK – these boxes contain china, crystal, a milk glass punchbowl and cups, and various and sundry items which once belonged to my mother and to my mother-in-law – KEEP (my daughters can deal with these after I am gone)
• A stand holding a set of wooden TV trays – KEEP
• A very small suitcase containing really great fabric remnants I bought at a Garage Sale – KEEP – I swear I am going to do something with them someday
• A bag containing a half finished crochet scarf – KEEP – I swear I am going to finish it someday
• A tool kit – KEEP – It is mine, I put it together so I wouldn’t think about divorcing my husband when I couldn’t find his tools
• A very large sack containing very large Christmas ornaments I use to decorate outside – KEEP
• A box fan – KEEP
• A rectangular-shaped board of flat corrugated material with an improved edge structure - Document Type and Number: United States Patent 3859161 – Pretty sad when I don’t even know what to call this item and I had to look it up by its patent number. This is one of those folding cardboard things you can cut out sewing patterns on – KEEP (this is great to put on the bed or on the floor to wrap Christmas presents on)
• A Joske’s Department Store box (I think a wedding gift came in 30 years ago) containing an assortment of nails, picture hanging supplies, kite string, wallpaper glue, magnets, etc. – KEEP – I’ve had it for 30 years, if I get rid of it now I’m sure to need something
• A violin – yes, a violin – DONATE – if it is okay with Daughter #2, I’d like to donate it a school for a child who can’t afford a musical instrument
• 2 never used, still folded packing boxes – KEEP
• A large shopping bag full of more large shopping bags – KEEP – I always need/use a large shopping bag
• A large Zip-lock bag containing crochet and knitting needles and a knitting project that looks like a beginner’s piece – KEEP until they look at it and tell me I can throw away
• A wooden Dr. Pepper Bottling Co. crate from the 1970s – this was in my first dorm room – KEEP – I don’t know why?
• A bunch of shiny adhesive stars all over the floor – a box must have spilled – TRASH – they have all been sucked up by the vacuum cleaner

Wow, that was a lot of “stuff”. I realize I kept most of it but it is no longer piled precariously, waiting to topple on me when I open the door. Next blog I will move up to one of the shelves. Sometimes the excitement in my life amazes me.

True Confessions

I am trying, I really am. I actually opened the door (you will be happy to know nothing fell on me) to the hall closet. I stood there, overwhelmed, and just couldn’t go any further. I am dumbstruck by the enormity of this project. I took out one thing. Oddly, a pink Easter-bunny costume belonging to Muffy Vanderbear was front and center, on top of the pile in the middle of the floor. So Miss Muffy’s pink bunny costume is now where it belongs, in the top of Daughter #2’s closet with the rest of the Muffy Vanderbear collection. I dare say I have, ahem – I mean Daughter #2 has a several thousand dollar collection of Muffy Vanderbear collectibles.

Which brings up one of my crazy addictions and one of the reasons I cannot delve into the hall closet purging project; I get totally sucked into every fad, craze, collectible that is known to man (or woman). You name it, I have probably collected it. Or worse, I have probably collected under the pretense of collecting it for my daughters. (Oh, horrors, I can’t believe I am admitting to this – must be that second glass of wine it took to get up the nerve to open the closet door.)

Let’s blame it on Barbie; that grotesquely proportioned doll that no self-respecting feminist (me) should have ever brought home to her little girl. But bring her home I did, boy did I bring her home. Daughter #1 owns every limited edition Christmas Barbie there ever was. They were never taken out of the boxes. For a while they were prominently displayed on a specially built shelf around the top of her wall, but now they are packed away – somewhere in my house. Not in the dreaded hall closet, but in some other yet to be purged closet in this house. Why are we saving them? I can pass the buck and say they don’t belong to me, therefore they are not mine to dispose of; they may also be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. (That is something all of us pack-rats tell ourselves on a regular basis.)

Not to be outdone by the Barbie collection, Daughter #2 has the Muffy Vanderbear collection. We, I mean she, owns every limited edition Christmas Muffy Vanderbear there ever was. In her late teens she finally asked me, nicely, to stop buying them. Not only do we own all of the boxed Christmas Muffys, we own costumes, furniture and accessories for Muffy. I think we also own some of her friends. This is a sickness I tell you!

Now, for the worst, truest, most shaming confession: I, I mean my daughter, oh, hell, who am I kidding – I own a trunk full of (drum roll, please) Beanie Babies. I spent thousands of dollars collecting Beanie Babies. I spent upwards of one hundred dollars on some of the rarer Beanie Babies – like the purple Princess Di Beanie Baby. Oh, please – it is just a friggin’ stuffed animal, yet I got caught up in the frenzy and drove to the special Beanie Baby store every day to see if a new shipment had come in. What a racket! My Beanie Baby collection has depreciated faster than my stock portfolio.

So now I am living in a house with hundreds of Barbies, Muffy Vanderbears, and Beanie Babies. What to do, what to do? I do have a garage sale coming up. Perish the thought.

Game Plan

I am trying to develop a strategy for my hall closet purge. This may sound crazy, but this is a really big undertaking. The closet is a big walk-in with U-shaped shelving, four tiers of U-shaped shelving. Each shelf is packed several layers deep and high, the floor is stacked to about waist level with “stuff”. I am thinking I should tackle the floor first, then the shelves, one foot-long section at a time. A foot long section may not sound like much, but it is about all I can deal with in one cleaning session. So, tomorrow is the big day. I will begin the hall closet purge, unless I decide to make diagrams and schematics of the proposed cleaning process.

Dagwood Bumstead's Closet

When I was growing up my very fastidious mother would make comments, when referring to messy closets or cabinets, about Dagwood’s closet or Bumstead’s closet. Dagwood Bumstead is the husband in a cartoon strip that has been around forever called Blondie. The joke about his closet was – every time he opened it “stuff” fell out. Everything from golf clubs to skis to clothes to cats fell out of Dagwood’s closet every time he or anyone else opened it. The irony of my mother referencing Dagwood’s closet was that all of her closets were clean. My mother was a neat-freak. I, on the other hand, am not a neat-freak (and that is putting it kindly).
The project I am contemplating (read – not actually doing, but thinking about doing) is the dreaded hall closet; my personal version of Dagwood Bumstead’s closet. It is the next logical cleaning/purging project, but it will take some time to work up to. So, be prepared to read several blogs about the closet before I actually open the door and do any work. But rest assured, once I open that door you will be amazed at the quantity and quality of crap that comes tumbling out.

Coming Clean

If you really think about it, doesn't the whole day revolve around cleaning?

1. I get up, go to the bathroom (that's a cleaning of sorts which we won't go in to).
2. I write - the premise being I can purge my brain of the junk so I can write the good stuff later.
3. I exercise - that cleans my body of toxins and hopefully, dear God, some day of fats.
4. I eat a healthy breakfast. The antioxidants in my yogurt and blueberries cleaning bad stuff from my system.
5. I do regular household chores, making beds, loading the dishwasher (all of that counts as cleaning).
6. I go to work at a non-profit, where I am surely saving the world (it is a stretch, but that is cleaning of a sort).
7. I come by the house to let the dogs out - trust me, that involves major cleaning on their part.
8. I visit my grandmother. Being with her is like a tonic, that has to be cleansing.
9. I come home and do more housework, I cook dinner, I do more housework. That all has to count.
10. And finally, the point of today's blog: If after all of the above I haven't done enough cleaning/purging to write a decent blog - then I come clean to my readers and ask for patience. I really will get back to some major cleaning soon.

Curse or Blessing?

I haven’t decided if weekends are a curse or a blessing for the working woman. Sure, we all want time away from our paying jobs, but spending the weekend at home usually means catching up with all of the household chores we let go during the week. I spend most of my “free time” on the weekend doing laundry, cleaning house, yard work, running errands, grocery shopping and cooking for the week to come. Honestly, it would be easier to be at work.

More Cabinet Clutter

I cleaned out the third and final shelf in the bathroom cabinet behind the door in the master bathroom this evening. This final shelf held, among other things, two bins full of “stuff”. One bin held medicines; prescription and over the counter. The other bin held first aid supplies. I tackled the bins first, and then moved on to the miscellaneous “stuff” occupying the remainder of the shelf space.

The medicine bin was an embarrassing arsenal of outdated drugs. I threw things away that expired in 2003, 2004, and 2005. I figure anything later than 2005 probably wouldn’t kill me so I kept it. Some of the drugs were so old they didn’t even have expiration dates; I threw those away, too. I did run across the “Caring for Your Child” and “Your Infant & Child” booklets given to me by the Pediatrician when my daughters were born. I will pass them on to them one day so they can access the wisdom of Dr. Glenn Boris, the best Pediatrician in the entire universe (saving the life of Daughter #2 certainly earned him this title).

The first aid bin was a little less disturbing. No out of date ointments or bug bite remedies, just lots of Band-Aids, an Ace Bandage, Neosporin, and sterile cotton. I do have more rubbing alcohol than I will be able to use in my lifetime and several bottles of hydrogen peroxide. If anyone gets a cut at my house they can rest assured that I will be able to clean, sterilize and bandage.

The miscellaneous items hidden on the top shelf, behind the bins were a hodge-podge. A dental cement replica of my teeth (upper and lower) made when I was in Jr. High and had to have a tooth capped, the result of diving into the shallow end of the swimming pool while trying to show-off for a cute older boy. I also found a heating/cooling pad apparatus that straps around the waist to apply heat/cold to the back and a back massager that resembles a bumpy rolling pin. And just when I thought I couldn’t possibly find any more lotion or shampoo I ran across a few more bottles hidden at the very back of the shelf.

My blog readers will sleep better tonight knowing that I have an organized cabinet and I won’t be purchasing duplicate toiletry items anytime soon. Just think of the money I’ll save, it is truly mind boggling.

Fourteen Bottles of Hair Care Products and Four More Bottles of Lotion

I am working on cleaning/purging the master bathroom. I cleaned one shelf last week and today I found the strength to clean another. This is what I found:

• An extra large container of Q-tips – “Bonus 20% more 600 cotton swabs”
• Rembrandt Dazzling White Tooth Bleaching Value Kit
• No-Crack Super Hand Cream (I swear I don’t make this stuff up)
• SinuCleanse Neti Pot, or as we like to call it – the nose boat
• Moisturizing Saline Nasal Spray
• Nair
• Plastic molds of my teeth, upper and lower
• A heating pad
• Nix Family Pack Lice Treatment – Expired in 1996 – my kids went to public school, what can I say?
• Silver Hair and Body Glitter – left over from Halloweens past
• Face painting crayons – ditto Halloween excuse
• An aerosol can of Streaks ‘N Tips - Temporary Highlighting Colors – yep, Halloween again
• Temporary black spray on hair color – you guessed it – Halloween
• Elvira Cream Make-Up, black – guess?
• Fluorescent Hair Spray – Halloween was very big around our house
• A bag full of department store fragrance samples (yes, you really do want me to list them all): First – de VanCleef & Arpels, Carolina Herrera, Liz Claiborne, Anne Klein II, KL Homme, Must de Cartier, KL Eau De Toilette, Elizabeth Taylor’s Passion, Ultima II Maroc, Chanel Cristalle, Diva Eau de Seduction, Giorgio for Men, Halston Couture, Galore, Elizabeth Arden Red Door, Sung, Anna Pliska, Poison, Antaeus pour Homme, Chanel No. 22, Adolfo, Oscar de la Renta
• A plastic Mary Kay gift bag
• A package of Johnson & Johnson Easy Access Flossers
• A bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide
• Clairol Nice ‘n Easy Beautiful, Natural Light Brown
• 2 wicker baskets full of hotel-size bottles of shampoos, conditioners, lotions, mouthwash, and soap
• A Bath & Body Works Snow Globe Splash – Pearberry
• A jar of jewelry cleaner
• Talcum powder
• Stress mender aromatherapy massage oil “a necessity for today’s hectic world”
• Bar of loofah soap
• L’Oreal ReFinish Micro-Dermabrasion Kit
• A bag of cotton balls – jumbo size
• 2 bars of Safeguard bath soap
• A bottle of Johnson & Johnson Baby Oil
• 2 bottles of shower gel
• A bottle of Saline Solution for contact lenses
• 3 cans of hairspray
• 2 bottles of sun screen
• 4 bottles of lotion
• 14 bottles of hair care products
• A box of Wet Ones individual pocket singles
• A blonde eyebrow pencil
• A brown eyeliner pencil
• A slate eyeliner pencil
• A disposable razor

A very long list and a full Hefty bag later I am happy to announce that this particular cabinet only has one more shelf.

I Just Thought I was Skipping Today

It's late, I'm tired - it was a beautiful evening, a bottle of wine, grilling fajitas on the patio - not conducive to cleaning/purging for my blog. Just when I decided to beg off for today's blog my husband reminded me that we did have housecleaning help today. No, I did not get a housekeeper, my husband had the day off and he cleaned house for me today. So, even though I can't blog about cabinets, drawers, or closets cleaned out I can say I have a clean house - floors swept and mopped, carpets vacuumed, toilets cleaned, furniture dusted, laundry piled in the utility room, Febreeze sprayed on all of the upholstery. Life is good!

Aromatherapy

There is a scent, a wonderful scent, which is made up of the combined aromas of hundreds of bath/toiletry products in my bathroom cabinet. The scent is a combination of shampoos, soaps, perfumes, cosmetics, and other miscellaneous things women think they need to be beautiful. The scent is probably unique to my bathroom cabinet, unique because of the special combination of products. My mother’s bathroom had its own special scent as well. The scent in my mother’s bathroom was a mixture of L’Air du Temps, Dial soap, Revlon lipstick, Colgate toothpaste, 5-Day deodorant pads, Jergen’s lotion, Final Net hairspray and Pond’s cold cream. The scents combined to make an aroma unique to my mother’s bathroom.

Every once in a while I catch a scent that transports me back to my mother’s bathroom. It might be a sales clerk at a department store spritzing L’Air du Temps on potential buyers or the smell of Revlon lipstick when I uncap the tube, but it is enough to take me to another place and time.

When I was a young girl I loved watching my mother dress up to go out with my father. My mother was a beautiful woman and she knew how to make herself even more attractive with cosmetics and hair curlers. She normally went to the beauty shop every week to have her hair washed, set, dried, backcombed, and sprayed with enough hairspray to see her through the week. She slept on a satin pillowcase every night to further ensure her “do” would last. The night before her weekly appointment she would take out her black, stiff-bristled hairbrush and brush out her hairdo. She would brush hard and exclaim over how good it felt to brush her scalp. On the rare occasion she didn’t go to the beauty shop or if some emergency occurred (like taking her children swimming) she would set her own hair on black or purple curlers with white brushes on the inside. Those curlers where held in place by hot pink picks that appeared to be piercing her scalp. She would sit under the hairdryer, usually filing and painting her fingernails while waiting for her hair to dry. The first hair dryer I remember was a plastic cap attached to a hose that attached to a small machine that blew hot air into the cap. Later she upgraded to a dome-style hairdryer she sat under.

Watching my mother “put on her face” was an experience. My mother wore it all; foundation, powder, eye shadow, mascara, blush, lipstick and the piece de resistance – false eyelashes. My mother even wore her false eyelashes while dying of lung cancer at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

My mother was a wonderful, beautiful, classy lady and I love being reminded of her every time I catch a whiff of Jergen’s hand lotion or Final Net hairspray.

Blog Questions

A question not a comment...do you find writing about yourself makes profound life changes or does it just document where you have been? Can we get a before and after picture? How many pound of "stuff" have you lost? Will we really notice any difference in your abode upon our next visit?
Inquisitively yours,
An Inquiring Mind

A very nice blog follower asked the above questions. Good questions. Let me see if I can answer them.
Does writing this blog make profound life changes or does it just document?
Well, I don’t know if you would call them profound life changes, but I have uncovered a lot about myself and about my family while purging stuff. I have realized the freedom of not having so much stuff. I have given more thought to purchases I have made since beginning the blog and I don’t think I have brought home anything from a garage sale or an estate sale, either. That may not sound like much, but for me it is pretty close to a profound life change. As for the documenting part of the question - I like documenting, I like lists. In Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" he lists things soldiers in Vietnam carried and it made a powerful story.
Does it just document where you have been?
It does document where I have been. Going through my mother’s saved recipes gave me a glimpse into her life I hadn’t previously known and I got a bit of an insight into myself as well. Cleaning out my children’s toy closet brought back great memories of their childhood. Actually everything I have cleaned has brought back memories. Some of the items I have elected to keep because of those memories, some of the items I have given away, because the memory was no longer significant or I didn’t need the 'thing' to recall the memory. And writing about my grandmothers’ stuff has been a lesson in my history and the history of my family.
Some of the things I have purged have been a lesson in letting go of the past and moving on. Turning Daughter #2’s room into an office/guest room helped me to accept her as an adult, living in her own home. Having a home office gives me a space to pursue new interests, a place to begin the next stage of my life.
Can we get a before and after picture?
I guess you will just have to trust the blog and draw those pictures for yourself.
Will we really notice any difference in your abode upon our next visit?
I doubt you will notice. I think I have always done a credible job of keeping my crap hidden. If you would like a tour of my closets, cabinets and drawers feel free to ask. Just don’t expect to see the inside of the garage yet!

Seventeen Bottles of Lotion (are you kidding me?)

My husband is perplexed that I want to write about the crap I am digging up in our home. He can’t imagine that I am not embarrassed by this stuff. I haven’t been, until today. The bathroom cabinet was worse than I imagined. I pulled everything out of only one shelf in one cabinet, grouped it by product, and here is what I found:

• 2 bottles of mouthwash
• 4 contact lens cases
• 4 boxes of contact lenses
• 10 bottles of hair product
• 17 bottles of lotion
• 5 bars of soap
• 2 boxes of bath oil beads
• A jar full of buttons
• 2 boxes full of old makeup (I won’t even bother to inventory)
• 3 deodorants
• 2 bags of cosmetic sponge wedges
• A box of Crest Whitestrips
• A package of 8 purse size packages of Kleenex
• A Hairdini (don’t ask)
• An Epilady (this was invented by the Marquis de Sade)
• 2 loofah sponges
• A box of Off! Towelettes
• A bottle of rubbing alcohol
• A blow-dryer diffuser
• 3 pumice stones
• A bottle of nail polish remover
• A box of nail polish remover pads
• A tube of toothpaste
• A 6-step nail buffing kit
• A disposable razor
• A basket containing fingernail paraphernalia – to include 24 bottles of nail polish, 6 fingernail files, a nail buffer, cuticle cream, 5 cuticle sticks, a tube of cuticle gel, manicure scissors, 4 fingernail clippers, 1 toenail clipper, a package of silk nail wrap and super glue
• 2 pocket knives
• 11 loose Band-Aids
• 4 books of matches
• A cosmetics bag

Oh my God! All of this was on one shelf. No wonder I keep buying stuff – I can’t find what I already own. I have tossed what I don’t need, arranged the rest of it neatly on the shelf and sworn not to buy another bottle of lotion until these are depleted.

APB

There are no blog police. That is what my husband tells me on the days I don't find the time to write my blog. I hope he is right!

Orange You Glad You Don't Live Here?

A new project was in order for my cleaning/purging. I am still putting off the hall closet and the garage, so I opted for something semi-challenging – my bathroom. The master bathroom in my house has always been my least favorite room and as a consequence I have not done much in the way of updating it in the 20-plus years we have lived here. When we bought this house we agreed that the room needed to be gutted, we just haven’t gotten around to it yet. One of the last home improvement projects I undertook before I began working full time (seven and a half years ago) was painting the master bathroom. This was when a paint treatment called glazing was all the rage. I had a vision of turning my bland and boring white bathroom walls and ceiling into something resembling a warm Tuscan sunset. What I ended up with looks like the inside of a cantaloupe. Every time I step into my bathroom, which could be upwards of 20 times a day, I am reminded of the story of Cinderella when her fairy godmother turns a pumpkin into a coach to take Cinderella to the ball. This room really needs a new paint job. I would welcome the former bland and boring white with open arms.

This blog is not about redecorating or remodeling my house. It is about purging my home of 20 years worth of crap, so I won’t blog about a painting project (unless I get really desperate for something to blog about). But I will blog about ridding the bathroom of all of the unnecessary “stuff” so I can get it ready to paint. I have many cabinets and drawers full of “stuff” and I plan to begin cleaning them tomorrow. I have had more than enough cantaloupe and pumpkin for one day.

Junk in the Trunk

If you listen to hip hop music the title of this blog has an entirely different meaning from the one I intend. I am blogging about cleaning out the back of my SUV, not a trunk exactly, but I really wanted to use this title so sue me for using a little poetic license. I went out of town this weekend and had to use the back of my SUV for bags, which made me think about the “stuff” I routinely store in the back of my vehicle. This is quite a large cargo storage area and I can’t resist stashing “stuff” when I have such a roomy option.

I usually carry around some miscellaneous recycling stuff, either boxes full of glass or plastic bottles awaiting drop off at my neighborhood recycling center or empty boxes or sacks making the return trip back to the house.

I also keep dog “stuff” in the back of my car. An orange and black velour blanket I try to put on the back seat when the dogs go on car rides with me, a spare leash, and a few dog treats. (My bank gives these at the drive-thru window when the dogs are with me.)

My husband accuses me of using my vehicle as an office on wheels, and he is partially correct. I have work folders, books, receipts, and sometimes even a portable file box in “the back room of my mobile office.”

Part of my job takes me to a farm, so I always have a hat or two, a couple of jackets, a pair of dirty sneakers, and a pair of work gloves. Sometimes I even carry around gardening tools; a rake or a hoe (and no, I am not referencing the hip hop music theme again).

I would be remiss if I failed to remind you of my garage sale/estate sale addiction. There is usually some evidence of this habit in my car as well.

So, did I clean out the back of my vehicle for this blog? Of course not, I’m just flaunting the junk in my trunk.

Fat, Fats, Fat

My last blog about my Revere Ware pots and pans made me think a lot about cooking. About my grandmother’s cooking, my mother’s cooking, my cooking, my daughters’ cooking. A few months ago Daughter #1 called to ask me about an ingredient in a recipe I sent her. She had requested her grandmother’s, my mother’s recipe for cornbread. I sent it and that was the recipe she was questioning. The recipe called for vegetable oil. My daughter asked if she could use olive oil instead. I told her probably not, then it dawned on me that she probably only had olive oil in her apartment. She had probably never owned a bottle of vegetable oil. I equate this to my experience with my grandmother’s recipes that called for Crisco or worse, lard. I did have a bottle of vegetable oil in my first kitchen, but I did not routinely keep Crisco on hand, and I never, ever had lard in my house (I will refrain from making a “lard-ass” joke here). Believe it or not, there were some recipes from my grandmother that called for lard. How the times, and recipes, have changed over the years – and for the better. I am not an expert on nutrition, but I will venture a guess that my daughter’s kitchen is healthier than mine, and I know that my kitchen was healthier than my mother’s or my grandmother’s. But this begs the question: Why are we fatter today than we were in my mother’s and my grandmother’s day? I have a theory – (not the theory that lard and Crisco are more filling and therefore we eat less) I blame it all on power steering in automobiles.

“What? Power steering,” you ask?

“Yes, power steering.”

Since my grandmother’s and mother’s generation we have eaten healthier foods, but we have gotten less exercise. We have power steering, electric mixers, washing machines, clothes dryers and maids – we don’t get the exercise our mothers and grandmothers did. They were able to “work off” all of that lard and Crisco. What it did to their arteries is another story.

A Clean Mind?

I decided I need an internet purge. I am cleaning my mind of all things internet for at least 24 hours.

The British are Coming, The British are Coming

I cleaned out the kitchen cabinet containing my pots and pans tonight. Other than my nice Calphalon pan I own mostly Revere Ware stainless steel pots and pans, the ones with the copper bottoms. We received a complete set of these pots and pans from my parents when we were married. My mother had always used Revere Ware, so she was insistent that I would use them, too. I had grown up using them and felt right at home with them in the kitchen of our first home during our newlywed years. Coincidentally, my husband’s mother used them also and he inherited hers after her death and had been using them in his bachelor apartment. So, Revere Ware was a family tradition for both of us. Now that my daughters have their own kitchens I hope they will use Revere Ware as well. Daughter #1’s bridal registry included fancy French copper pots and I gave her some of those for Christmas and birthday, but I hope she will add a few Revere Ware copper bottoms to go with their fancy French cousins. Daughter #2’s kitchen is a little more hodge-podge. Her inexpensive college apartment cookware has been supplemented with Revere Ware garage sale finds. I am happy to say my daughters are carrying on the family cookware tradition – their grandmothers would be proud.

I've Got to Clean My Garden

I have been focusing so much on cleaning/purging my house I have neglected my yard, specifically, I have neglected my vegetable garden. Last year, as a romantic gesture for our 29th wedding anniversary, my husband built me an 8’ x 2.5’ raised bed garden planter in a sectioned off portion of our backyard. This section also has large containers for growing tomatoes, cucumbers and herbs. This year I plan to add another raised bed and to plant some in-ground crops. But, (any guesses on what this “but” is going to be?) I need to clean my garden.

The garden area was fenced off from the main yard for twenty years and it became a catch-all for things we didn’t have a place for and a graveyard for things that should have gone to the trash – like broken lawnmowers and propane grills. Add to this a profusion of vinca minor and there was quite a mess. Last year when we installed the first raised bed we did a massive clean up. This year I plan to do an even bigger clean up. I have visions of eradicating the vinca and reclaiming some prime vegetable growing space.

Part of my day job involves a five-acre vegetable farm, another part of my job involves networking with other vegetable growers. Today I had a wonderful afternoon of visiting farms, gardens and potential garden sites and talking to some really nice people about growing things. Two of my dear friends and fellow gardeners accompanied me. Curious, but I have never met a mean gardener; have you?

I was inspired today to get back to my own garden and get it ready to plant, even though it was 26 degrees on Saturday – I’ve got the gardening bug. A sure sign of spring.