Well, Thanksgiving is coming (in the U.S.A.) in 2 weeks. Yes, family is important, but family staying well and alive is more important. Please don't have (or go to) a big family gathering this year. Have a dinner with those in your household.
How about a long distance (or short distance if family lives nearby) extended family celebration on Zoom– perhaps even set up a monitor (yes, this would be exception to the “no TV, no computers,no phones at Thanksgiving dinner rule) where everyone having dinner at your house can see the screen and have your extended family members do the same. Make an agreement for what time to have dinner which works for everyone – then all can share dinner across the Internet and still be safe.
Have Aunt Mary send a copy of her secret recipe for her pumpkin pie (will you find out that she uses the one on the can of canned pumpkin?). Have Cousin Susie her recipe for the stuffing and so on. Everyone can make the dishes for their family (or not as they choose – perhaps Uncle Dave adds a bit too much “fun” in his rum cake?). If everyone has the same foods it will seem like everyone is eating together. Or, just let everyone make the dinner they want – perhaps next year your sister-in-law's vegetable soup (a dish I always make for Thanksgiving) will be the new family favorite that no one has had before, but when she made it for the dinner she and your brother had with their children – it looked soooo good and her children asked for more – yes, more vegetables - and then you will all asking her for the recipe.
The holiday is something which can be celebrated across the miles - or across the street – so that all stay safe and well. I am sure that you all would prefer for grandpa Jack to be with you at future Thanksgiving dinners than this be his last one due to his catching Covid-19 from someone at the dinner.
My husband and I used to have both families at our home for Thanksgiving dinner – it was “our” holiday. 10 years ago we had bed bugs – we have not have family join us for the holiday since. I still cook the same foods for the two of us – just a bit less than I made for the families. I set up the dining room with the “good” china and silverware. I use smaller serving bowls than before, but we have a nice holiday. We do this annually now – and I only suggesting your family and friends have this one Thanksgiving apart – so that hopefully you will all be alive and well for next Thanksgiving to be together again.
I am writing this column now – 2 weeks before the holiday so that you have time to plan with your extended family to have your holiday apart, while still joining together in some way over the distance so all will survive the corona virus and are here to be there for next year.
Me, I have to figure out what to do with the all the extra canned goods, bottle, jars, and packages which are currently residing on my dining room table – taking up the entire table plus there are 3 huge plastic boxes of foods,which might attract vermin if it was just out, stacked next to the table. I figure I have to clear up my studio worktable and move the food from the dining room table onto it. (This will also allow me to decorate the dining room for Christmas afterward which I never had a chance to do last year.) Husband has said to have the dinner in the kitchen,but I know from the past we need the kitchen table for related things – such as carving the turkey.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
For the Jewish holiday of Passover one of the prayers is “Next year, may we all be in Jerusalem” - for Thanksgiving let us all stay apart and safe and say “Next next Thanksgiving may we all be at Aunt Anne's” (or wherever you normally celebrate Thanksgiving) and survive this pandemic to do so.
A little planning is all that is needed.
Let us also remember on this Veteran's Day all of those brave people who have fought to protect their country in the various wars which threatened our country as well as, including those in other countries who share the memory of Armistice Day when World War I (the Great War) had it truce. If not for them we would not be living in the world we have now (meaning of course the good things of our world.) Tell a veteran (or two) that you appreciate their service.
Showing posts with label table. Show all posts
Showing posts with label table. Show all posts
Thursday, November 12, 2020
COVID 19 #26 - PLAN NOW FOR THANKSGIVING APART FOR THIS YEAR
Thursday, September 26, 2019
PLANNING YOUR ORGANIZING
Another week – another post – but not much done during the week.
Last week, as mentioned, I hurt a muscle in my stomach and husband would not let me do anything heavy so I would heal. This meant that I could do computer work, some cooking (not “heavy” pots) and such. He carried the laundry bag downstairs so I could do the laundry and then carried the basket of clean items upstairs (twice as I did clothes one day and towels the next) for me. The basket of clean clothes that I carry upstairs on one hip with one hand normally, he can barely lift. Unfortunately after feeling better, today my back was hurting – I could not even twist to see the office phone to dial as I had to lean around the file holder stack on my desk – I had to go to the kitchen to call our bank to see if something coming into the account had arrived. So not much done again this last week.
I will say that we were very pleasantly surprised after using up most of our available time last week to prepare for the reenactment event I mentioned that it was much easier to do than we had figured how it had been explained.
Rather than hand everything over the fence, we were allowed to drive right to the space set aside for our unit. The people from the museum that was having the event were the nicest people we have ever met running an event – and we started doing craft shows in the 1980s. They bent over backwards – if we wanted the space set a different way, they were glad for us to do it and helped us. They were helping us unpack. They had tables out for us to use – one less thing for us to have to take out and set up. When we had finished unpacking I asked one of the men to help me back the van out of the museum grounds. He sent me up the road about a block to a school that was letting them use their parking lot - okay, a small bit of disorganization, the lot was small and full – there was a children's soccer game going on. There were no spaces. The fellow (not from our unit, but a friend) who was the blacksmith followed me in – he had a regular car and told me he as going to park between the two rows as another car had done. I luckily saw a father and son heading to their car and got that space. Not sure what later cars did – demonstrators, volunteers, and the public.
Despite my back I held up one of the tent poles (this is a reproduction tent – not a modern popup tent) for the unit set up as our members put it up. We had table next to the tent with plenty of room for the wooden drying racks we were using as display for the scarves husband had woven. After we set up I found a space between our table and the unit's setup to sit and embroider. Other members set up across the aisle from us in a group.
I talk about this in this column as organizing a setup for a display – whether a craft show, a reenactment event, a flea market, or a display setup up involves advance planning and then one has to hope that all goes as expected. We have learned to carry a variety of setup items that we do not normally need or use – just in case. Even if one knows the space that one will have it may be different than it was last year or otherwise expected. If the person that the next space is reserved for does not show up, one may be able to expand into their space. One may have to deal with uneven ground – or even a large puddle or flooded area. This time we were lucky. The venue's employees were nice and accommodating and the space well situated and not limited. We have gone to craft shows where we are supposed to have the same space as the year before – a corner space with 2 sides to display on – and found that the setup had changed or an error was made and one had different space in a different area midaisle with one side to work with. As we did this when we brought more items for setup than we needed, one has to be prepared for anything.
Think of trying to organize your home – you have plans to clear out the closet in the spare room and then find items there that you had not remembered. You are not ready to deal with those items – maybe not enough garbage bags (or the bags you have are too small) or you need help to move what you find. Or maybe you have to sort a lot of very small items and have no where to sort them. One has to be ready to deal with situations that one did not expect when organizing.
As to the event we did – very nice. Husband has been weaving for about 3, maybe 4 years and has tried to sell his scarves and table runners online. No sales of same at all. He has been despondent about weaving and no one buying. Our thought was that if the pieces could be seen in person it would be different and hoped that to be true. Craft shows around here for the most part are buy and sell junk shows – no chance of selling an actual hand woven scarf if commercial scarves for $8 each are being sold, which is why he jumped at this chance to sell, especially in the fall (okay, it did not feel like fall, it was in the upper 80/lower 90Fs) but he sold a scarf partway through the day and then near closing, 5 scarves to one woman. Yippee. He is again happy to weave.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Plan for everything you can think of for a specific organizing chore. There will be things that happen out of your control, but try to anticipate what you will need and the time you will need to do it. Then “play it by ear” if something not anticipated pops up!
Last week, as mentioned, I hurt a muscle in my stomach and husband would not let me do anything heavy so I would heal. This meant that I could do computer work, some cooking (not “heavy” pots) and such. He carried the laundry bag downstairs so I could do the laundry and then carried the basket of clean items upstairs (twice as I did clothes one day and towels the next) for me. The basket of clean clothes that I carry upstairs on one hip with one hand normally, he can barely lift. Unfortunately after feeling better, today my back was hurting – I could not even twist to see the office phone to dial as I had to lean around the file holder stack on my desk – I had to go to the kitchen to call our bank to see if something coming into the account had arrived. So not much done again this last week.
I will say that we were very pleasantly surprised after using up most of our available time last week to prepare for the reenactment event I mentioned that it was much easier to do than we had figured how it had been explained.
Rather than hand everything over the fence, we were allowed to drive right to the space set aside for our unit. The people from the museum that was having the event were the nicest people we have ever met running an event – and we started doing craft shows in the 1980s. They bent over backwards – if we wanted the space set a different way, they were glad for us to do it and helped us. They were helping us unpack. They had tables out for us to use – one less thing for us to have to take out and set up. When we had finished unpacking I asked one of the men to help me back the van out of the museum grounds. He sent me up the road about a block to a school that was letting them use their parking lot - okay, a small bit of disorganization, the lot was small and full – there was a children's soccer game going on. There were no spaces. The fellow (not from our unit, but a friend) who was the blacksmith followed me in – he had a regular car and told me he as going to park between the two rows as another car had done. I luckily saw a father and son heading to their car and got that space. Not sure what later cars did – demonstrators, volunteers, and the public.
Despite my back I held up one of the tent poles (this is a reproduction tent – not a modern popup tent) for the unit set up as our members put it up. We had table next to the tent with plenty of room for the wooden drying racks we were using as display for the scarves husband had woven. After we set up I found a space between our table and the unit's setup to sit and embroider. Other members set up across the aisle from us in a group.
I talk about this in this column as organizing a setup for a display – whether a craft show, a reenactment event, a flea market, or a display setup up involves advance planning and then one has to hope that all goes as expected. We have learned to carry a variety of setup items that we do not normally need or use – just in case. Even if one knows the space that one will have it may be different than it was last year or otherwise expected. If the person that the next space is reserved for does not show up, one may be able to expand into their space. One may have to deal with uneven ground – or even a large puddle or flooded area. This time we were lucky. The venue's employees were nice and accommodating and the space well situated and not limited. We have gone to craft shows where we are supposed to have the same space as the year before – a corner space with 2 sides to display on – and found that the setup had changed or an error was made and one had different space in a different area midaisle with one side to work with. As we did this when we brought more items for setup than we needed, one has to be prepared for anything.
Think of trying to organize your home – you have plans to clear out the closet in the spare room and then find items there that you had not remembered. You are not ready to deal with those items – maybe not enough garbage bags (or the bags you have are too small) or you need help to move what you find. Or maybe you have to sort a lot of very small items and have no where to sort them. One has to be ready to deal with situations that one did not expect when organizing.
As to the event we did – very nice. Husband has been weaving for about 3, maybe 4 years and has tried to sell his scarves and table runners online. No sales of same at all. He has been despondent about weaving and no one buying. Our thought was that if the pieces could be seen in person it would be different and hoped that to be true. Craft shows around here for the most part are buy and sell junk shows – no chance of selling an actual hand woven scarf if commercial scarves for $8 each are being sold, which is why he jumped at this chance to sell, especially in the fall (okay, it did not feel like fall, it was in the upper 80/lower 90Fs) but he sold a scarf partway through the day and then near closing, 5 scarves to one woman. Yippee. He is again happy to weave.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Plan for everything you can think of for a specific organizing chore. There will be things that happen out of your control, but try to anticipate what you will need and the time you will need to do it. Then “play it by ear” if something not anticipated pops up!
Thursday, March 7, 2019
ALMOST A FIRE
I was taught to be very careful when cooking, My mom’s stove (an electric one) had 1 2 3 heat settings on the dial. I was taught never to walk out of the room if a burner was set at 2 or 3 and never to walk out of house when the stove was on (unless in either case someone else was in the room to watch the stove). After we married, in our apartment we had a (natural) gas stove/oven combination which scared the heck out of me as I was always afraid that it would blow up. I had to light the oven with a match to use it and was always sure that would be the last thing I did. (I actually once smelled gas outside the apartment as we were going out, called the gas company and when we got home later we had no stove. I telephoned to have it turned back on per the note left. When I asked, I was told that this all stemmed from a woman who had smelled the gas leak in the street and called them - hey, that was me.)
When we bought this house there was a gas stove/range combination also. I was not happy about that. I was even more upset when I was sure I smelled gas when we were in the house for later visits before we bought it. I was again right. Rather than get the unit repaired, we bought an electric stove/oven unit and had the kitchen wired for it.
Last night I made for dinner a pot pie we had bought on sale (we bought a few of them on sale - these are small production ones, not the major brands ones). I, of course, had forgotten to go down and put it in the oven to bake and therefore did so an hour late. Husband really likes these pies so he did not complain. I bake it in an oven which sits on the counter (uses 1/3 of the counter space we have). I carefully pulled the oven away from the wall and the stove and removed some plastic storage items sitting next to the oven to the other side of the kitchen. I lined the pan with foil to keep it clean.
In the interim while it was cooking I set the table, laid out our pills for dinner, etc. I would have thought nothing of walking out of the kitchen while the baking was going on, but in this case I stayed in the kitchen.
I made a can of soup for us to share as a first course. I split the can of soup before cooking it and use two small pots to cook it. It is worth cleaning the extra pot as it is much easier to split the soup as it comes out of the can and husband likes more water added to his soup than I do. As the pie went into its last ½ hour of cooking, we sat down and had the soup. After I poured the soup into our bowls, I put the pots on the stove. The burners for the soup had been shut off and I also made sure not to put the pots on the burners they had been on as the burners were still hot (electric burners take a short while to cool down after they shut off). As I said, I am very careful.
When the pie was done cooking, the countertop oven beeped and I took it out and put the pan on the stove - on the larger burner in the front on one side which was cold. We had the very nice pot pie for dinner.
After dinner I normally have a cup of tea for dinner. I normally cook it on the rear smaller burner, but I had moved the pots onto the baking pan and had put it on that rear burner, so I put the pot of water on the front, larger, burner to boil it and turned on the burner. I went back to the kitchen table - 5-6 feet away - and started reading the newspaper (TV was on for husband) while I waited to hear the water boiling.
It dawned on me that it was a bit long for the water to take to boil and something smelled wrong and notices small bits of black floating around the room. I had turned on the wrong burner!! I had turned on the burner with the pots and baking pan! I shut it off and using pot holders moved the burner with the pots still on it to another burner that was cold.
Luckily I caught it before we had an actual fire. The stove was covered in soot and the pots looked burned. The foil I had put in the baking pan was what seemed to be the black wisps flying around the room and the pan had a mark that went through it. I never did have tea. Husband suggested checking inside the oven to make sure all was okay there - I carefully put my hand on the front of it first to check that it was not hot before I opened it.
When they cooled a tiny bit, I put the pots and the pan into a dish pan of cold water to finish cooling them off. I was surprise that the pots and the pan (even the foil stuck to the pan) cleaned so easily. The pan though rocked when I put it on a flat surface, distorted by the heat. After I was done with pots and the pan, I started on the stove. It cleaned up much quicker and easier than I thought it would. I took apart the burner that all this happened on to clean it and found when I took out the drip pan that the foil liner in the drip pan had mostly melted. This had been the source of the black wisps floating about. I immediately pulled the liners in the other 3 pans - too dangerous (despite this not happening in the past 30 years) - and threw them out also.
Today husband was able to mostly get the baking pan to stop rocking by leaning on it. The kitchen no longer has a burning smell. Unrelated to all of this, we took in Chinese food for dinner tonight (easy way to deal with Ash Wednesday for husband).
Something we realized later in the evening when I boiled water - with the same pot I started to do so to make tea - later in the evening for some hot cereal before bed. The smoke detector had not gone off. (For a reminder of a past cooking incident that did set off the smoke detector see - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2018/07/not-in-pennsylvania.html )
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Well two of them actually. Be careful when cooking - even if you think that you are being careful - be more careful.
If you have foil drip pans in your stove - TAKE THEM OUT.
When we bought this house there was a gas stove/range combination also. I was not happy about that. I was even more upset when I was sure I smelled gas when we were in the house for later visits before we bought it. I was again right. Rather than get the unit repaired, we bought an electric stove/oven unit and had the kitchen wired for it.
Last night I made for dinner a pot pie we had bought on sale (we bought a few of them on sale - these are small production ones, not the major brands ones). I, of course, had forgotten to go down and put it in the oven to bake and therefore did so an hour late. Husband really likes these pies so he did not complain. I bake it in an oven which sits on the counter (uses 1/3 of the counter space we have). I carefully pulled the oven away from the wall and the stove and removed some plastic storage items sitting next to the oven to the other side of the kitchen. I lined the pan with foil to keep it clean.
In the interim while it was cooking I set the table, laid out our pills for dinner, etc. I would have thought nothing of walking out of the kitchen while the baking was going on, but in this case I stayed in the kitchen.
I made a can of soup for us to share as a first course. I split the can of soup before cooking it and use two small pots to cook it. It is worth cleaning the extra pot as it is much easier to split the soup as it comes out of the can and husband likes more water added to his soup than I do. As the pie went into its last ½ hour of cooking, we sat down and had the soup. After I poured the soup into our bowls, I put the pots on the stove. The burners for the soup had been shut off and I also made sure not to put the pots on the burners they had been on as the burners were still hot (electric burners take a short while to cool down after they shut off). As I said, I am very careful.
When the pie was done cooking, the countertop oven beeped and I took it out and put the pan on the stove - on the larger burner in the front on one side which was cold. We had the very nice pot pie for dinner.
After dinner I normally have a cup of tea for dinner. I normally cook it on the rear smaller burner, but I had moved the pots onto the baking pan and had put it on that rear burner, so I put the pot of water on the front, larger, burner to boil it and turned on the burner. I went back to the kitchen table - 5-6 feet away - and started reading the newspaper (TV was on for husband) while I waited to hear the water boiling.
It dawned on me that it was a bit long for the water to take to boil and something smelled wrong and notices small bits of black floating around the room. I had turned on the wrong burner!! I had turned on the burner with the pots and baking pan! I shut it off and using pot holders moved the burner with the pots still on it to another burner that was cold.
Luckily I caught it before we had an actual fire. The stove was covered in soot and the pots looked burned. The foil I had put in the baking pan was what seemed to be the black wisps flying around the room and the pan had a mark that went through it. I never did have tea. Husband suggested checking inside the oven to make sure all was okay there - I carefully put my hand on the front of it first to check that it was not hot before I opened it.
When they cooled a tiny bit, I put the pots and the pan into a dish pan of cold water to finish cooling them off. I was surprise that the pots and the pan (even the foil stuck to the pan) cleaned so easily. The pan though rocked when I put it on a flat surface, distorted by the heat. After I was done with pots and the pan, I started on the stove. It cleaned up much quicker and easier than I thought it would. I took apart the burner that all this happened on to clean it and found when I took out the drip pan that the foil liner in the drip pan had mostly melted. This had been the source of the black wisps floating about. I immediately pulled the liners in the other 3 pans - too dangerous (despite this not happening in the past 30 years) - and threw them out also.
Today husband was able to mostly get the baking pan to stop rocking by leaning on it. The kitchen no longer has a burning smell. Unrelated to all of this, we took in Chinese food for dinner tonight (easy way to deal with Ash Wednesday for husband).
Something we realized later in the evening when I boiled water - with the same pot I started to do so to make tea - later in the evening for some hot cereal before bed. The smoke detector had not gone off. (For a reminder of a past cooking incident that did set off the smoke detector see - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2018/07/not-in-pennsylvania.html )
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Well two of them actually. Be careful when cooking - even if you think that you are being careful - be more careful.
If you have foil drip pans in your stove - TAKE THEM OUT.
Thursday, August 18, 2016
MORE CATCHING UP AND A PERIOD FESTIVAL - THAT TAKES ORGANIZING!
Still another week of trying to catch up - does that sound like your life?
I realized while using my word processor program that there was an update I had in the computer which needs to be found and put in again - until it is, envelopes are not easy to do as there was a fix to them in the update. I also still need to import the data for the address books for same back into the program. I noticed the problem with the envelopes as yesterday I wrote letters and sent out emails whose information had been sitting on my desk waiting to be done.
Today I went to run the new backup program in my computers. I first had to put it into my laptop. I finally got it loaded into my laptop. I plugged in the external hard drive - it could not be found. After several tries I decided that this was not to be the day to do backups.
The board of my embroidery group chapter is trying to put together the schedule for the coming year. I needed to send out an email telling members about a choice of projects that they need to make a decision on by the first meeting. Today all was resolved with which items we will be offering and I sent out the email. I also finished putting together our program for the year as we finally had plans for all the meetings lined up. I will have to go tomorrow and get it printed for the members, then assemble, address label, and stamp the copies, so I can get them out in the mail. Much of it is copied year to year which makes it somewhat easier to write.
We normally go away in August on vacation. The weather has been extremely hot with chances of major rain storms every day so we have not made plans. Husband announced today at lunch that the weather is suppose to be okay starting next week, so we will be going on Monday.
Well, the stack on my desk is almost gone thanks to the work I got done on Tuesday, so of course it will now grow again. I have to stop the newspaper, put holds on the mail here and at our Post Office box - and we like to do all of this for at least a day before we leave so we see it stop - means I have to call the newspaper tomorrow and go to both post offices to stop the mail.
We put the stuff we took out of the RV when we had the generator work done, back in today - while we ran the generator for the month - that way it was air conditioned in the RV while we worked. I still have to make up the beds. I am doing my regular laundry tonight and will laundry again before Monday so all the clothes are clean and can be packed. I have to call the pharmacy and renew 2 prescriptions so we have enough of them for the trip. We also will have to transfer some money so we can prepay all the bills due while away before we go. Oh, and I have to put out the newsletter for the embroidery chapter while we are away so I copied the email addresses to take and need to copy the last couple of newsletters to put together the new one.
Something more pleasant - We did manage to go away for a day last Saturday. There is a very nice, small festival northwest of Philadelphia called Goshenhoppen. It is different from most folk and craft festivals in that the purpose of it is to make sure that the traditional crafts, trades, cooking, etc. are not forgotten. The people who are involved with the festival go back to the colonial period and came from German countries. (Germany itself was not a country until the 1800s.) The association which runs the event owns a house from the 1700s which is partially restored and the event is held on the grounds around the house.
On the side of the road (the road is closed for the event) that the house is on, everything is related to the 1700s - and the people are dressed as their ancestors would be then. In addition to the house, rebuilt external bake oven, there is a kitchen garden. On this side of the road one can see a Revolutionary war encampment, wood working, water pump making, gun making, coopering (barrel making), windsor chairs being made, cooking in a hearth and over an open fire, rope making, two different types of foot powered wood lathes, bookbinding, marbleizing (on paper), roof thatching, weaving, a “school room” where children learn to write in the period style of writing with ink pens, spinning of linen as well as spinning of wool, straw hat making, wood carving, tape weaving (thin long strips of cloth to be used as ties for the clothing - very necessary in period), an assortment of types of needlework, bee keeping and other things I have forgotten. There are things for children to try such as sewing, the previously mentioned tape weaving, and corn husk dolls.
Now on the other side of the road is the 1800s and people are dressed in this period. There are demonstrations of stone cutting, leather work, tin work, fence making, wheel making, cigar making, blacksmithing, farm animals (and a bit of how they work machinery), how to make a jointed building - no nails or screws, quilting, cooking on period stoves, laundry, Christmas customs, sewing on an early sewing machine and more.
One sees children working at most of the demonstrations. As part of the idea that the knowledge of the past should not be lost, children work as apprentices learning how to do traditional things. Apparently the children can either do the same thing year to year or different things each year. Some of them also study what they are demonstrating during the year with the expert they are working with.
On this side of the road there is also butchering demonstrations - those, such as me, who do not want to see this can easily avoid it. There are food, drink, and books for sale booths. An unusual food here is Funny Cake. It is a pie shell with a chocolate pudding like layer and a cake like layer over it. We found it in one other place in the area and it was not the same and not as good. We asked at the booth and it is made for them to their recipe. There is also a building with cooked food for sale for lunch or early dinner. And there is a stage.
During the day there are different presentations on the stage. The group normally has a theme for the year and the presentations are based on same. While some are musical, others are lectures or discussions on the theme for the year. This year’s theme was the fact that it was the 50th festival and there were photos from prior festivals on display.
There is a band and there is a grand parade in the afternoon around the grounds.
Now, understand, this is not a huge festival. When we have spoken with volunteers there they are surprised that anyone outside of their area knows about it, let alone comes from 2 states away to visit it - year after year. The man demonstrating leatherwork was talking with my husband, who also does leatherwork. He explained that his tools were his father’s tools and that they date to the 1800s. This is the type of continuity they are looking to keep in this association and this festival.
Okay, so what does this festival have to do with organizing? Two things.
First, it shows the sort of life that existed in the past. One’s life had to be organized. As a woman in the 1700s kitchen garden was explaining - if one did not grow enough vegetables and preserve them - pickling or drying being common methods - (canning did not come into existence until the 1800s) as well as preserving meats - drying, salting, smoking being common methods - one did not have food in the winter. That is organizing. Imagine needing to know how much food you will need until spring and how to keep the food you have until then. Too little or if it is improperly preserved and the family will go hungry.
Even the stoves in their houses (unique to several non English groups) are well planned. They consist of 5 sheet panels of iron. One is laid on the floor on brick floor (only in this area of the floor), one on each of the 3 sides away from the wall and one on top. It is located in the main room of the house. The stove backs to the kitchen wall so that the stove pipe goes out the back, through the wall and into the kitchen fireplace so that they can share the chimney.
The walls (again this is unique to those of their background) are double thick and there are cabinets set into the wall between the inner and outer layer. There is one in the main room and one in the (master) bedroom.
Second - think of the organization to have this event each year. The festival is run by volunteers. The local German descendants are not like the Amish you may be thinking of and picturing in your mind when you hear Pennsylvania German. They are of a variety of religious groups who came here for religious freedom. They consist of Lutherans, Mennonites, Dunkards, Brethren, Moravians and others. They live modern lives and wear modern clothes unlike the Amish and more traditional Mennonites.
Every year the members of the association have to come up with a theme. Figure out which special programs they will run on the stage and elsewhere. They have to make sure that the volunteers from past years are coming and look for new volunteers - especially ones who can demonstrate different things. Period clothing has to be repaired if needed. New clothing made for new volunteers. Clothing has to be matched to the various children who, of course, change size year to year. Advertising is put out. Since the road through the property is closed off I am sure that each year they have to apply for permission to do this from the local municipality. The local fire company takes care of directing parking of cars. The festival planners has to make sure the fire company will be there and will have enough volunteers from their end.
Then there is the physical setup and take down. I understand that the festival takes 2 weeks to set up and probably as long to take down for a festival which runs 2 days! Booths for sales are set up. On the 1800s side a good number of period stoves are setup as are tables for those cooking to work on. They have on each side of the road, in addition to the house from the 1700s, an open air house. This is a floor with interior walls of a house diving the floor into the various room. (Sort of a house with no outside walls.) Before they had the actual house to show, this was how they showed the house of each period and how they differed. The houses have to be assembled. After the event all of this has to be taken down and stored away.
I have run small reenactment events and been involved on a minor level with a large local event. The amount of people needed and the amount of work done is more than one would would figure. Everyone has to know what they are doing (hopefully the people who did each job before are still there) and how to do it. Things are always missing or broken. (We went to a reenactment with another unit and our unit brought a privates tent and a fly - a tent that is only a top - at my suggestion. When we went to set up we were missing one of the fly poles. I was told I had a choice of which tent they could set up - which did I choose? - I had them set the tent at a corner of the fly and the same pole held up both, although the fly corner had to come down to the height of the tent - but this is the sort of stuff that happens, and hopefully the group is organized enough to minimize same.)
Next time you go to a fair or festival - even that local church or school fair - look around and think about the organizing which goes into it.
I realized while using my word processor program that there was an update I had in the computer which needs to be found and put in again - until it is, envelopes are not easy to do as there was a fix to them in the update. I also still need to import the data for the address books for same back into the program. I noticed the problem with the envelopes as yesterday I wrote letters and sent out emails whose information had been sitting on my desk waiting to be done.
Today I went to run the new backup program in my computers. I first had to put it into my laptop. I finally got it loaded into my laptop. I plugged in the external hard drive - it could not be found. After several tries I decided that this was not to be the day to do backups.
The board of my embroidery group chapter is trying to put together the schedule for the coming year. I needed to send out an email telling members about a choice of projects that they need to make a decision on by the first meeting. Today all was resolved with which items we will be offering and I sent out the email. I also finished putting together our program for the year as we finally had plans for all the meetings lined up. I will have to go tomorrow and get it printed for the members, then assemble, address label, and stamp the copies, so I can get them out in the mail. Much of it is copied year to year which makes it somewhat easier to write.
We normally go away in August on vacation. The weather has been extremely hot with chances of major rain storms every day so we have not made plans. Husband announced today at lunch that the weather is suppose to be okay starting next week, so we will be going on Monday.
Well, the stack on my desk is almost gone thanks to the work I got done on Tuesday, so of course it will now grow again. I have to stop the newspaper, put holds on the mail here and at our Post Office box - and we like to do all of this for at least a day before we leave so we see it stop - means I have to call the newspaper tomorrow and go to both post offices to stop the mail.
We put the stuff we took out of the RV when we had the generator work done, back in today - while we ran the generator for the month - that way it was air conditioned in the RV while we worked. I still have to make up the beds. I am doing my regular laundry tonight and will laundry again before Monday so all the clothes are clean and can be packed. I have to call the pharmacy and renew 2 prescriptions so we have enough of them for the trip. We also will have to transfer some money so we can prepay all the bills due while away before we go. Oh, and I have to put out the newsletter for the embroidery chapter while we are away so I copied the email addresses to take and need to copy the last couple of newsletters to put together the new one.
Something more pleasant - We did manage to go away for a day last Saturday. There is a very nice, small festival northwest of Philadelphia called Goshenhoppen. It is different from most folk and craft festivals in that the purpose of it is to make sure that the traditional crafts, trades, cooking, etc. are not forgotten. The people who are involved with the festival go back to the colonial period and came from German countries. (Germany itself was not a country until the 1800s.) The association which runs the event owns a house from the 1700s which is partially restored and the event is held on the grounds around the house.
On the side of the road (the road is closed for the event) that the house is on, everything is related to the 1700s - and the people are dressed as their ancestors would be then. In addition to the house, rebuilt external bake oven, there is a kitchen garden. On this side of the road one can see a Revolutionary war encampment, wood working, water pump making, gun making, coopering (barrel making), windsor chairs being made, cooking in a hearth and over an open fire, rope making, two different types of foot powered wood lathes, bookbinding, marbleizing (on paper), roof thatching, weaving, a “school room” where children learn to write in the period style of writing with ink pens, spinning of linen as well as spinning of wool, straw hat making, wood carving, tape weaving (thin long strips of cloth to be used as ties for the clothing - very necessary in period), an assortment of types of needlework, bee keeping and other things I have forgotten. There are things for children to try such as sewing, the previously mentioned tape weaving, and corn husk dolls.
Now on the other side of the road is the 1800s and people are dressed in this period. There are demonstrations of stone cutting, leather work, tin work, fence making, wheel making, cigar making, blacksmithing, farm animals (and a bit of how they work machinery), how to make a jointed building - no nails or screws, quilting, cooking on period stoves, laundry, Christmas customs, sewing on an early sewing machine and more.
One sees children working at most of the demonstrations. As part of the idea that the knowledge of the past should not be lost, children work as apprentices learning how to do traditional things. Apparently the children can either do the same thing year to year or different things each year. Some of them also study what they are demonstrating during the year with the expert they are working with.
On this side of the road there is also butchering demonstrations - those, such as me, who do not want to see this can easily avoid it. There are food, drink, and books for sale booths. An unusual food here is Funny Cake. It is a pie shell with a chocolate pudding like layer and a cake like layer over it. We found it in one other place in the area and it was not the same and not as good. We asked at the booth and it is made for them to their recipe. There is also a building with cooked food for sale for lunch or early dinner. And there is a stage.
During the day there are different presentations on the stage. The group normally has a theme for the year and the presentations are based on same. While some are musical, others are lectures or discussions on the theme for the year. This year’s theme was the fact that it was the 50th festival and there were photos from prior festivals on display.
There is a band and there is a grand parade in the afternoon around the grounds.
Now, understand, this is not a huge festival. When we have spoken with volunteers there they are surprised that anyone outside of their area knows about it, let alone comes from 2 states away to visit it - year after year. The man demonstrating leatherwork was talking with my husband, who also does leatherwork. He explained that his tools were his father’s tools and that they date to the 1800s. This is the type of continuity they are looking to keep in this association and this festival.
Okay, so what does this festival have to do with organizing? Two things.
First, it shows the sort of life that existed in the past. One’s life had to be organized. As a woman in the 1700s kitchen garden was explaining - if one did not grow enough vegetables and preserve them - pickling or drying being common methods - (canning did not come into existence until the 1800s) as well as preserving meats - drying, salting, smoking being common methods - one did not have food in the winter. That is organizing. Imagine needing to know how much food you will need until spring and how to keep the food you have until then. Too little or if it is improperly preserved and the family will go hungry.
Even the stoves in their houses (unique to several non English groups) are well planned. They consist of 5 sheet panels of iron. One is laid on the floor on brick floor (only in this area of the floor), one on each of the 3 sides away from the wall and one on top. It is located in the main room of the house. The stove backs to the kitchen wall so that the stove pipe goes out the back, through the wall and into the kitchen fireplace so that they can share the chimney.
The walls (again this is unique to those of their background) are double thick and there are cabinets set into the wall between the inner and outer layer. There is one in the main room and one in the (master) bedroom.
Second - think of the organization to have this event each year. The festival is run by volunteers. The local German descendants are not like the Amish you may be thinking of and picturing in your mind when you hear Pennsylvania German. They are of a variety of religious groups who came here for religious freedom. They consist of Lutherans, Mennonites, Dunkards, Brethren, Moravians and others. They live modern lives and wear modern clothes unlike the Amish and more traditional Mennonites.
Every year the members of the association have to come up with a theme. Figure out which special programs they will run on the stage and elsewhere. They have to make sure that the volunteers from past years are coming and look for new volunteers - especially ones who can demonstrate different things. Period clothing has to be repaired if needed. New clothing made for new volunteers. Clothing has to be matched to the various children who, of course, change size year to year. Advertising is put out. Since the road through the property is closed off I am sure that each year they have to apply for permission to do this from the local municipality. The local fire company takes care of directing parking of cars. The festival planners has to make sure the fire company will be there and will have enough volunteers from their end.
Then there is the physical setup and take down. I understand that the festival takes 2 weeks to set up and probably as long to take down for a festival which runs 2 days! Booths for sales are set up. On the 1800s side a good number of period stoves are setup as are tables for those cooking to work on. They have on each side of the road, in addition to the house from the 1700s, an open air house. This is a floor with interior walls of a house diving the floor into the various room. (Sort of a house with no outside walls.) Before they had the actual house to show, this was how they showed the house of each period and how they differed. The houses have to be assembled. After the event all of this has to be taken down and stored away.
I have run small reenactment events and been involved on a minor level with a large local event. The amount of people needed and the amount of work done is more than one would would figure. Everyone has to know what they are doing (hopefully the people who did each job before are still there) and how to do it. Things are always missing or broken. (We went to a reenactment with another unit and our unit brought a privates tent and a fly - a tent that is only a top - at my suggestion. When we went to set up we were missing one of the fly poles. I was told I had a choice of which tent they could set up - which did I choose? - I had them set the tent at a corner of the fly and the same pole held up both, although the fly corner had to come down to the height of the tent - but this is the sort of stuff that happens, and hopefully the group is organized enough to minimize same.)
Next time you go to a fair or festival - even that local church or school fair - look around and think about the organizing which goes into it.
Thursday, June 16, 2016
ORGANIZING OUR STUDIO
My husband and I have a “studio”. One of the reasons we picked the house we did is that it had a family room off the kitchen - actually it sort of opens into the kitchen with a big squared off archway between the rooms. It is not an original part of our house. One of the several owners before us added it to the back of the house as room to watch television and spend time with their family. To us it was a room to set up to work on our crafts - personal and to sell - and I would be able to cook at the same time in the adjacent kitchen. In the days before cable boxes and flat screen TVs we could also put our kitchen TV on a lazy susan and turn it around to also watch in the studio.
We set up the studio to suit our needs. We each have a 5 ft by 2 ½ foot office type table to work on. The tables sit back to back so if needed we have a 5 ft x 5ft space to work on - the tables are, for some reason, about an inch different in height, but generally that is not a problem if we need space. I have a bridge table in the corner of the room which abuts the table. When I used to make a lot of baby quilts it worked well to hold them up while I stitching them. It also is good to hold supplies and stuff next to me. I have two stacks of small plastic drawer units to hold ideas in progress, spare spools of thread, etc. There is a large 3 drawer plastic chest underneath with my sewing supplies and items to make small bears I used to make a lot of. Husband just had his table until a few years ago, after the bed bugs when I was trying to better organize the room, I added a 2 shelf plastic unit to hold items he needs more often than others next to him along the wall.
We have husband’s long dresser from his bedroom when he was a boy at the ends of the tables (the other ends are against the wall). Drawers hold embroidery supplies and pieces - completed and waiting to be made, miniature punch needle - ditto, wood turning parts and assembly tools, lucets, wooden games husband makes, some fancy batting and iron on glue and a pasta maker (well it is right off our kitchen and no place else was large enough). On top of it we have a 3 drawer unit which has a drawer each for items either of us is working on and a drawer of glues - all kinds of glues. (If we need glue in the house we know to look for it here.) There are an assortment of paper cutters - sliding ones, guillotine type ones, etc. There is also something called an Ellison machine - what is used in schools to cut letters, pictures, etc. to decorate classrooms.
We have 2 other dressers which we bought over the years which hold fabric - we have a lot of fabric. These are the ones which are cut pieces - the bolts are in the basement. We also have a dresser/cabinet combination - also husband’s from when he was a boy - which holds unstarted skeins of embroidery floss (Walmart discontinued them some years ago and we bought 2 of each color they had - since then they have brought them back) and other assorted needlework threads. The fabric dresser behind husband’s chair at his work table also serves as a counter to put things on and work on. We have two tall bookcases for books and magazines - mostly craft, but my recipe books are also here (again, remember this is next to the kitchen) and there is a collection of girls books I have and I keep it here as husband needed most of my bookcase in our office/library and there are some shelves along one wall which holds items we have made.
Lastly, of what I will mention right now, we have a big piece of furniture which I do not know what to call. It is divided in two - one side has shelves with full length doors in front of them and the other side has shelves with 2 small drawers at the bottom. The plan is to take the doors off and then plastic boxes of supplies can be turned depthwise - as they are on the other side of the unit - and smaller boxes put next to them - ditto.
When we had the bedbugs I had to heat all of the cut fabric in the dryer on high heat for 50 minutes and then bag them in sealed plastic bags. It was a mess. Between the fabric and personal fabric items I filled over 60 bags of fabric items. The thought of returning the fabric to the drawers was overwhelming. I finally decided to do 10 pieces a day. Husband pointed out that 10 pieces is not much - I replied that it is 10 pieces put away more than before. Day by day I did this. Some days it went well and I put away more than 10 pieces - other days there was just no time. Within a month and a half to 2 months - the fabric was put away - neater and better organized than before and I had done something I always planned to do - I cut a piece of each fabric and made a swatch card by gluing the piece of fabric to half a 3.5x5 inch index card. I then put the cards into the plastic sleeves made to hold baseball cards in a looseleaf book. (The looseleaf book dates back to high school.) We can now look through the book for fabric when need it. It is marked with the purpose the fabric was bought for, where it is located, and how much we have (all in pencil so it can be changed as needed). I also have a diagram in the front of the looseleaf book with the dressers, a number I gave to each drawer, and generally what is in each drawer to make it easier to find.
I sorted ribbon. I sorted lace. I bagged pompoms. I put all of the weaving, knitting, and crocheting and related stuff on one shelf in the unnamed shelf unit. I made a box with assorted general crafts. I made a box of buttons. I sorted findings for leatherwork into a sectional box (with a note where I stored spare in the basement). I was progressing along well. I used the dining room table covered over to protect it, some wood crates we used at craft shows to hold up the shelves, plastic boxes and such to sort and store craft supplies.
Then I hit a snag. We had a tall thin set of plastic drawers. They never worked well - any weight in them was too much. We decided to replace it with a new and better made dresser. We started looking. We could not get too wide a dresser as one of the bookcases faces the side of the dresser and we have to have room to walk in front of the bookcase to have access to the shelves. It took us about a year to find a dresser. We bought one in the children’s section of Ikea. We assembled it and set it up. I started figuring out what to put in it. Top drawer - in sectional dividers - scissors and small hand tools (and over the years it has also accumulated personal stuff I have to deal with), next drawer - paints, markers, inks, crayons color pencils, another drawer husband’s paper cutting scissors and paper, a drawer with pieces of felt in it. It was going so well.
Then we had mice in the (again, adjacent) kitchen. I carefully sanitized most of the cleaning supplies and put them in some of the cartons I had been using for sorting craft supplies and they ended up in front of the new dresser - leaving supplies unstored and drawers empty and inaccessible. This went on for several years until I got around to cleaning out under the sink in the kitchen this past year and moved the kitchen stuff back in place.
Now I could go back to organizing. In the interim we, of course, needed the dining room so supplies and what they were in were stored back in the studio willy nilly - filling up space and blocking things.
Two weeks ago husband was again talking about a weaving book “we” own. He wanted it as it contained instructions on how to make a certain type of small loom he wanted to make. I was sick and tired of hearing about this magic, missing book, so at 3 in the morning, I moved the crates and so on that were stashed in front of the bookcase facing the new dresser. I got everything out from in front of the bookcase and found the “weaving section” - 3 books. (I had done a lot of work at sorting and organizing in the studio before I got stumped at continuing.) I gave him the book that seemed to be what he was looking for and it was - yay for me. It did not have the directions he wanted for the small loom. Oh, well.
Well, now we had crates and other items out blocking space in the room. I went through the crates and they had much less in them than I thought and in one evening they were emptied out of everything which did not belong in them (table covers for craft shows were left in them). The next thing to do was to put them away.
The crates and a variety of other items store under my work table - far enough in to be out of my way when sitting at the table as they are rarely used. (The table itself is covered with stuff to be sorted and stored.) I figured that I would take out the plastic boxes under the table which “I knew” held the small bears I had made, store the crates, and put back the boxes - easy, peasy - half hour, 45 minutes at most. I bet you can guess what is coming -
I pulled out the boxes and put them on husband’s studio table. (His table is empty as he has been drying items he weaves on it.) I found out that most of the boxes had items other than I thought they did. Some years ago we had bought square and rectangular gift boxes for pens and jewelry which husband made to sell. They did not sell well. We have since been using the square boxes in shipping out some other items he makes and have been running out of the square boxes. One of these plastic boxes had some of the turned items in it - I combined some of the items which were in square boxes into 2 rectangular boxes - hmmm, 4 more boxes he could use. I then took the carton which had the jewelry pieces in the gift boxes and combined same into many less rectangular boxes- for storage - and ended up with a good number of square boxes. I also found that this way all of the small turned items fit in the one plastic box for storage (bowls, plates, etc. are in another carton). I then managed to combine 3 cartons of boxes into one as enough had been taken out and one also used to hold the jewelry - what a great change in storage space! (The 2 empty cartons went out to the porch for recycling - one was used for last week’s recycling and the other will be shortly be used for same.
I then climbed under my table and stored the crates, the plastic boxes, and some other craft show display items under the table - 2 plus hours work - but what a difference. What a great feeling of getting something done. I went on to clear some smaller areas and put the excess stuff away.
Now, I have mentioned in the past that we do 1770's reenacting. Husband is looking for something to do at events - he used to be commander, but no longer is and can now do what he wants instead of needing to run events. He needs a small, period looking table for several of his ideas. The table has to be able to be taken apart for storage and in transit. He decided the best way would be to use screw in legs which are available at home/lumber stores even though these are definitely not correct to the period, but made properly it would just look like a small table with legs. (What does this have to do with organizing - just wait and see.)
We went out the day after I had stored the crates and boxes away to find legs that looked right. He saw the price of the legs and realized that it would cost much more to make the table than he had planned - he had to get wood for the table top and the screw pieces also. Then I said magic words - “When I was under the table last night putting stuff away I had to move 2 sets of those legs.” He could not figure out why we had them - I reminded him that he had made a table for a knitting machine - decades ago - but neither of us can remember what the other set of legs is for. I was pretty sure one set of the legs was definitely passable for the purpose.
So, we went home and, yes, I had to take back out most of what I stored away the night before. This time I was smart - I handed him my chair so it was out of the way and I did not need to deal with it. (Notice when I am organizing and cleaning it is “me” doing it and he is scarce - when he needs table legs it is “we” doing it and he is “helping” me.) Well the legs were fine and then I had to store everything else back - again.
The other night - now that I have access to the bookcase - I sorted needlework magazines which I have just been fitting in on top of books when I did not have access. Most of them went into the magazine cases we have, I need 2-3 more magazine cases and, yes, I have decided some magazines I no longer need for reference and have started looking through them for any articles I want to keep and putting the rest out for recycling.
He had mentioned that one issue of the magazines I had and was sorting was suppose to have an article on weaving. As I was going through I noticed that one of them had weaving on the cover - yes, it was the one he wanted. The craft magazines are now sorted by date. Many of them have previously had their tables of contents scanned into the computer to make searching for an article or subject easier. Now with access I will one day be able to scan the rest.
Yes, progress is finally being made again!
Have you been working on any organizing projects and finally making progress?
We set up the studio to suit our needs. We each have a 5 ft by 2 ½ foot office type table to work on. The tables sit back to back so if needed we have a 5 ft x 5ft space to work on - the tables are, for some reason, about an inch different in height, but generally that is not a problem if we need space. I have a bridge table in the corner of the room which abuts the table. When I used to make a lot of baby quilts it worked well to hold them up while I stitching them. It also is good to hold supplies and stuff next to me. I have two stacks of small plastic drawer units to hold ideas in progress, spare spools of thread, etc. There is a large 3 drawer plastic chest underneath with my sewing supplies and items to make small bears I used to make a lot of. Husband just had his table until a few years ago, after the bed bugs when I was trying to better organize the room, I added a 2 shelf plastic unit to hold items he needs more often than others next to him along the wall.
We have husband’s long dresser from his bedroom when he was a boy at the ends of the tables (the other ends are against the wall). Drawers hold embroidery supplies and pieces - completed and waiting to be made, miniature punch needle - ditto, wood turning parts and assembly tools, lucets, wooden games husband makes, some fancy batting and iron on glue and a pasta maker (well it is right off our kitchen and no place else was large enough). On top of it we have a 3 drawer unit which has a drawer each for items either of us is working on and a drawer of glues - all kinds of glues. (If we need glue in the house we know to look for it here.) There are an assortment of paper cutters - sliding ones, guillotine type ones, etc. There is also something called an Ellison machine - what is used in schools to cut letters, pictures, etc. to decorate classrooms.
We have 2 other dressers which we bought over the years which hold fabric - we have a lot of fabric. These are the ones which are cut pieces - the bolts are in the basement. We also have a dresser/cabinet combination - also husband’s from when he was a boy - which holds unstarted skeins of embroidery floss (Walmart discontinued them some years ago and we bought 2 of each color they had - since then they have brought them back) and other assorted needlework threads. The fabric dresser behind husband’s chair at his work table also serves as a counter to put things on and work on. We have two tall bookcases for books and magazines - mostly craft, but my recipe books are also here (again, remember this is next to the kitchen) and there is a collection of girls books I have and I keep it here as husband needed most of my bookcase in our office/library and there are some shelves along one wall which holds items we have made.
Lastly, of what I will mention right now, we have a big piece of furniture which I do not know what to call. It is divided in two - one side has shelves with full length doors in front of them and the other side has shelves with 2 small drawers at the bottom. The plan is to take the doors off and then plastic boxes of supplies can be turned depthwise - as they are on the other side of the unit - and smaller boxes put next to them - ditto.
When we had the bedbugs I had to heat all of the cut fabric in the dryer on high heat for 50 minutes and then bag them in sealed plastic bags. It was a mess. Between the fabric and personal fabric items I filled over 60 bags of fabric items. The thought of returning the fabric to the drawers was overwhelming. I finally decided to do 10 pieces a day. Husband pointed out that 10 pieces is not much - I replied that it is 10 pieces put away more than before. Day by day I did this. Some days it went well and I put away more than 10 pieces - other days there was just no time. Within a month and a half to 2 months - the fabric was put away - neater and better organized than before and I had done something I always planned to do - I cut a piece of each fabric and made a swatch card by gluing the piece of fabric to half a 3.5x5 inch index card. I then put the cards into the plastic sleeves made to hold baseball cards in a looseleaf book. (The looseleaf book dates back to high school.) We can now look through the book for fabric when need it. It is marked with the purpose the fabric was bought for, where it is located, and how much we have (all in pencil so it can be changed as needed). I also have a diagram in the front of the looseleaf book with the dressers, a number I gave to each drawer, and generally what is in each drawer to make it easier to find.
I sorted ribbon. I sorted lace. I bagged pompoms. I put all of the weaving, knitting, and crocheting and related stuff on one shelf in the unnamed shelf unit. I made a box with assorted general crafts. I made a box of buttons. I sorted findings for leatherwork into a sectional box (with a note where I stored spare in the basement). I was progressing along well. I used the dining room table covered over to protect it, some wood crates we used at craft shows to hold up the shelves, plastic boxes and such to sort and store craft supplies.
Then I hit a snag. We had a tall thin set of plastic drawers. They never worked well - any weight in them was too much. We decided to replace it with a new and better made dresser. We started looking. We could not get too wide a dresser as one of the bookcases faces the side of the dresser and we have to have room to walk in front of the bookcase to have access to the shelves. It took us about a year to find a dresser. We bought one in the children’s section of Ikea. We assembled it and set it up. I started figuring out what to put in it. Top drawer - in sectional dividers - scissors and small hand tools (and over the years it has also accumulated personal stuff I have to deal with), next drawer - paints, markers, inks, crayons color pencils, another drawer husband’s paper cutting scissors and paper, a drawer with pieces of felt in it. It was going so well.
Then we had mice in the (again, adjacent) kitchen. I carefully sanitized most of the cleaning supplies and put them in some of the cartons I had been using for sorting craft supplies and they ended up in front of the new dresser - leaving supplies unstored and drawers empty and inaccessible. This went on for several years until I got around to cleaning out under the sink in the kitchen this past year and moved the kitchen stuff back in place.
Now I could go back to organizing. In the interim we, of course, needed the dining room so supplies and what they were in were stored back in the studio willy nilly - filling up space and blocking things.
Two weeks ago husband was again talking about a weaving book “we” own. He wanted it as it contained instructions on how to make a certain type of small loom he wanted to make. I was sick and tired of hearing about this magic, missing book, so at 3 in the morning, I moved the crates and so on that were stashed in front of the bookcase facing the new dresser. I got everything out from in front of the bookcase and found the “weaving section” - 3 books. (I had done a lot of work at sorting and organizing in the studio before I got stumped at continuing.) I gave him the book that seemed to be what he was looking for and it was - yay for me. It did not have the directions he wanted for the small loom. Oh, well.
Well, now we had crates and other items out blocking space in the room. I went through the crates and they had much less in them than I thought and in one evening they were emptied out of everything which did not belong in them (table covers for craft shows were left in them). The next thing to do was to put them away.
The crates and a variety of other items store under my work table - far enough in to be out of my way when sitting at the table as they are rarely used. (The table itself is covered with stuff to be sorted and stored.) I figured that I would take out the plastic boxes under the table which “I knew” held the small bears I had made, store the crates, and put back the boxes - easy, peasy - half hour, 45 minutes at most. I bet you can guess what is coming -
I pulled out the boxes and put them on husband’s studio table. (His table is empty as he has been drying items he weaves on it.) I found out that most of the boxes had items other than I thought they did. Some years ago we had bought square and rectangular gift boxes for pens and jewelry which husband made to sell. They did not sell well. We have since been using the square boxes in shipping out some other items he makes and have been running out of the square boxes. One of these plastic boxes had some of the turned items in it - I combined some of the items which were in square boxes into 2 rectangular boxes - hmmm, 4 more boxes he could use. I then took the carton which had the jewelry pieces in the gift boxes and combined same into many less rectangular boxes- for storage - and ended up with a good number of square boxes. I also found that this way all of the small turned items fit in the one plastic box for storage (bowls, plates, etc. are in another carton). I then managed to combine 3 cartons of boxes into one as enough had been taken out and one also used to hold the jewelry - what a great change in storage space! (The 2 empty cartons went out to the porch for recycling - one was used for last week’s recycling and the other will be shortly be used for same.
I then climbed under my table and stored the crates, the plastic boxes, and some other craft show display items under the table - 2 plus hours work - but what a difference. What a great feeling of getting something done. I went on to clear some smaller areas and put the excess stuff away.
Now, I have mentioned in the past that we do 1770's reenacting. Husband is looking for something to do at events - he used to be commander, but no longer is and can now do what he wants instead of needing to run events. He needs a small, period looking table for several of his ideas. The table has to be able to be taken apart for storage and in transit. He decided the best way would be to use screw in legs which are available at home/lumber stores even though these are definitely not correct to the period, but made properly it would just look like a small table with legs. (What does this have to do with organizing - just wait and see.)
We went out the day after I had stored the crates and boxes away to find legs that looked right. He saw the price of the legs and realized that it would cost much more to make the table than he had planned - he had to get wood for the table top and the screw pieces also. Then I said magic words - “When I was under the table last night putting stuff away I had to move 2 sets of those legs.” He could not figure out why we had them - I reminded him that he had made a table for a knitting machine - decades ago - but neither of us can remember what the other set of legs is for. I was pretty sure one set of the legs was definitely passable for the purpose.
So, we went home and, yes, I had to take back out most of what I stored away the night before. This time I was smart - I handed him my chair so it was out of the way and I did not need to deal with it. (Notice when I am organizing and cleaning it is “me” doing it and he is scarce - when he needs table legs it is “we” doing it and he is “helping” me.) Well the legs were fine and then I had to store everything else back - again.
The other night - now that I have access to the bookcase - I sorted needlework magazines which I have just been fitting in on top of books when I did not have access. Most of them went into the magazine cases we have, I need 2-3 more magazine cases and, yes, I have decided some magazines I no longer need for reference and have started looking through them for any articles I want to keep and putting the rest out for recycling.
He had mentioned that one issue of the magazines I had and was sorting was suppose to have an article on weaving. As I was going through I noticed that one of them had weaving on the cover - yes, it was the one he wanted. The craft magazines are now sorted by date. Many of them have previously had their tables of contents scanned into the computer to make searching for an article or subject easier. Now with access I will one day be able to scan the rest.
Yes, progress is finally being made again!
Have you been working on any organizing projects and finally making progress?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)