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Post by michelle on Mar 2, 2024 2:35:20 GMT
We are a group working to declutter our spaces. Please feel free to share your goals, projects, ideas, revelations or challenges facing you as you work toward your own goals. Also feel free to copy and paste this intro, use our "CLUTTERBUSTERS" Title for the day to start the thread if you don't see it started. Good luck Clutterbusting!
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Post by michelle on Mar 2, 2024 2:41:54 GMT
Z, It's sort of a habit of mine to reframe difficult situations since it gets me to see some wonderful aspects of life that I would otherwise miss during the tough times! It sounds like you are really enjoying the needlepoint challenges!!!
Another regimented "get it done, whether you want to or not" day. I managed to get one Audit done, all PT accomplished, the bees and birds fed, and ordered some items for dogworld.Tomorrow Clair and I are supposed to go to Stay-paws-i-tive at the university but supposedly it might start snowing. We'll have to see since I no longer ignore bad road conditions. The clouds this afternoon are incredibly lovely. I have been in a perpetual good mood lately which I am very grateful for. Time for relaxing....
Hope you are having a pleasant evening!!!
Thursday, The weather looks good so we are headed out in a few minutes to do the therapy event. EOM Stats:2,516 days of daily weighing, maintaining 18.6 WL and this winter DrumrollXXX I have been consistently eating more so that I did not get that 5+ WL that I had to eat back on. I sure did not want to face packets of almond butter again!
Had such a lovely time doing the therapy work with Clair.
Friday - Just finished shoveling snow off areas that Clair uses which wasn't difficult at all. It's almost like water so I wanted to get it done since it will freeze overnight and get quite slick. I worked on two audits today, did the PT walks and exercises, ordered more items for dogland organization for when Clair is able to move around freely in the house. It's very complicated so I will skip the explanations. Tough! weather conditions today but I prevailed. Hope you are getting lots accomplished!!!
Onward>>>>
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Post by zenamidievel on Mar 3, 2024 23:08:46 GMT
Good Afternoon,
Sorry, I forgot how long since I posted. There are reasons!
Good work on completing the audit, the PT, bird feeding and PAWS bookings for upcoming events. Yay. Is your landline working again yet? I'm glad you've been in a good mood! Tho, I'd rarely know, if it all if you were in a bad mood because you are always in a positive, get it done, I can do it....frame of mind! I hoe you're not completely buried with your snow up there! More audits done!?!! WOohooo Go you!
I've been making trips to mom's more frequently, helping with chores, grocery shopping, insurance paperwork for the wrecked car, and shopping with DH's help/advice for a new car for her. She lives 1.5 hour away, so that is a day and an overnight, It's fine. I will go again on THursday morning this week and we will take care of some appointments and banking in regard to the new car purchase, (we found one!) and so this is all coming together. Mom is not in a great frame of mind, which is unlike her, so that has been a challenge but I think she's getting on top of the situation, and I will just keep helping as is necessary till.....whenever. Oldest sister was consulted with plans, car purchase, she thought all looked good, so proceeded. One sibling yelled at me about and I said I'd not discuss any further with her until attitude changed, that stopped that and when allowed to explain reasoning for this/that etc I think she got it. Lord. The other one, I don't know, she asked, I told her, and I never heard negative or postivive about after providing the information, so I don't really care. I feel comfortable with what's been done, so does Mom, and she's paying for it, it's her car so that's that. thanks for listening.
Basketball Games and British Baking Challenge: We attended the basketball game yesterday with cousin and his girlfriend, that was a fun afternoon and they won the game, so that was great. Exciting Game. I baked Scones as sisters and I are doing our own version of British Baking Challenge contest once a month, or once every two months, I"m not sure and the first one was Scones. I made the official "Buckingham Palace Scones" and I must say, they were pretty awesome!!!! Shared some with the neighbor next door, they LOVED them, and so that was fun.
Needlepoint: I've not had time to finish line guides or do any painting. OR maybe I should say I've spent my time doing other things because now I have 7 NEW designs completed, all based on original ornament artwork I'd done previously and these include the following: Alma Mater Iconic CLock Tower, Alma Mater Iconic Beer Joint, Scottish/Irish Cottage with Cliffs (one is quite complicated, one, is more simplified), A "Bothy"...also by the sea, Christmas Holly Leaf Chicadee, Cherry Blossom Chickadee (these are the same bird, just with different theme foliage surrounding them), Bridge at Sligachan (I'm finishing this now. This makes 7 additional designs for which I will also do the bundle submission on. Which drumroll....makes 30 total. I'm very excited to show you each of these with the computer picture, after I find out whether they are approved for certificates or not when the time comes. So My goal for today is to get through three more designs, two of which are just bears with different things on their sweaters, and I might try one more bird. I'd like to try an ENglish RObin and I do hae my collage birds I can use for inspiration or in attempt to replicate. So after I get these done, I'll do teh saving, printing, cutting and pasting, scanning, resaving, and the submission form. THen...I can truly say....I'm done for MONTHS of even thinking about making a new design and the painting of all will be the main focus while I wait for processing of approvals/non approval of the three bundles submitted. I'm still excited. The painting will be a challenge, but I can only think it will get better, I will get better, faster with practice.
Thanks for listening as always. That's about it.
Z.
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Post by michelle on Mar 4, 2024 3:27:15 GMT
Z, Great job with the needlepoint projects!!! The baking challenge sounds like such fun! Saturday/Sunday: Both days were mostly taken up with dealing with the snow. The power went out so we had to use the two Mr. Heater big buddies that use small propane tanks. They work much better than the kerosene heaters that were decluttered. The tractor was able to get the driveway cleared but could not get the walking paths to be safe. We dug out Clair some mini trails in the back yard that are safe so she can get her PT done. Her hill is buried on the large deck so I will start working on getting that area under control tomorrow unless something else needs done. Right now it is snowing so other priorities may occur. I managed to get all of Clair's PT done today including the walking which was done in the backyard on her designer trails necessitating that I wear my safety glasses because in some areas I have to walk stooped over to miss the branches. Of course I used my stop watch, as usual, to make sure she got her time in. However there was an abundance of sniffing that impeded getting all of her steps in but we will take it since this is obviously not the best situation, to say the least. For something exciting we went in the garage and walked around the vehicles which was nice because it was not snowing in there and the wind wasn't blowing Arctic gusts. As usual I kept an upbeat positive attitude about all of this some of which was significantly challenging. Why not choose to be happy under truly miserable conditions LOL.
Tomorrow DH will go to town to get the Saturday chores done. I have kept everything cleaned up, vac'd etc. I need to get tonight's vacing done but it will have to wait until tomorrow. I did work on some auditing admin chores which were relaxing since they are fairly easy to do and I will finish them up tomorrow. The phone is working again.
Hope you are having a pleasant evening!!!
Onward>>>>
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Post by zenamidievel on Mar 4, 2024 17:09:56 GMT
Good Morning,
Wow soo much work with the snow situation! Glad to hear the phone is working again. I was looking at what I thought were current pictures of snow in the Sierra Nevada, then saw the photo credit was last year. Why not use current pics. Tho still so much for you. Glad those heaters worked well!
Needlepoint: I am through it all for designs. I got the English Robin done, the parts are a bit different from the CHickadees I did. Tried starting from scratch for a different position, but abondoned that approach, reloaded a Chickadee file and went from there. THe main changes were I made the wing a bit smaller the tummy a bit bigger, or at least shows more cause wing is smaller, and then of course the coloration. These are stylized versions of these birds, not super realistic, but they are cute. I'm not sure I discussed this before...when you try to make realistic, birds tails are really long and run off the working area unless you make the body and heads super small. But if you do that, then you've got other stuff to add to fill empty space as far as foliage and whatnot. So I like my cartoon birds, cause they can big and cute and all of them goes on the thing.So this morning I will do the file printing, scanning, cut-paste, re-scan, save, submit steps. Then I'm done with this mania I have been in. It's not good! I need to be able to focus on multiple things in a day, which are important, and not be so hyper focused doing nothing else. I will try!
Update: -DW Unloaded, loaded -handwash items done, dried put away -laundry rebooted x2 -bed made -10 more needlepoint designs submitted, done! -I do have an Etsy order, a small one, so I'll prepare that, and then see what else to do today.
Z.
Z.
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Post by michelle on Mar 5, 2024 4:24:54 GMT
Z, Congrats on getting so far with the needlepoint projects and enjoying the process!!! The birds sound very cute! Great job getting the designs submitted!!
Not much to chat about. Walked the dog in the back yard, got her PT done. Spent the day very disciplined to finish many projects that were partially done for some good reasons and then some not so good. Tomorrow I will keep at it, making good progress again. I have a number of large projects over 95% complete and will now be able to finish since DH got the tax returns done. Shoveled more snow. Managed to get some of it off the deck that has the bird baths on it. Got those filled up and some birds got right in there and frolicked around. There are a great number of birds feeding right now. Usually this many won't show up unless they are seriously hungry. We will all be glad when this snow is gone!
Hope you are having an enjoyable evening!!!
Onward>>>>
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Post by zenamidievel on Mar 6, 2024 2:32:39 GMT
Good Evening, Hooray for you on project completion efforts. DO the birds poop on/around the deck area? Just curious.
I have felt very mentally free yesterday afternoon and today. The fact I got all I wanted dont, submitted, has relieved me of a major mental to-d0 and thought like "oh I can't do such and such cause I've not submitted that one, etc. " Honestly at this point I have enough in to keep me busy for year with the painting.
I have been getting orders in, which is good for this time of year, if you get any at all. So I'm happy about that. The Celtic Knots/Cross, St. Patrick stuff is a hit but I've sold some gift enclosure cards sets and a couple other things. I always remind myself, a sale is a sale, even the small ones, they add up. Everything gets equal attention. i would love it if whoever ordered all those St. Patrick Cathedral cards would give a good review on them if they liked them.
TOday I mailed packages for orders, yesterday I did grocery shop, Today I cooked food and a good dinner.
Crochet: I saw a pattern for a blanket that was for beginners so I thought that would be fun to try for our living room in my new "designer"....just kidding...color scheme. So I'm trying it. I'm not sure that I've done some beginning rows perfectly but I'm moving forward. Buying that much yarn is very expensive, so unless I'm doing something special, I'm not sure I'm interested in other projects of this size. Smaller things are less expensive, more immediate completion gratification surrounding them.
Designs: I forgot to say, I did my Irish/Scottich cottages, two different versions, and famous bridge in Scotland that I'd photographed when there. And all three of these I just love. First I did super complicated/artsy. But after looking again, I toned down parts of each one them so that it did not appear to be such an overwhelming thing. I'm unsure of the desirability of such a design, but it made me happy to do them. THe WSU bear, with that on the sweater, adorable. What is also fun about that, is an alma mater that has those initials, Wyoming, West Virginia, WIsconsin....could potentiall like that bear and just change the letter/sweater colors, so it's versatile that that way.
Tomorrow I will be focusing on bookkeeping head in sand situation...yes again...but I will get through it!
Z.
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Post by michelle on Mar 7, 2024 2:23:43 GMT
Z, So much fun to read about your creative adventures!!! What colors are the blanket going to be? The birds are wild and are fed quite a way from the house so they do not fly over areas of the house so no mess is made. Usually if they have something natural like trees and bushes they will avoid lawn furniture, tables, deck railings etc. City birds do act significantly different since they live in such close quarters with humans. Four days of intense dealing with that snow has made me somewhat tired. Today I did not snow shovel anything so that was helpful plus the snow is melting rather fast. Today I forged ahead working on getting caught up and again made excellent progress. This time of year an incredible amount of work flows in so it will take a couple of weeks for things to settle down. Got the dog PT done. I have been working a couple of hours every night but am going to skip that tonight. Buttercup loves the snow and does some things that are seriously cute.
Thursday - Great news! The driveway is completely walkable so Clair and I went up and down it to get our miles walked today. Eight round trips is a mile. Wonderful sunny day this late afternoon. I worked diligently on the pile up and managed again to decrease its size. Now I am only about 35 hours or so behind. Glad that Flylady says "You are not behind, begin where you are". Managing to keep all things picked up although some home projects have been put so far on the back burner that it is mind boggling. However these projects need to be done in about 70 days so I will get them done before then! Head is in sand also about getting the bookkeeping done. I read a book (more than once) about a wife/mom that simply walked away from the family once while on vacation and went to live somewhere else. It was such a good book! And realistic since she did not get a glamorous new life but just another ordinary one. Finally of course she was reunited with her family. Just chatting.....
Back to the grind LOL
Hope you are having a pleasant evening!!! Onward>>>>
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Post by zenamidievel on Mar 8, 2024 5:09:59 GMT
Good Evening, Glad you made progress with your driveway. I’m sure dealing with all the snow is exhausting along with every else. You do a lot!
I drove to my moms late this afternoon and we did three chores and tomorrow we’ll do two more then I drive home. Her replacement car should arrive in about a week or bit more. And then there’ll be other stuff.
I’ve exercised a few days in a row. Crochet, The blanket will have two colors a wide area of slate blue on each end will have a wide natural offwhite center.. I could’ve done stripes, but thought alternating color too frequently would be too busy looking.
Z
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Post by michelle on Mar 9, 2024 0:53:52 GMT
Z, The blanket sounds like it is going to be perfect! Another day in Dogland for me. We went to physical therapy and found out that in less than a month she goes back for more radiographs since there is a good chance her leg will be 100% healed.This would be wonderful! I didn't get any office work done since I seemed to be exhausted. Tomorrow is another day! The grass in the backyard that is not covered in snow is green. Very exciting as my Irises are coming up too. Not sure if AA can come this weekend since I haven't heard from her. She has A LOT of high drama in her life which really isn't her fault and she never complains. Hooray! Not sure how much it helps to unload on people. It seems since I stopped doing that (many years ago) I am far better off. So I never discuss traffic jams or other frustrations. Just chatting.... Life is good!!! I may have to take the weekend off to rest. This is a very good idea! Congrats on getting your exercise done! Clair's PT walking yields many steps for me.
Saturday - Such a strange day and I will skip the particulars. Tomorrow is another bright and shining day!
Sunday - AA and I worked all day. Papers are everywhere, so I will have to organize and finish tomorrow. Much got done, but not all of it. Hope your day was great!!!
Onward>>>>
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Post by zenamidievel on Mar 11, 2024 2:40:25 GMT
Great work with Clairs Rehab and physical therapy! I hope the AA can come to help.
I started another post this morning, but I guess I left it and accidently deleted it. I think some of your philosophies are a lot like my MIL's, good ones actually. There's a situation I resolved recently to quit dwelling on, talking about, revisiting and to leave in the past. I know what to do and not do at this point moving forward, and that is what I will do! I hope I can stick to this!
Things are not going well with me, mainly because I've been procrastinating horribly. But I did make a very cute beach kitty design....lord. Oh well, beginning where I'm at! We're supposed to go on a trip tomorrow through Friday! I've put my shop in vacation mode, washed some dishes and am now moving toward the master bedroom to figure out exactly what to do and pack. And I didn't really spend time doing what I should have been doing, but it's too late now...maybe, we'll see after the packing.
THat's all I guess.
Z.
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Post by michelle on Mar 13, 2024 1:33:20 GMT
Z, Not much is going on right now that isn't about office work or PT for Clair.
I hope you have fun on your trip and I'll post again this weekend when you are back home.
Onward>>>>
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Post by zenamidievel on Mar 13, 2024 15:06:52 GMT
Good Morning,
We are on the trip and it is good. Nice to be in different weather. Prior to leaving I did get some basic household chores caught up and obviously got packed. Brought a notebook, have done some sketching for my other project idea, and am making lists of what canvases to paint, how many, then will make a schedule for the next 30 days.
I reached out to the thread expert from a needlepoint company I’d contacted in November to give a status report. Not that she needed/wanted one….lol. But I will be sending her a canvas ultimately. Glad I did that because I received a very nice reply which included the offer of putting me in contact with their private painting house should I decide I wish larger numbers of canvases production painted. However, I’m not asking more about this yet because it’s not time yet. Also if these are done overseas, I’m not sure I’m interested. However I believe how this works for most part is needlepoint companies offer thousands of canvas designs online. Most of those are an order item with a 1-5 month delivery time. Then the company assumes the responsibility of getting the canvas produced and shipped and the artist gets a percentage of that. If correct, this saves artist from cost of mass production of canvases that may not sell and being stuck with stock while benefiting from having their canvases featured on a company website. I will learn more on this later. I see “featured” artist on this particular website having very few, less than 5, designs upwards to 50 plus. I’m excited to learn more.
That’s all for now, I need to go get my walk in.
Z
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Post by michelle on Mar 17, 2024 3:56:20 GMT
Z, Hope you enjoyed your trip!!! The production of the canvases is fascinating.
Busy days for me lately. Took Clair to a Therapy Event at the university, got all of her PT done, started taking her on one more walk so she can just stop and smell the roses---a Snifari. I am finally getting things done for work and am resolved that tomorrow will be as productive as today. I don't have any appointments etc for the next two weeks so much can get accomplished during this most hectic time of the audit year for me.
The weather is warming up. Hooray for that!!! I'll check in to see when you are back from your trip and will post again then.
Onward>>>>
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Post by zenamidievel on Mar 17, 2024 22:32:21 GMT
Good Afternoon,
I'm glad you and Clair were able to do that event and hope it was enjoyed! I'm gonaa try to be like you and focus on a head in sand situation over the next two days, starting to night.
We are returned, and I did great with food and exercise while on the trip aa classic Shepherd's Pie for dinner. I just finished my walk, cleaned the driveway, front doorstep, brought up the rocking chair from the lower porch, cleaned the door mat and picked up dried leaves, weeds and whatnot from the rock areas beside our front door walk way and front of house. Looks better.
My girlfriend doing the armless needle stitching was asking me questions today, and I realize I had a small error around the neck and hair on that. It is good these people are doing test stitching because it has been an eye opener for errors. Interestingly some of the errors are glaring but not seen till looking at a photo of the thing. So I i have been taking notes and realize a small clear plastic ruler and a pieces of cardstocks are my friends while painting to be sure start and stop points, etc. are on they same line/row of canvas. I cannot let myself paint anything until I finish the project mentioned before.
Crochet, I am allowing myself to crochet my blanket with my morning coffee and am almost at the halfway point of it.
My GF said she did not like my beach kitty scene. I don't care. ANd what's more, I think I'm gonna do a Westie Doggie in place of the cat! lol!
Okay, I must get going with more things!
Hope youre day is going well. I did all the laundry and put my suitcase away upon returning from trip.
Z.
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