"Dunging out"

My mother called it "dunging out." I call it decluttering. I do get a small charge out of using my mother's term occasionally, though.

I suspect the term comes from cleaning manure out of a barn.

That's not what I am doing, but I certainly am getting rid of much unneeded accumulation of "stuff."

Ken joined in to help, briefly. I cleaned out one desk drawer of pens and pencils accumulated over my thirty-six years of teaching. Ken used a systematic approach, as he does with all things. First he grouped the pens and pencils by type, then he patiently tested each one to see if it still works.

I haven't donated the useable ones yet, but I will this week. Also, I haven't mentioned to Ken that I have another desk drawer full of pens and pencils....

Here are some unneeded items from two upstairs closets: a crocheted afghan from who knows where, some blankets, a large beach towel, and many, many bath and hand towels.

Most of these items went to a collection box for a local animal rescue facility in our area.

Fabric! Tons of it, or so it seems. I parted with a lot of fabric sample "books." I used to make little Wonder Wallets for Alpha Delta Kappa to sell at various events. The little wallets sold like hotcakes, and I must have made at least sixty of them, but I'm not about to spend the rest of my life making more Wonder Wallets. The fabric for the wallets came from these fabric "books," and they were given to me by an interior decorator friend.

These fabric samples are now in the hands of the folks at Goodwill Industries.

My pantry. My cluttered pantry. Ken built a wonderful walk-in pantry for me when we moved into our new home in 1999. The right-hand side of the pantry has open shelves and this unit, which consists of three walls of shelves (like the two shown here) behind closed doors. The left-hand side of the pantry is a series of open shelves hidden behind sliding doors. It's a fantastic pantry,...but it invites clutter.

I've now cleaned and sorted out and reorganized the right-hand side of the room. (This photo, of two sections of the walls of shelves, was taken before I tackled the job.) The left-hand side of the room will get done this coming week, I hope.

I have also "dunged out" a large, walk-in closet behind the upstairs bathroom. That closet/room had become stuffed to giddy proportions. I removed rolls of unused or partially used Christmas and birthday wrapping papers, way more pre-made bows than I could possibly ever reuse, old curtains, old Christmas decorations, you-name-it. Now it's possible to walk the length of this walk-in closet. I won't say it's now 100% organized and clutter-free, but it's looking a lot better than it did two weeks ago.

There's something very freeing about pulling into the Goodwill drop-off location, unloading boxes and boxes of unwanted belongings from my car's trunk, and speeding away before Goodwill can call me back to reclaim the stuff.

Was THAT winter??!!

Maine's having a disappointing winter. Disappointing, at least, to those of us who love the beauty of a Maine winter and enjoy getting out in the snow.

January was so mild that furnaces ran much less frequently than usual. We had little snow. Neither Ken  nor I even so much as hinted at putting on our snowshoes and getting out into the woods.

February looked to be more promising. By mid-February, we had one or two half-decent snowstorms, and the temperatures plunged.

Ken even got to do his least-favorite task: Use the roof rake to remove snow from that darned valley in the roof. He likes to keep that area clear as much as possible, thereby preventing ice back-up and possible leaking around the chimney.

Violet came out for a visit, which means she and I got in some major sledding (her) and snowshoeing (me). Temperatures were frigid, but we took frequent breaks to go inside and thaw before resuming our fun outside.









Then, the very afternoon we took Violet back home, temperatures climbed into the 40's. With it came heavy, steady rain.

This is our back yard as of five minutes ago. A disgusting mess. Violet's sledding trails are washed away. Washed away, too, are my carefully groomed snowshoe trails.

I give up. Bring on spring. I've had enough of this so-called Maine winter.

Valentine Party

Today is the annual Valentine party that my A∆K "sisters" and I throw for the residents of a local nursing home.

We look forward to this event every year, because the residents have so much fun.

We play a few rousing games of Bingo, making sure, by hook or by crook, that every resident wins at least two games. We give them prizes when they win: crossword puzzle books, word search books, nail polish, note cards, stamps....

And we feed them. Yes, we definitely ruin their dinners by plying them with punch, cookies, and ice cream topped with strawberries.

I've made my Raspberry Sandwich Hearts. They're an easy recipe and they result in a pretty and tasty cookie.

I've made 22 cookies for 21 residents. To be honest, I hope that one extra cookie becomes mine.

September Circle

I was looking back at some earlier blog posts yesterday and came across my November 28, 2015 post:  "My Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day," in which I try to draw some sympathy from you for messing up a huge hank of yarn.

I spent hours, literally, untangling that sucker.

What I forgot to do soon after was show you that the hank of tangled yarn eventually became something: a cowl.

So here it is, my September Circle Cowl.

It wraps around my neck twice and, I feel, makes for an attractive bit of knitting.

I used String Theory's Caper Lace hand-dyed yarn in the light teal color way. It's a lovely yarn, soft and luscious, and it's made right here in Maine, in Blue Hill. Caper Lace is 80% merino wool, 10% cashmere, and 10% nylon.

The cowl took exactly 1/2 of the skein (I weighed the leftover yarn on my kitchen scale and found I have exactly 2 ounces left from the 4 ounce skein), so yesterday I cast (casted? "Casted" sounds clumsy and weird) on a second September Circle cowl, and it will be a gift for someone.