Suck It Pinterest...My Egg Storage is WAY Cuter Than All the Ideas on Pinterest

AND I made it for free.
The only "new" bits are the screws and they will get reused on the next project.  I had run out of decent used screws with normal head (too many hex heads, square heads, various sizes...couldn't keep up with bits).  So, I bought a cheapo box of philips head wood screws about 1 1/2 inches long.  Made the door with them.

I had been storing my eggs in an old egg carton or two.  Red rubber band on the one that is "ready to go" and a blue rubber band on the carton that is "building up".  It didn't work well because I don't have anywhere to set egg cartons.  So they were in a grocery basket hanging off my loft ladder.  But that basket ALSO had to hold groceries like fruit and veg, often heavy.  Annoying.  And the cartons wear out.

I saw one of these on a youtube and wanted to make it:



But, that was hard and I can't be bothered.  So, I thought about what I had on hand that I could use.

When I found a batch of eggs while doing another project with friends, I had an old mini muffin tin sitting around outside. It had been part of a bee feeder I'd cobbled up, and was then part of the apparatus keeping chickens out from under the shed.  I turned it up and put the eggs in it for temporary storage...it worked great and looked cute.

So, I took the muffin tin in (tested the eggs...all were plenty fresh enough to eat so I boiled them up and brought them to work for lunches that week) and sure enough, it fit pretty well between 2 studs in the shed (heh heh...studs).  I found an old plant stake, a 1x2, and cut it to length.  While doing all this, I found another mini muffin tin, same width.

In total I have 21 muffin-egg holder holes.  One tin is 9 muffins and one is 12.  They are old and I got them at thrift at least 4 years ago.  I usually won't spend over a dollar for a baking item so that is probably the original price to me.

The plant stake, I have no idea.  I got a big bundle years ago and use and reuse them until they get too weak to pound in the ground, then they are scrap lumber for propping things closed or propping up chicken wire fencing that is starting to bulge.  Maybe it cost a dollar originally.

Box of 250 screws was about 8$. I used 8.  You can do that math if you want.

The impact driver was free from Fred's stash of tools. 
The bits...I got a box of 10 for 12$ (nice magnetic ones) or so and have been using this one for about a month!  Must be better metal than the ones I used to buy because I'd strip those out quite a bit faster.

I guess it is a 3$ egg holder but I think we need to amortize that over the previous lives of the items involved and the future lives of some of them like the screws and the bit which will no doubt be reused.

It is pretty cute though.  Here's the big reveal.








































Sher said I should get out more...she is mean to me.

And Then It Rained For 2 Days and 2 Nights

And lo...she had to hang the laundry inside.

But thanks to the ability to pile crap up, the fact that most stuff is stuffed into stackable rubber tubs, AND thanks to the amazing find of a Europe style clothes horse which holds a ton of clothes in a small space, she is able to do it.

I TRIED to dry them at the laundromat.  The load was in the dryer for an HOUR and still slightly damp.  I gave up thinking "well at least the dryer I used for the sleeping bag worked."  Uh...then later I unrolled said bag and lo, it too was dampeth.

So, I put on a sweatshirt with my long jammy-pants and slept under the bag rather than in it.  I figured my body heat rising through it would help dry the damp.  The next day I was going to be in Moscow so I took it to a laundromat there and put it in a giant dryer on the "center of the sun" heat setting for 10 minutes.  That bastard was DRY then.

The laundromat in St. Maries (pronounced "Saint Mary's" not "Saint Marie's") was more expensive than those in Moscow, but I was already in St. Maries for something else so I think overall it saved money.  Normally I would not bother with a dryer.  I would hang the stuff from the start.  Since it was raining all weekend, I tried going ahead and using the dryer for most stuff...though not the bras or the spendy wool socks.   I learned about the bra thing from Hedwig starting at 33 seconds:


Also..I totally want that tooth phone...dang. I had a fake tooth put on the implant last week and I didn't get the phone add-on.

Anyway, back to laundry.  It took a good 24 hours to dry the damp jeans waistbands.  The weekend before it was nearly 100 degrees with a stiff wind (want to see the scorch marks on my back from wearing a tank top?  Pretty grim.) and my clothes were hung on the clothes horse outside.  The first items hung up were pretty well dry by the time I hung the last items. 

I spent my rainy time well.  I got called out of town on a job duty on Saturday and Sunday mooched a shower at a friend's house (Thanks Sally!!!) and did the radio show.  We had an ACTUAL astrophysicist on the air!
Sally said "astrophysicist" like 8 times and never once did this happen (53 second mark):



 Anyway, the drying laundry in the camper was a good bit of practice on tiny simple living...it can be done!  I still had the entire dinette-bed area to lounge around in which honestly is plenty of space for reading and whatnot.  I also learned that I STILL have a ton of clothes with me despite downsizing to one rubber tub, 4 cookie tins (no mice in the undies please!) and a 5 inch wide closet for clothes.  There is also a change of clothes in a suit case in the car in case of emergencies  like I spill something, and several pairs of boots/shoes in various places from work to the car to the trailer.  Of course, winter things and some things I hadn't chucked yet are in storage.

More on camper life anon.

Yeay Craigslist!

Just a short entry today.   As we all know I'm downsizing a bit.   I needed to sell my awesome but huge tricycle.  Yes, tricycle.

I posted it on craigslist a few days ago and just now met a woman and she bought it.  Our negotiations went like this: 
Her:  What's your lowest price?
Me:   What's your highest offer?
Her:  (she says something 50$ more than I figured my lowest price would be)
Me: All right.  

We were like shrewed skilled traders...or like two older women who had done lots of research and knew what was reasonable.   Hope she enjoys it!  I did.

There it is in all it's glory.   She'd called around clearly and talked to the guy who had done some maintenance on it. 

Here's hoping the price I got covers most of the brake job I'm getting on the Subaru tomorrow. 

I'm thinking I may sell the electric lawn mower on craigslist too. That's where I got it last year.  I'll add the heavy duty electrical cord and see what I can get for it. 

Movin' On Up (or Out or Over or Whatever)

So, my friend Jeanne is moving to Oregon.  It's a big move.  From a full size house to a wee trailer.  I won't give anymore details without her permission.

Anyhoo, it made me think about thrifty/frugal moving. 

I reread the entries on that in the Tightwad Gazette (if any of you do not have copies of The Tightwad Gazette, vol.s 1-3, get them (from the library or thriftstores, obviously)).

And of course, I've moved over 20 times myself and helped people move many times.  TIP: Do not get a pick up or fullsize van while in college unless you want to help everyone move.  They will help you move in return but in college, lots of them leave before they can fully return the favor.  Oh well.

So, I think these are the best tips and techniques for the move from the above sources and some from www.stretcher.com (The Dollar Stretcher):

1) Get rid of stuff!  If you find a box and don't know what's in it because you haven't unpacked it in the last several moves...you probably don't need it.  There may be some important papers in there, so  you probably need to go through it, or better yet, have a friend go through it and sort out ONLY the very important papers, cash and actual valuable jewelry.  The rest gets donated, recycled or trashed.  You'll save enough on storage and moving to replace anything else that might get chucked.  Let it go.  

2) Get rid of more stuff!  Find a friend or enemy  or street person and have them sit with you and say "get rid of it" while you  hold up item after item.  When I was home once going through things at the folks after a flood I'm thinking "what possible use is my kindergarten report card other than to remind me, 40+ years later, that I never could finish a project?”   Perhaps Mom didn’t want to throw it out the day after it arrived, but there must be some point at which one can let these things go. 

3) Even get rid of furniture!   Do you REALY need to keep that 2^nd dining set?  (Okay, perhaps we don’t all have that problem but I have a few too many dining sets), that 3^rd overstuffed chair?  Or whatever furniture you’ve got duplicates of?  Let it go.  Give it to a thrift store, sell it if you have time (but don’t store it in hopes of selling it later, the storage will cost you time, money and emotional energy and it’s just furniture).  My current theory is I have one butt, so how may seating options do I need to come between it and the floor?  One guideline I’ve seen is have enough or the appropriate things to serve your needs 90% of the time.  The other 10% of the time you can borrow, rent or make do.  That sounds reasonable.

4) Think about shipping things!  Do you have a friend or relative at your present location who could ship you things once you move?  The post office, UPS, even bus companies ship things reasonably.  If you have 10 more boxes of crap than will fit in your current vehicle, you could ship those rather than rent a trailer.  As you think about shipping them, perhaps there will be a few more things you can throw out.  When at the post office, remember parcel post.  Usually that rate will not be mentioned in the options they give you.  Ask for it.  Also, pack books and papers separately and ask for the “book rate.”  It’s even cheaper.  A second benefit of this is you can have things shipped a few boxes at a time and sort them as they come in.  Take just enough to camp out when you get to your new destination and then have things arrive over days, weeks or months.  You  may find some of it seems not worth having once it gets there.

5) If you need to rent a moving truck, shop around a bit!  Prices vary.  Ask the rental agent if there is a day of the week when rentals are cheaper or if there is a drop off point within an hour drive of your new home that would be cheaper than the closest point.  These things are especially helpful if moving to small towns.  Sometimes there is a “boonies premium” on things.  You might consider this for shipping as well.  Having a package go to the UPS storefront for pickup can be cheaper than a rural delivery, especially if the storefront is in a town you visit regularly.

6) If at all possible, don’t use movers.  They are expensive and they don’t care about you or your stuff.

7) When packing, consolidate but keep the boxes small enough to lift.  Most sites and books with tips recommend getting used boxes from liquor stores etc.  This is actually one item I now buy new.  The standard size flat-pack file boxes from office supply and department stores are excellent and not too expensive.  The advantages include the size (about right for carrying), the easy labeling, the easy stacking, sturdiness, not stinking of food/booze/other-former-contents, they fold flat again when you are done with them and can be stored under the bed or etc until the next move.  They are also good for storage and sorting at the new home. 

8) Don’t buy packing peanuts or bubble wraps or etc.  Pack dishes and other fragile items in your sheets, towels, washcloths, clothes, etc.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve shown up at someone’s house to help them pack the kitchen (a speciality of mine) only to find that they’ve already packed the sheets and towels and other cloth items in boxes and won’t get them back out.  Wasted space and weight!  I can wrap an entire set of plates and bowls in a couple of sheets in one file box.  Works great.  Don’t forget kitchen towels.

9) Sort out a minimum of things to live with upon arrival and pack separately in well labeled boxes!  This should be higher up in the list but I can’t be bothered to rearrange the list.  Anyway, a few pairs of pants, a few shirts, undies, soap, cleaning rags, a towel and washcloth, a bit of cash, a plate, bowl and silverware for everyone moving to the new place, and similar things.  These all go in one box.  Maybe a rubber tub.  WELL LABELED and put in the vehicle in a very very accessible location.  This way if there is a break down, you pull this out and head to the cheap motel.  If there is no breakdown, you pull it out on arrive and you have enough to clean yourself and the place.  I like to also have a box of basic cleaning supplies (vinegar, baking soda, scrub brush, gloves, bar of soap) ready as well.  If you arrive and find that the cupboard is full of mouse crap, you can wipe it out, disinfect with the vinegar and keep going.  If you pack the cleaning supplies in a rubber tub you can use the tub as the water bucket.  This is another item to put right at the main door of the vehicle so it comes out first.

10) Keep an address book handy.  I know we all use our phones for numbers now, but you’re moving and stressed and will forget to charge the phone, lose the charger, or drop the phone in a gas station toilet that is not worth reaching into.  The address book is also good for breakdowns.  You’ll know someone who knows someone in the area where you are broken down.

11) Put aside enough money to order take out or delivery food upon arrival if you can.  If not, try to pack something you can just grab and eat.  You’ll be tired and cranky and dirty and the pans are packed god knows where at the last minute.

12) Allow 1 or 2 more days than you think you need for the trip. 

13) Think about alternatives to truck rental.  I know a young couple who bought a van to move with and sold it shortly after arriving at the new place.  This allows you to generate cash upon arrival AND allows you a bit of storage space if you need to clean out the new place or don’t have a place to land in the new town.  I did this once as well.  I owned a van and was moving many states away.  A beau (a bad beau but a beau never the less) and I were caravaning on the way down.  We parked my van full of crap at the house of an acquaintance while we looked for a place to live.  This saved driving two vehicles around the new town.  It also allowed us to clean the place we found (a total dump between a drug dealer and an alley) before unloading the van.  A few months later when the  money ran out, I sold the van for rent money.  Not my happiest hour but at least I got to keep living indoors.  You may also find someone who needs a vehicle driven to a new location.  If you’re moving to a retirement type area, Florida, Baja, put an ad in craigslist and put out the word.  There could be an elderly couple moving that way who’d like someone to drive their RV down for them.  You never know.

That’s probably enough for now.

I should confess that I’ve never used all these tips but I’ve intended too.  In reality I start out on this path, then just start sweeping 

Attempts at Decluttering

This is not my actual home (but it could be if I bought NEW furniture to pile up in the kitchen...):
















I'm a 3rd generation pack rat on both sides of the family. It may go back further. The records are buried under piles of crap.
Mom pretends she's not a packrat but my sister (Hi Pam) called and told me that Mom had gotten Pam's tutus and leotards out for the little cousins to play with. Uh...Pam wore those when she was about 6 til she was about 10. She's 38 now. The folks have moved and been through 2 major floods. Pam was not an award winning ballerina. These are not the early togs of Maria Tallchief. She wasn't bad. But still. 28 years is a long time to store mounds of tule and spandex. I wonder if it still "spands."

Fred...well, isn't he the one who pulled copper pipe out of one house to store in the next?

Mom's mom's apartment is packed to the gills with stuff. Nice stuff. But packed. On the paternal side. When the tornado hit back in the '80s Grampa Wagner's canceled checks ended up in Wisconsin. Grampa had been dead for more than a decade and these were not the last checks he wrote. They were decades old when he croaked.

So, it appears that both nature and nurture program me toward packrattery.

Part of the packrat motivation/justification is that it is thrifty. It is. To a point. But when I can't find crap because it's lost in piles of other crap, that's not thrifty. For example, when I needed to "tidy up" so the landlord could fix something, I took clutter off the counter and shoved it in a box and put it in the storage room (the front bedroom). At some point after that I gave up looking for a favorite kitchen tool, this wooden dough scraper. I asked for one for the holidays. I didn't get one because they have disappeared from the kitchen shops. Last week I'm sorting through boxes and go through the "tidying up" box. There, among some junk mail, a few small bags from the co-op with spices in them, and other counter top detritus, is the missing dough scraper. Why the junk mail didn't go right in the recycling? Probably the bin was full that day or I was in a hurry so I set it on the end of the counter. That wasn't thrifty (though now I can take the cash I got for christmas earmarked for that and buy some new undies...woohoo). Neither was letting the spices age and get bland. It's only a couple of bucks, but I'm sure there are other things in other "tidy up" boxes. Time for another major decrapification. I used to do some when I moved every year or so. Staying put for a few years is working against me.

I'm making decrapification efforts but it's a long road. When I was in Iowa last fall, I went through about 13 boxes in Pam's basement. I cut it down to two. I've gone through 4 boxes last week in the trailer and took 2 plastic bins of stuff to recycling and a smaller box to Goodwill. Some of what went to recycling was books to the free bookbin. I tried to take back more books to the bin than I've taken out of the bin. From now on, more has to go out of the trailer than comes in (except for food...I'm not tracking outflow on that).

In theory this process should work. I'm not sure it will go so smoothly in practice. I DID bring 6 candles, a VHS tape and a DVD back from Goodwill (the VHS is "Shirley Valentine" and the DVD is "All About My Mother"). The total bill was 3$ which would be good just for the candles. And I need to put an equal volume of stuff in recycling or donation bins. Should be easy. I'm culling the VHS collection. As much as I enjoyed that 25cent copy of "Ice Castles"...I don't really need to watch it again. It's just as horrible (in a good way) as I remember. I have two VHS copies of "All About My Mother" which can now go to the library or Goodwill along with the "Anne of Green Gables" series I got for 25cents a while back. That will be 7 VHS tapes. That should balance things out.

I did find an entire box of baking pans I forgot I had. Some of them I've never seen before so I think Sher (Hi Sher) slipped some in while packing for my move (thanks for packing me for my move, Sher).

Newly Undeadity

The title is a stretch and not relevant, but it's a rambling post so nothing would be relevant.

El Kid is on his exchange program having arrived safely overseas. He'll be back in a year.

I'm moving out of the Spokane apartment which hasn't been too bad. Hot but not bad. Much of the furniture that doesn't fold is going to the next tenant. Very handy way to do things. If I thought it wouldn't creep her out, I would have offered to leave the 2lbs of cheese that weren't eaten. It's too much grease for the worms and too much dairy for me. I had to chuck it because a strange woman going door to door offering hunks of cheese is just not acceptable in our culture. I'm sure there is somewhere on the planet where that behavior would get me worshiped like the goddess I am. Perhaps Switzerland....they will tell tales of the cheese lady who comes in the day and gives you cheese.

Enough of that.

I'm taking the opportunity to purge quite a few belongings. I've taken two fullish subaru loads to charities. I don't need two households worth of sheets, towels, dishes, glasses, cups, mugs etc etc etc. So much is getting donated. It's about time for a magazine purge as well. The region's laundromats will soon be sporting out of date copies of very nice organic living magazines. I've read them, gotten the recipes and addresses I need so no need to archive the mags like some sort of weird library. And the worms don't like magazine paper. Newsprint yes, shiny paper not so much. They'll eat it, but I don't think it's good for them.

I've been trying to clean the apartment with mostly environmentally friendly products. The oven crud just wiped off with some citrasolve (a strong mix). I'll hit the floors with left over laundry soap and a vinegar rinse. It's organic non-phosphate laundry soap. And the tub will get the usual borax and vinegar scrub.

As of Sunday I will officially have only ONE home again. One rent payment. One set of utilities. One land line phone bill. Ahhh....so nice to have one set of payments again.

It does seem that I've got quite a bit of food to eat. I need to start making my own bread just to use up the flour! Seriously. I can't stand an empty pantry so when I moved that here, things got a bit full. I'm sure I'll get through it but the 15 boxes of tea...that could take a while.

How about a garden update: WE HAVE 'MATERS!!! I've been sampling the cherry tomatoes and they are delicious. My god. None have made it to the kitchen yet. I just eat them right off the vine. There are many other tomatoes but they haven't started to ripen yet. If they all come in at once the dehydrator will be smoking! Or I'll try that ketchup recipe I found.

Steady applications of stink-juice (the "juice" is the result of steeping rotting onion and garlic along with cayenne in a jar...pour into sprayer and add some water...it reeks) have allowed the carrots to at least grow respectable tops. No sign of actual carrotage though. The beans are coming along. I may get a cup of each type once dried. Not a great yield. Must try something new with the beans next year. The tomatillo continues to bloom and has some little lanterns which look like there should be a tomatillo inside but there's not. Empty. Bupkus. Oh well. onions doing great! The tops have started to dry and fall over. I need to read up on when to pull them. They look huge. I think more onions and some garlic for next year. Build on my success. What else is in there?
I have one respectable red lettuce going. ONE hungarian hot pepper. It's getting quite large but I think there should be more than one per plant. It got a whole square foot in the garden so one pepper is not appropriate. The jalapeno pepper in a pot is doing quite well. there are several tiny jalapenos on it. Even that plant looks stunted though. The marigold continues to struggle with big damage. Not a single bloom yet. Perhaps before I have to yank it one will show up. I can hope! And finally the basil plant in a pot...it's just two straight stems. Weird. I'm getting some basil off of it and will try to bring it inside for winter. I put a different shelf in front of the west window in the kitchen in the hopes of growing some herbs there through the winter. Which herbs like drafts and the occasional burning direct sunlight? I'll let you know.

I'll have some bits of wood and another shelf coming back from the apartment so I might try a bit of a cold frame. We'll see if I have the energy or ambition. The landlord had offered to rototill some areas of the yard for a garden but he's opening a shop now and may not have the time.

And now, I'm going to go home and try to eat (food poisoning last week has made eating something of a scary event...probiotics are helping).

Bring Back National Thrift Week

Here is a SHORT history of National Thrift week that I swiped from
www.getrichslowly.org (a favorite blog of mine)

In 1916, with the First World War looming imminently on the horizon, the leaders of America’s major civic organizations launched an ambitious education campaign designed to ready the American public for a wartime economy…

The activities of National Thrift Week were guided by several specific principles and behaviors and each was given its own day. Hence, Americans joined together every January in celebrating:

• Have a Bank Account Day
• Invest Safely Day
• Carry Life Insurance Day
• Keep a Budget Day
• Pay Bills Promptly Day
• Own Your Home Day
• Share with Others Day

Then, as today, critics often maligned thrift as simple hoarding, but these principles demonstrate how the founders envisioned Thrift Week as so much more — they saw it not as a way to encourage miserly behavior, but instead to cultivate responsible consumerism and civic progress. Rather than self-denial, the goal was self-control…

National Thrift Week fizzled out in 1966, after being passed from one sponsor to another. Around that same time, thrift as a national virtue seems to have faded from the collective public consciousness as well…

I'm a few days late getting this posted but that is because I just heard of it. I've had to cut back on my internet use at work and with dial up at the apartment...well, there is no point in signing on if all you have is dial up. Anyway, it seems I'm the "Bandwidth Queen" at work. They installed internet use monitoring software and I've been the top bandwidth consumer! Woohoo! I'm number one. Apparently letting videos run in the background while I work is not as common as I thought. Perhaps it's because I sometimes have 2 or 3 video sites open at once. Anyway, the upshot is that I'm trying to cut back on internet use at work and was not reading my fave blogs for a while so I missed the beginning of National Thrift week.

It isn't actually a current holiday but maybe we can get Obama to bring it back. lord knows in this economy people need to be a bit thriftier in general (as I sit at a coffee shop with organic locally produced strawberry coffee cake and a hazelnut americano).

If you're interested in bringing back National Thrift Week check out

http://www.bringbackthriftweek.org/

In other news...I'm going to lunch today with Dean Yohe. A cousin I haven't seen in decades. Like 3 decades. that should be interesting! Me and El Kid are meeting him and his family after they go to church (Yes Aunt Mary, they invited me to church but I declined). I know I'll recognize him because he looks like a taller version of his mom (the aforementioned Aunt Mary...technically "Great Aunt Mary" but the original "Great Aunt Mary" was such a character that I don't think the current reigning Aunt Mary wants to be mixed up with the original...have I told the horse-turds/AuntMary's Ashes story?) (OK, just typing that made me giggle and sort of put americano up my nose).

In still other news, Sher's kitchen is progressing apace. There have been people there all weekend working to install the cabinets and countertops. I think after this it will be ready for floors. And Sher will be ready for her vacation to Hawai'i. Interesting how Sher is headed to Hawai'i and I'm busy planning our next vacation to Nova Scotia (and hoping we can switch to Newfoundland because there is even LESS going on there).

In still other news...I tried to help a friend strip wall paper yesterday. We consulted Sher for tips and got very good direction. BUT, the friend got super sick and wouldn't just go to bed and let me finish. It was just borders and the vinegar water wash Sher recommended was working just fine. So, I had to leave the job half done. Perhaps she'll be back on her feet next weekend and we can finish then.

Why is it so much easier to do projects at someone else's house? I have needed to paint the bathroom at the trailer for years. I've needed to sort the piles of paper at both homes for...well, since about a week after I moved into each. I can't get that done. But take me to a remote location and I'm fine. I wonder if I could find a friend to trade housework with. I don't mind cleaning other people's homes (I was a janitor and a hotel maid in the past). It's just cleaning mine that doesn't interest me.

Anyway, I need to finish websurfing before I run out of power on the laptop. Then I should clean the car...but I probably won't.

Not So Much Happened Today

Not much happened today for me...
Sher had estimaters and advisors over for the floor, kitchen, and SBA loan (which means a total damage estimate). This did not sound like fun.

Pam took the day off work to help and she and I ended up running errands about half the day and packing the remaining crap out of the main floor. If they are going to have to cut the bottom 2 feet or so of the drywall, then everything needs to be packed, or secured and plastic covered. This is boring work.

We did see some amusing things on errands. Here's the first one:
















How does one get on the "grilling team"? Is it the varsity or jv grilling team?
Do you have to wear a jock strap and/or sports bra?
How much do they train?
Are there burger-flippin' training camps?

This is what the grilling team was in town for:
















50CENTS! That is for a pork burger. Apparently pork burger is the new hamburger in the midwest. I did not know this. Fred went by but the line was too long.
Pam and I had gotten sandwich makin's for lunch anyway.

Here's how Fred spent the day...power washing ducts.















Rob got to transport ducts up the basement steps. Rob should not do that in sandals.
Fred's aim with the power sprayer must be getting better since he's down graded from chest waders to hip waders. By next week he'll be in irrigation boots.

For supper, Joe and Cathy Avery invited us all over to the steak feed at their church. It was DELICIOUS and I do not usually eat big slabs of red meat. There were a few of my old teachers in attendence. I did not go chat with them.
One of the best parts about a meal out is that Sher had to stop working at a reasonable hour.

Now we must all rest so that we can get over to the house early tomorrow to meet Brian and Shelly! Yeay!

This all truly makes me want to sort my crap NOW rather than during a disaster. I've been eliminating things, donating unused items, and getting rid of an item each time I get a new thing and bring it into the house. But it's time to speed up the process. The damage to the house is bad enough, but having to cart the stuff around (and it is LOVELY stuff...antiques and whatnot) is not fun. Then you have to find a good place, or places, to store it during repairs. THEN they will have to unpack it all and re-store it in the house (though rumor has it there won't be much in the basement).

Thanks for all the supportive missives. I tell Sher about them and she's very appreciative. They are still overwhelmed by how much people are helping. I've only got a couple of days left so I need to kick it into high gear here tomorrow and Sunday. It's back on the road to Idaho on Monday.

More things I love...

OK, this is going to get old, but I read once that we have bunches of crap we don't appreciate and thus it is not worth it. I've started trying to make sure I do like the crap I have.
So here are a few more things I have that I love:

From Angela, Jonny, and Diana: the David Sedaris recordings. I'm listening to them now. I listen more than once a week to at least some of them.

From Bree: the mosaic he made me during a craptacular christmas craft exchange. (it's the opposite of craptacular...it's actually good-tacular)

From Pam: the scarf, the Juno DVD, the washcloth, and much much more

From Sher: the set of silverware she got me when she visited me in grad school. It came from Coldwater Creek in Sandpoint during our road trip. Later, I bought a second set at Target or Kmart because I really like it and want to make sure I have enough to last a lifetime. I do. (it's actually stainless steel, not silver). I've never met anyone else who has the same set.

From Jake: once I was feeling bad that I hadn't thought of something my therapist told me to do. Jake said "well, he IS a professional." I try to remember that when I'm beating myself up over not being perfect or not knowing something. I'm not supposed to know everything (yet).

From Diana: furniture and art for the temporary apartment! she set us up with lamps, a comfy living room chair, side table, folding table, dining/office chair for Jake, and some framed artwork. It really made the place instantly livable and homey rather than feeling like an emergency situation.

From Lynn: all the effort for the tribe and to stay connected after I left ISU in unpleasant circumstances. She also sends way grovy presents.

From Maia: hand knit washclothes and bathmit! What could be more fun than a custom made hand knit bathmit? Perhaps the matching afghan and slippers??? All very very cool.

From Kathy and Phil (you don't know them): The little leatherman with flashlight

From Stan: floor lamp that I've used for years now. And didn't he get me the mixer which I use all the time?

From Sher, Marcie, Chris and Gram: lovely silver jewelry

From Laurie: The handcrafted pillow representing Iowa with matching piggy eye-pack cozy with hot/cold gel insert.

From Gram: bunches of kitchenware, but especially the 9X13 pans with sturdy slide-on lids.

From Sher: hand made pottery colander and bowl for fruit (I accidentally typed "bowel" which would also be cool).

From Gramp: hand tools that I use all the time.

From Gram: cool baskets handmade at a museum in Wisconsin


Ok, that's enough for today. The point is that much of my crap, I like and appreciate and use. It isn't all clutter ruining my life!
However, some of it is clutter ruining my life. For a while, I kept a goodwill box going and put crap in it as I noticed it. I need to do that again. Then when I take the recycling, I would also take that box and drop it off. This is both decluttering, and a tax deduction so win-win.

The No'Poo update...I got up late and stuffed my hair into a ponytail without even brushing it so it's probably pretty bad. I'll have to brush it tonight. But, it is not a dreadlock so that's nice.