Wednesday 31st December - 116 Things to Throw away cop-out

So, today I'm going to throw away

103; Fortune Cookie Mottoes,
68; Unused Tupperware
80; Old Unused Batteries
89; Old Calendars
103; Promotional or Freebie T-shirts that I don't wear


That was easy. We don't have any fortune cookie mottoes, the unused Tupperware went last month, there are no OLD unused batteries, the old calendar on the fridge was thrown yesterday (in spite of the amusing pictures - that was a bit of a wrench) and replaced with a Spike Milligan one, and I don't have any freebie/promotional T shirts.

Good oh. Job Well Done.

But it hasn't made a serious impact on the clutter, even if it has dented the list a bit more.

The cunning plan is to get ahead, so if I miss a few days, I'll still remain on schedule.

Wednesday 31st December - The Diary - 364 days done

Last year's resolution to keep a daily written is almost complete.

 I remember thinking that there were an awful lot of empty pages in the Moleskine page-a-day dairy I bought (in the sale, a day or two into 2014). I started writing the diary on my laptop, but typing is an unsatisfactory experience. Written, with a fountain pen, is the only way.

Half way through the year I wondered whether there was any point in keeping a diary, and what on earth was I going to DO with it.

A week or so later, it fell open at a random page as I was getting ready to write, so I read the entry - wow, I had forgotten all about that event - reading on, yes, I remember now, we went to - and so on. Unserweiter. Etcerera. Keeping a record of things that I would otherwise have forgotten.

I think I'll keep 2014 with me, and read last year's entry for the day as I travel through this year. The pages are enlivened by photographs and little sketches; just yesterday I came across a pictures from a warm Spring day in February spent in Storrington,

reminding me of the church, the Austin Morris by the road, the catkins, the walk by the stream, the café in the bookshop... that was a lovely, lovely day.

My 2015 page-a-day should be delivered any day soon. All those blank pages waiting for things to happen.



Here's what  might write for today, the final entry for 2014;

Wednesday 31st January 2014

Two breakfasts! cereal, and then was offered croissants. Second breakfast with all of us sitting at the dining table. How domestic; how comme il faut. Nice.

Have finally decided to rebel against all the - I was going to say "pen-pushers". I have admitted that I hate doing my lesson planning on the computer. It inhibits my thinking to have to watch my fingers tapping away and hunting for letters and fixing typos. So I have switched to doing it in a couple of Really Smooth Notebooks using my Schaeffer fountain pen. Superb. Planned a whole week's lessons in just an hour or so. Think. Consider. Write. SO much easier.

Finished up all the smoked salmon for lunch. Decadence. Then watched Disney's "Frozen". Quote by a troll (nice troll, not horrid troll) at the beginning along the lines of "You are lucky that it is the head, and not the heart, that was struck. The heart cannot be so easily changed, but the head.... it can be persuaded". Cute.

Blogged about diary..............................     

It's only late afternoon. Diary entry "To be continued". With maybe a picture of the year end celebrations.


Meanwhile, I'll just print off a selection of pictures to stick in for the last months. Proof that the upstairs cat and the downstairs cat can coexist on the settee.  Poppies at the Tower.  Snail trails on a car bonnet. The Dining table on Boxing day. And more.


So long as I don't confuse the glue stick and the lipsalve like nearly happened last time I did some sticking.

 

Tuesday 30th December - Throw it away! Chuck it out!



Items 12 and 13 on the list! Sort out hair accessories. Done.

They are all in a basket on the windowsill at the bottom of the stairs (that's where I do my hair, in as much as it gets "done").

So, empty out the basket and what do I find? A torch? An allen key? Two things for blanking off electric sockets? A pair of ancient varifocal glasses going back to - when?

I split the heap into four; Throw it Away, This Must Belong to The Daughter, This Belongs Somewhere Else, Back Into The Basket. There is a slight fail in the latter category, as I found a number of "Gym Joey" badges (daughter?) and Scout badges (son?) which, for lack of any other solution, I've put back into the basket.

And Ugh Ugh Ugh. That left me with some pretty solid cobwebs and some fairly large dessicated house spiders to clear up. To begin with I wasn't totally sure that they were dead, but they didn't react when I gingerly poked them with a longish stick. Good job I didn't know that they lived there when they were alive.

Item 17: Kitchen Utensils you don't use. Most of them went out yesterday, but this wooden fork as never, ever been used - came as part of a bundle of more or less useful implements. And I suspect that mottled grey shading is mildew. OUT! OUT!

 

Parting (with all this junk) is such sweet JOY!

Monday 29th December - The Kitchen Drawer!

Before:

Chuck/Recycle:

Belongs somewhere else or to be given away:

To be Rehomed (to daughter or charity bag):

After:

I call that a Good Result.

Monday 29th December 2014 - Vim and Vigour

I've woken up today full of energy and zest for getting things done. It's a while since I've felt so "active". Maybe it's because I finally caught up with myself at last - I slept through most of Saturday afternoon and evening, and then all night as well...

Teaching music - at least the way I do it - is a very physical job. Lumbering into the school hung about with bags of sound systems, music books, instruments, then all the moving around, sitting, standing, singing, playing games, playing instruments, shouting (sorry, that happens rather a lot too - music is SUCH a noisy business). So it is not surprising that two things happen in the holidays - I sag with tiredness, and I put on weight, especially over Christmas (cake, mince pies, sweets, biscuits) and Easter (chocolate, cakes) and Summer (Cream Teas, Ice Cream, Strawberries and cream).

So, what to do with all this fizz and buzz?

I've written my thank-you cards using some zany stationery I got last Christmas - also a couple of postcards to friends

I've spent 2 hours marking music theory, sorting the class register for last term and setting up the register for this term

I've had a near miss with glueing a template into my Moleskine work planner ready for next term (good job I don't have chapped lips at the moment)

I've made mince pies and jam tarts, and eaten many of them too with help from family and friends

I've set up a Pinterest account, pinned a couple of things already (and locked up the PC visiting a some of the sites to follow up the "pins" - good ol' Norton, keeping me safe)

and found this amazing list of THINGS TO THROW AWAY - the idea is to deal with one item on the list every day. What a great idea! (I assume you throw away item 59 AFTER you have been to the wedding??). Watch out, all you scrips and scraps and bit and pieces - here I come!  Item 63 - the Kitchen Drawer seems like a really good place to start.

 

I've created a new page to chart my progress through the list! Right - off I go (I may be some time!)

116 Things to Throw Away

1. The other side of a pair of lost earrings
2. Scraps of wrapping paper
3. Cards people have given you with no sentimental value
4. Receipts you don't need
5. Ticket stubs
6. Socks with holes
7. Old t-shirts
8. Leftover change
9. Dried flowers
10. Magazines
11. CDs
12. Hair elastics that have lost stretchiness
13. Hair accessories you don't use
14. Shoes that don't fit or that you don't wear
15. Extra photo prints
16. Little knickknacks (designate a bowl and fill it)
17. Kitchen things you don't use
18. Cooking utensils you have two of
19. Tired bras
20. Scarves you never wear
21. Clothes that don't fit
22. Gifts you don't like
23. Old towels
24. Old makeup
25. Old toiletries
26. Old or unused hangers
27. Expired or sample-sized toiletries
28. Extra buttons
29. Expired sauces
30. Toys your pets don't play with
31. Expired medication
32. Dried-up nail polish
33. Bills you don't need to keep
34. Expired coupons
35. Old paperwork
36. DVDs you don't watch
37. Snacks your pets don't eat
38. Damaged clothing you can't mend
39. Stained clothing you can't clean
40. Old prom dresses
41. Scratched nonstick cookware
42. Old underwear or swimwear that's losing its stretch
43. Outdated electronics
44. Rusty jewelry
45. Stockings with runs
46. Pens that don't work
47. Clothing you've outgrown
48. Necklaces and bracelets with broken clasps
49. Cables and wires you don't use
50. Worn-out sheets and bedding
51. Empty or near-empty bottles of cleaning products
52. Old mending buttons for clothing you no longer have
53. Worn-out bath mats
54. Broken electronics
55. Purses you never use
56. Flatware, plates, and glasses that don't match the rest of your collection, plus dingy children's plates you no longer use
57. Old pillows
58. Worn-out shoes
59. Wedding invites
60. Save-the-dates
61. Wedding favors you don't use
62. Old wallets that you don't use
63. Broken kitchen equipment
64. Spare furniture parts you don't need
65. Furniture manuals
66. Boxes
67. Unused vases
68. Extra tupperware you don't need
69. Old mail
70. Junk mail
71. Travel brochures
72. Bobby pins
73. Old crayons or art supplies, plus markers that have run out of ink
74. Random containers and jars
75. Unused stationery, stickers, and sticky notes
76. Ripped denim
77. Old artwork or old children's artwork
78. Used and ripped envelopes
79. Broken or old iPhone cases
80. Old unused batteries
81. Extra and unused coffee mugs
82. Old spices
83. Address labels for your old house
84. Wrinkled ribbon and bows for gift wrap
85. Cards or gifts from exes
86. Frequent shopper cards you never use
87. Matchbooks
88. Old shopping bags
89. Old calendars
90. Old folders
91. Magnets
92. Clothes that are outdated or from college
93. Broken Christmas decorations
94. Christmas lights that don't work
95. Frayed towels
96. Expired food
97. Computer cords, firewire cord, etc. that you don't use
98. Old and outdated software
99. CDs for old computer programs
100. Old cell phones
101. Hand-me-downs that you're guilt-tripped into keeping
102. Freebie or promotional t-shirts you never wear
103. Old fortune cookie fortunes
104. Old bank statements
105. Old planners
106. Delete email subscriptions from sites
107. Delete emails you don't need
108. Delete unwanted music from your iTunes
109. Extra buttons that come with newly purchased clothes
110. Games that are missing pieces
111. Old schoolbooks you'll never use again
112. Papers you have backed up on the computer
113. Books you've already read and don't want to display
114. Cell phone covers you're over
115. Old manuals to electronics
116. Cell phone accessories you don't use anymore

Another Thursday, 27th November - Clutch, grab, snatch, gone.

Found this in the "drafts" 

Today's excitement....

I have to drive up a long, narrow, steep, twisty, potholed lane, through a thick, dark wood to get to Thursday's school. It's always a bit of an adrenalin rush; what will be around the corner? A large delivery lorry on my side of the road? A bicycle, wobbling along at nought miles an hour? A tractor? A horse? A runner, dressed in grey and black, running up the hill on my side of the road?

None of these today, just the usual tail-gater who thinks that the 40 mile-an-hour speed limit doesn't apply to him/her.

I couldn't see a parking space in the road outside the school, so carried on 30 yards to the junction, took a right, planning to turn round in the pub car park and retrace my steps to find another parking space along from the school.

Clutch down to change into second gear, and the pedal completely disappeared! It was as though it had been teleported into another dimension! So there I was, stuck in 1st gear... and no clutch - literally. Couldn't feel where the pedal had gone at all.

I sort of wobbled into the pub car park and stalled the car into a space.

I had 30 minutes before my first lesson started to sort myself out.

To cut a long story short, my magnificent husband and the AA between them took over. I just extracted the important things for the day (sound system, hand bag, laptop bag, bag of shakers, bag of cakes for the staff room) and staggered down the hill to the school.

It could have been a lot worse. Some pin or other to do with the clutch pedal had sheared, and the AA man replaced it, and returned the clutch pedal to the here and now. Apparently he had to lie on his back half in, half out of the car, with his head right in under the steering wheel, and his legs flailing about on the tarmac for balance. A job for a gymnast, or a contortionist. He deserves a medal.

Phew.

(The wobbling cyclists were out in force on the way home; three struggling up the hill, to the discombobulation of an on-coming car, and one on my side risking life and limb and probably exceeding the speed limit going down hill. No tractors, horses or pantechnicons though.)

Saturday 27th December 2014 - The Christmas Season



Advent is over
             although we haven't got to the bottom of my advent candle. It's currently down to day 20 - it was a tall, tapering candle which burnt fairly swiftly to begin with, resulting in an overburn of about  week at the very beginning of early on in December;

The candle is a lot thicker now, taking days to burn away each number. It has become a sort of substitute yule log, and may well last until the New Year.

I've found the cups and saucers for our tea, to celebrate Christmas. Last year was the season of catapults and medieval war machines;

 

 

This year is more lego themed.

 

The turkey is just about finished. There's half a ham to go, and small portion of Christmas pudding and we have run out of mince pies (but luckily not mince meat). We WILL run out of milk before Monday, but these days one just goes shopping on Sunday. Easy-peasy.

 

So, what have we done for Christmas so far?

 

Christmas Eve - decorating, wrapping presents, last minute tidying and preparations. For me that included making bread sauce, rum butter, brandy butter, mince pies, apple pies and jam tarts. Also knitting a complete pair of legwarmers which were a Christmas present to my mother. In ribbing. Note the ribbing.

 

Christmas Day - church, present opening, smoked salmon on brown bread, cooking The Dinner. Taking The Dinner round to my parents' flat (after resolving slight sausage cooking crisis) for a very late lunch, or maybe it was a very early supper. That was an enjoyable time- six of us together, crackers, table decorations, food, food, food, more food, and more presents.

 

Boxing Day - slow morning, then after lunch the younger generation went shopping in the town, and had a surprise encounter with steam engines of all descriptions chugging their way through the rain to the town centre for a Boxing Day Meet. In the evening we played our new Christmas Board Game. Good fun (I won).

 

Today - it's cold out there. I've read my book, watched TV, read my book some more, thought about doing all sorts of things, written this blog, and that's going to be about that for the day.

 

The Christmas Season officially lasts until Candlemas, 2nd February, so there is no hurry to do everything all at once.       

Wednesday 10th December - Christmas Nativity

Any day soon we would be going and buying our Christmas tree. Hopefully this will happen before the shops are sold out....

The little crochet Nativity characters have been on the bookshelf all year. I kept them out on purpose as a sort of "memory of Christmas". They are a cheerful bunch - most of the figurines in the Nativity sets seem to be rather serious, or Holy, or Majestic, or over-awed.

This lot all look as if they are having a great time together. Even Baby Jesus has  big cheesy grin on his face.

When we get the tree up, they will disappear behind its branches, and presumably continue partying in their own secret world?

Thursday 11th December - This house

So, about this house....

1. When we moved in, we soon discovered, the hard way, that the loo was not bolted to the floor. (The bathroom had been completely re-fitted a couple of months earlier by the previous occupants).

2. A day or so later we found that the overflow in pipe for the bath was not connected. Guess how we found that out?

3. The previous occupant took the lower part of the 2-part TV aerial booster with her (presumably it was attached to her television set). However half an aerial booster is definitely worse than no aerial booster at all.

4. We checked ALL the electrical sockets when we moved in with a tester gadget. That's when we discovered the additional sockets were all wired up wrongly. Live/Neutral reversed, or whatever.

5. Some years later, the bathroom basin blocked up. It was a simple matter to remove the pedestal to get at the U-bend; however, that's when we discovered that the basin was merely resting on the pedestal, and not screwed to the wall. Luckily I was within earshot of my husband's frantic cries for help, and rushed upstairs to catch the basin as the hot and cold water pipes slowly distorted under the weight...

6. We wanted to replace the ancient, noisy and uneconomical gas fire and back boiler in the sitting room. The plan was to put the boiler in the kitchen and have a nice new gas fire in the sitting room. We called in a builder to take out the old fireplace and reduce the size of the opening ("why not do it yourselves? It's a relatively simple task?" queried our friends - but we were getting wiser). The unfortunate builder discovered that the chimney support had been removed, but not replaced. The whole chimney was resting on two lengths of copper pipe, which had had the end flattened and wedged into the brickwork on either side of the opening. And were buckling under the weight of the chimney.

7. The gas engineers discovered that the old heating system had been installed incorrectly, with the water flowing the wrong way round the radiators and various safety extras missing entirely. A two day job took them two weeks and miles of extra copper piping.

8. The sitting-room door squeaked and wouldn't close properly. Oil was not the answer - oh no! It took several hours of work involving removing, reshaping, adjusting and rehanging the door to solve that one.

And so it goes on....

I expect getting the double glazing done, and replacing the garage, and sorting out the driveway will all reveal more opportunities for improvisation as we work through these projects. It is just so fortunate that my husband  has such an aptitude for fixing, mending, problem-solving and perseverance in the face of all obstacles.

You might be forgiven for thinking that we live in an ancient building, much altered and reshaped over hundreds of years. Not a bit - it's just a 1950s semi. Everything should be easy - no?
 

Thursday 11th December - Another typical little project

We moved into this house over 30 years ago.

It very quickly became clear that NOTHING would be straight forward. How quickly? Like, the minute we wanted to hang the curtains - the previous occupants had taken all the curtain hooks with them. All the curtain tracks are different, so getting new curtain hooks was a bit of a challenge.We could have replaced all the tracks, of course, but we had pretty much busticated the budget buying the house (£46,000 was a terrifying amount of money back then, and interest rates were MUCH higher).

Anyway, that's all history now. Except when it comes back to bite us.

So, neighbours across the road have installed a bright, motion sensitive security light, which just catches our bedroom window. Our cheap unlined curtains that we hung on the second night of moving in (because, or course, we had no hooks on the first night) have coped with the street light and people driving up and down the road in the middle of the night, but this security light is another matter.

Step 1 - order black-out curtains from John Lewis. We ordered them yesterday, and collected them from Waitrose at 2pm today. Brilliant! Buy new curtain hooks while we are at it, as the plastic is bound to have gone brittle by now. Shop helps us choose matching hooks.

Step 2 - open the box - they have delivered red instead of blue. Hmm. Okay. We'll go with red. Red is fine.

Step 3 - Start hanging the curtains. They won't slide on the rail. Turns out that the hooks are slightly too roomy for the rail.Looks like the hooks we've been using all these years were wrong too, which explains why the curtains have never run smoothly.

Step 3 - It is late night shopping. Zoom into town and buy the other hooks. And buy a cheap curtain rail while we are at it. Why not. Perhaps the curtain track is worn out - could be, after all these decades. Belt and braces time.

Step 4 - Try the new hooks. Still not right. Replace the old curtains for tonight. Tomorrow is another day.

There's no use being irritated. Every job in this house throws up unforseen problems. That's another blog post all on its own.

You learn to adopt important life skills, when you tackle any kind of decorating, repairs, improvements in this house. Like....

1 Do your research. And then check the facts. And then go over all the figures again.
2 Research it all some more. Ponder. Think it through.Revise time and budget estimates upwards and then double them.
3 Never start any job, however small, without having at least twice the "book time" for the job free.
4 Never start any job without having every single conceivable bit of equipment ready, fully charged, tested and available for use.
5 Always be able to reverse engineer your work so that you can regain some kind of functionality in the event of total catastrophic failure.
6 Set your expectations low, and be prepared to revise your success criteria downwards as you proceed.
7 Be happy to have survived the experience. Don't examine the finished result too closely. Good enough will do.