Happy New Year!!!!!

I first wish each and every one a Blessed New Year and a belated Merry Christmas!  I am starting mine off with a Big Bang and a bag full of happiness!  My back is doing extremely well with the TENS unit so I am good for now.

During this month we were so blessed to have sold our 36′ fifth wheel and our Dually truck to a very nice couple who will continue enjoying trips like we did.  Clay and I decided to shop for a new vehicle to replace the truck for future trips (shorter than 3 months at a time – and no loading and unloading) and purchased a beautiful Lincoln Navigator.  It is like driving a computer – what an experience.  It will be great for trips, plenty of room for suit cases and all the necessities when on the road!

Last Thursday as I sat in my Studio having my morning coffee, I realized  that things had to change because I had (again) stuffed too many things in nooks and cranny’s was overwhelmed with the clutter.  I would have absolutely no place to put the birthday fabrics I purchased in October!  No wonder I lost my creativity and desire to work on a project (well, OK maybe a few other things had gotten in the way) the last 2 months.  Clay and I discussed the problem and thought about  purchasing a portable building to use for extra storage space, but that idea went away when I started thinking seriously about doing that.  It would have ended up being a 2 month project and I was not going to start my new year that way!  So we discussed the idea of changing our music room into a “quilters storage room”.

This would mean selling guitar amplifiers and speakers and totally cleaning out the closet that had been such a mess for quite awhile.  Long story short, we ended up cleaning out the storage units in the Laundry Room (where I had stored 15 years of quilting magazines), cleaning out the Computer room file cabinets (anyone else keep paperwork on things purchased in the 1990’s?), and the wall to wall 4′  deep closet in the “now old” Music Room.  We also cleaned out some of the “things” in the Barn and what a difference!  This project was a tremendous amount of work, but we are finished and it so nice to have space to store things OR just great to open a cabinet or closet door and see organization.  I have now cleaned out the closet clutter in the entire house and it feels great going into the New Year with that chore completed, rather than starting off winter cleaning at the beginning of 2017!  Hope the Garbage men do not hurt themselves – those magazines were heavy.  We caught up with them and gave each of them a small Christmas gift and profusely thanked them.   I have kept the Quilter Newsletter collection hoping to find someone who wants them – otherwise – they are going in the trash can!

I had already cleaned out the room in the Studio where I keep my books and patterns, so the very last thing to clean out was the larger room that had become a mess!  I have one of the original Husqvara Designer 1 sewing machines (with the floppy disc) and never use the embroidery unit.  So I am selling it plus all of the software designs and extra hoops that were never used!  I used the unit 4 times and quickly decided that was not for me.   I am now thinking about selling one of my Featherweight sewing machines since I cannot sew with 2 at a time (LOL).   We have a lot of things that we have listed on craigslist and hoping to sell them.

We finished the 2016 clean up yesterday and it is so nice to have open spaces and more organization.  I believe that when we reach this stage of our lives it is time to do this type of “cleaning” and try to weed out things that can be passed on to others who might need them.

Here are some pictures of the finished product!

All containers and other things away from the long arm table and by the TV!

Here are the pictures of the new “fabric storage room”.

The next important project is to clean the house.  My cleaning lady is having back surgery, so now I have to do what I can until she comes back, or unless I am lucky enough to find another person to clean for me.

As of now, my goal is to finish preparing 4 more CWB (Bird of Paradise) blocks, Ms Potts, and another section of Stonefields.   I am going to make one more attempt at Circa 2016 and if I do not have a good feel about it, the blocks will go to a young lady who sent me an email last month!

Have a safe and Happy New Years, don’t forget the black-eyed peas and cornbread (I forgot but my cousin Kay reminded me as I was headed to the store the other day – Whew!).