I will sleep well tonight….:)

When I moved in here and was totally overwhelmed by the magnitude of what I had to do, my Toolman friend David told me to pick 2 rooms to concentrate on first.  I chose kitchen and bedroom…kitchen because it was full of glass and dangerous (not because I intended to cook there) and bedroom because it’s very important to get a good night’s rest sometime.

I did the kitchen for the most part, as you’ve seen; it has been totally dumped on as I keep moving crap in this place, but it’s functional.  And now I can say I have a sort-of bedroom. ..with my own bed, not that cardboard twin bed I was using.

You remember what it looked like last night; it’s not a whole lot better, just empty enough to put my bed up and that makes me happy.  The area at the foot of the bed needs to be cleared and made nice but at least I can sleep here!

not the prettiest-yet-but the most comfortable bed I've ever been in.

As I was coming into the kitchen to get something, the song on the radio was singing: ‘you’re stronger than you think’.  No kidding.  I just moved a queen sized solid wood bed and mattress and I’ll tell you, don’t mess with me!

It was harder just bringing all the bedding downstairs–I kept knocking things over!

Anyway, I’m off to take a quick rinse off in my non-functioning shower but that’s another story and another day’s work.

later, gator!

 

The End of a Chapter

I have gone to the apartment for probably the last time tonight. I really felt like a page is turning again.  I stood outside and looked at the stars like I often did there.  I don’t look at the stars that much in the house-I don’t sit outside that much I guess.

So, one last load, lots of garbage.  I hate when it gets down to the dregs of things you just don’t know what to do with–you end up throwing them all in a box to deal with later…only in this case, its about 7 boxes.  At least I was able to throw away 5 bags of trash.

I stopped at my daughter’s to beg some food (still don’t have a fridge), went home and just left it all in the van to deal with another time.

Inside the house, though, it was frustrating.  All the stuff that had already come into the house just wasn’t dispersing fast enough.  The rooms were getting cluttered and full of things waiting to be taken elsewhere-Goodwill, the garage, the dumpster.  My living room had been nice and clear until that last load, and you can see my bed standing there, forlorn and unslept-in…I miss that more than anything else!  It’s one of the reasons I’m writing this at 3:30am–my little cardboard mattress is not beckoning me.

living room with bed

I’ve decided I can’t wait til spring to get my bed back.  It’ll take forever to get the mattress and box springs upstairs since I have to go through the back door that’s all boarded up.  That means I’ll need help.  That means I’d have to wait until they have the time to help me.

I can’t wait that long.

SO, I’m going to sleep downstairs in the room off the living room:

bedroom-to-be before

It’ll be OK, then I’ll just use the upstairs as my studio…not as convenient, but it’s only for a year, y’know.  So I kept working in there until I felt I made progress for today:

bedroom to be now

So where did all the stuff go?

kitchen now

That’s *15* boxes of bottles to go downstairs along with the shelf, and some display fixtures for my shows.  NOW I can go to bed.

Tomorrow’s job:

no-hot-water faucet

Trying to figure out why there is no hot water pressure in this knob when the pressure is fine in the sink next to it.  I SO miss a good shower!

Til later…

Pro-gress?

If pro-gress is moving forward and re-gress is going backwards, then I guess the question is, am I ‘gressing’ at all?

The guy came to look at my refridgerator Thursday–diagnosis: burned out fan.  He has to get the part and will come back Friday.  No problem, I have no food in there anyway…but then comes that horrendous snow tantrum and I’ve got a sea of snow that starts at my front door and goes as far as I can see…

It’s literally a foot deep of snow out there.  I call and tell him not to come back, that it can wait til Monday to be fixed, and besides, I’m not going shopping for groceries anyway!

I stayed indoors and worked in the house ALL DAY and I made at least one room look like a home:

kitchen before

It looks like a real home!!!  I unboarded the windows, put the woodwork back up, made curtains and everything!

Casualties: I hammered my finger when hanging up the curtains and that STUPID cabinet in the corner nearly got the best of me…I dropped it twice.  The first time was at the apartment and it fell on me…I think I broke my hand.  4 days later and it’s still swollen and hurts like blazes. 

That’s the PROgress part…the REgress:  Saturday, I got grandkid reinforcements and it took the three of us all morning to dig out the driveway!  Went to the apartment and filled up the van and car, brought more stuff in this house–and its not even MY stuff!  All my parents  stuff that I need to get out of the apartment so we can close it up…it makes me want to cry-my house is back to a narrow path in the living room and the kitchen is getting filled with tools and…and just stuff.  Tomorrow should be the last of it but I think most of what’s left will go into the garage…bikes, gas grill, that sort of Stuff.

I need dish soap…it’s still at the apartment so I can’t even do dishes.  That’s all right, I have hot chocolate mix and a bottle of rum…Who cares about anything else?  It’ll get done eventually!

Everything old is new again…finally!

I’ve been a quilter since the early 70′s.  It was my life-I lived and breathed quilting.  I taught in classes, at workshops, for community events, at civic organizations. 

My proudest achievement was making a quilt by hand inspired by the antique quilts I couldn’t afford to buy.  I patched together scraps to make pieces big enough to cut the patches from, just like they used to years ago.  It was of new materials, but many of the fabrics were part of a reproduction line so they looked the part.  I hand quilted it, then entered it in a show.   Throughout the day, as I worked at the show, I heard women discussing whether it was contemporary or an antique…so I knew I’d succeeded in making my very own ‘antique’ quilt.

Since that time, I’ve moved to contemporary, one-of-a-kind quilts…quilts for walls.  Inspired by clean modern art, by color and line, I created my own graphic statements.  Maybe I should have been a painter, but fabric was my medium, it was all I knew.  My second proudest achievement was creating a quilt that was accepted into the very first international quilt show.  It went to Salzberg, Austria for the huge quilt fest and then traveled for 2 years. 

The quilt scene became so crowded after that.  So many shows, so much money involved, so many hundreds of quilt artists who made these fantastic quilts…I couldn’t help but wonder, would they have made them had there been no show, no $10,000 prize for them to try for? 

I felt very stifled and overwhelmed.  I stopped going to shows, quit my quilt groups, dropped my magazines.  I wanted to create, but I didn’t want to be influenced or amazed by everything out there.  There was so much talent and so many awesome things being done…I basically dropped out and worked on what I wanted, when I wanted, IF I wanted…and it wasn’t often.  I would work furiously for 2-3 months, creating maybe 15-30 pieces, then walk away and do nothing the rest of the year.  I did enter  a show during that time and got in; a friend sent me a picture of the quilt.  I have no idea where the quilt is now, if its sold or if I even still own it. 

But here, this is coming back to the root of it all.  Alabama Chanin is doing it again, but in a new way…simple but so expressive.   Seeing her work excites me and makes me want to go back and do it again.   Check out her blog and give it a go-it will enrich your life!

Alabama Chanin's Indigo Star