Thursday, January 1, 2009

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone and thank you for the wonderful holiday wishes. I hope you all had a great time and were able to celebrate (or not) as you wanted to do. We had a wonderful Christmas season, both of my daughters were home and we played and worked and had a great time together. DD1 and her man left on New Year’s Eve, but it was wonderful to see them again. I have so much to say, since I have not been blogging, that this will be a long post so get comfy (but don’t worry, I will save some for tomorrow).

This year for the first time ever, I was not concerned with having enough presents for everyone, it was very weird. In years past I would actually go deep into debt to buy more and more presents so everyone would be happy, but for some reason I did not have that need this year and it was wonderful! I set my limit and actually came in under that. It is great to know that the holidays are over and I do not have to rob Peter to pay Paul. Another new learning experience for 2008.

I have been reading everyone’s blogs and seeing how everyone has kept track of their knitting and such for the year. Trek even lists what books she has read for 2008. I have never done that, but I purchased a journal yesterday at B&N with a gift card and plan to start tracking my knitting. It is amazing to me that people keep track of their projects and know exactly how much yarn went where. I don’t know if I am organized enough to do that, but I am going to try it and see if it helps me de-stash some of the miles of yarn I have sitting around here.


I did get the big ass wrap finished, here is a picture of it. I used a garter stitch on the ends to avoid the curling issue I was having and it looks okay, imho. I gave my daughter two different shawl pins, one was the little owl poorly pictured here, and the other one was a wooden stick pin that you can see in the picture of the wrap. I told her the story of the stick pin; I purchased it as a set of two at the Renaissance Festival in Atlanta a couple of years ago and used them to hold my hair in a French twist. One of the set was lost in the move and I loved the way the other one looked on the dark green of the wrap, so when she was trying it on I offered it to her also. She likes it like I did on the green so she took it and used it instead of the owl; I am now going to make her another scarf that she can use the with the owl.

Yeah, I did it, I made the deadline for getting rid of 50 things.
34. Face wash that I was allergic to but was too stupid to throw away.
35. A brown sweater that my daughter likes and I did not.
36. A mattress that was moved for no apparent reason.
37. 5 wreaths that I used to use outdoors (there is no place to put them here).
38. More yarn that was disgusting.
39. A set of King size sheets that I didn’t like
40. A dead orchid that I thought I could revive, but gave up on after a year and a half :-)
41. A new mixer that died after the second batch of cookies (it was a cheapo I bought because I have not yet unpacked the good one).
42. A group of coat hangers, we have way too many as we bought more while we were in the hotel and then received a box of them when our household goods arrived.
43. A bunch of cables that I found when unpacking.
44. A shower curtain.
45. Curtain rings.
46. 2 stuffed animals
47. A book, Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War (yes I have resorted to listing them separately, but I figure this is fair since I have already gotten rid of over hundreds of books because I was too lazy to list them separately, or maybe because I didn’t want anybody to see the kind of crap I will sometimes read).
48. A set of queen size sheets.
49. A wooden hair pin.
50. And finally- A few books on tape.

I am so glad I got rid of all that stuff that I think I am going to keep on with this little adventure. I have a hard time getting rid of stuff, I love stuff, but I discovered that I feel lighter when I get rid of some of it. Why keep stuff if I do not need it? I think I am going to try and get rid of 5 things ever month for the next year and see how it goes.

I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year’s Day.

6 comments:

Aunt Kathy said...

Congrats on the decluttering Georgi

That Journal is a good idea, just keep it where you can see it daily or you'll forget, trust me, I speak from exeperience.

Happy New Year

Oh did you ever get your yarn prizes?

Darcys Knotty Knitter said...

You won a knit two tote bag congratulations:)please send your full name and address to darcysknottyknitter@gmail.com

Anonymous said...

Happy new year!

Jane said...

Oh - I so wish that I had been in on the 50 things to throw away before January 1. Beginning this week we have to start paying for tags to put on our garbage bags so I'm going to be even more reluctant to throw things out!
Kathy - you are everywhere I go! LOL
And congratulations Georgi on another win! (Darcys)

smariek said...

Congrats on the decluttering! I too wonder why I moved "junk" to the new house.

Monica (aka monnibo) said...

Awesome decluttering! I'm considering keeping track of the decluttering... or even doing a monthly decluttering challenge. I was thinking like, January: tackle the closet... lol!

P.S. love the big wrap and shawl pin!