Getting caught up

I’ve still been reading the book on simplifying, “Secrets of Simplicity”……more revelations here for me. 

Make a list of your top ten “tolerances”.  Things that distract you, waste your time, weigh you down, and have a negative effect on your life.

Then, imagine what it would be like to live in a tolerance-free zone.

 

Then, choose the item that seems the easiest to eliminate.

For me, I’ve been working on clearing out 2 “junk drawers” this week. It’s hard (for me)…..I have tossed out lots of papers that I no longer need, given away 2 extra calculators that were hiding in there….found lots of pens that I can use and have put those in my husband’s junk drawer…..his is MUCH better than mine!  Found 3 colors of nail polish and some lipsticks and lip balms, found some cool earrings that I had forgotten about…..really, for me, it’s the drawers where I stick small things when I’m in a hurry and trying to tidy things up…..I’m going to work hard at finding those things that are useful a proper home and getting rid of things that I KNOW I won’t use.  Yes, I have a complete list of 10 tolerances to start with…..some big, some small, but I know I will feel much better as I work through the list.

 

Monday morning we woke up to snow….just a little, but snow all the same.  I took a picture of Lonnie as he went outside EARLY that morning……

….poor guy, he’s petrified of storms and lightning and he thought the flash from my camera was lightning…..he ran back in the house and was shaking and panting and it took me a bit to reassure him that it was NOT storming outside….it was just the flash from my camera. (It has stormed several times this past week)

On my list of “tolerances” is getting the 3 garden rugs hung…..I think I know where they are going to go, but first I need to take them to a framer and have him design “some sort of something” for the back of them…..I would like them to hang flush against the wall, have some support, so they don’t sag AND be able to hang each of them with just 1 nail in the wall.  Dulcy has given me the name of someone, so I’m going to stop by there Saturday and see if he can work something out for me.

In the meantime, I’ve started working on my Redbud Runner that I designed and started in Florida.

 

I’m excited about this, because I hope to use up a lot of my brown and gray recycled stash for the tree rings and overdye a lot of my light colors to make the background on this rug……I guess you could say I am planning on this being a big “stash buster” runner.  The thought of using things up is very appealing to me right now…..I just feel overburdened by lots of “stuff”!

I took a few pictures tonight to give you an idea of just how large this runner is….

I think it is about 8 feet long….this may well be one of the largest rugs for me to date.

This spring it warmed up really early and everything bloomed out….daffodils, Bradford pears, forsythias, star magnolias……EVERYTHING…..now it’s cold and damp again…..made ham and beans and cornbread tonight….perfect for a damp chilly evening.  Kenny had checked out a cookbook at the library a few weeks ago,  “In the Kennedy Kitchen”.  He was born the year Kennedy was assassinated, so he has always been fascinated with the Kennedy family. This is one of those cookbooks where everything sounds MARVELOUS, but not over the top…most of the ingredients actually sound like something you could find in your neighborhood grocery…..we now own a copy, yes, it’s that good!

Tonight I made the cornbread from the cookbook….it turned out really well.  Okay, it turned out really well considering I had mixed up all the dry ingredients from the recipe and then Kenny said…..”why don’t you use buttermilk instead of just milk”……so I went to the store and got buttermilk and when I returned home, I saw the little side note about the buttermilk…..if using buttermilk instead of milk….change the baking powder to 2tsp instead of 4tsp and add baking soda……well, I had already added the 4tsp of baking powder, so I just used part buttermilk and part milk and left out the baking soda…..it tasted good, but the middle puffed way up and it cracked and it just looked a mess.  Oh well, perfection is overrated!

 

Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent  out of shape.