November 18, 2013 by clumpaday

Mind The Gap

Clump #91: Clean floors in preparation for holidays.

Thank you to the brilliant cartoonist Stephan Pastis for this Pearls Before Swine comic strip.

I agree cleanliness is often overrated, but there comes a time when you’ve got to take a stand against the dust bunnies. The balance of power must be realigned. We have an orange cat, Pumpkin, whose light fur adds heft to our dust bunny monster.

I won’t post the before photo, but the legs of this table and chairs looked like they were knitting angora sweaters before I undertook the bunny hunt:

Getting ready for visitors staying in our house for the holidays has heightened my awareness of blemishes I often disregard, like the ominous looking, mushroom-cloud-shaped spot below:

Much worse was this awful one on the floor between the kitchen cabinet and refrigerator. I’d always thought it was a wood stain spill left by a careless worker who thought it would be hidden. But in cleaning a spot on the bottom of the stain, I realized the whole thing was coming off!

Woo-hoo! I swiped it with a paper towel sprayed with floor cleaner on a piece of wood, and …

Voila! How long have I lived with this ugly thing? And it was so easily and quickly removed.

This might be a good lesson for other problems in life.

Beware of making assumptions about intransigence.

November 17, 2013November 17, 2013 by clumpaday

Write Christmas

Clump #90: Write and address Christmas cards, part one.

At first, I was stressing about not having the time to finish addressing these Christmas cards and blog about it. Then it suddenly occurred to me: writing the cards in November means I don’t feel under the gun to crank them out in haste. This is what life is like for a person who does not procrastinate. What relief! Joy!

To get in the mood, I set up a little table in front of the TV with the cards and our old address book.

I can tell how old “the cat address book” is by checking inside its cover. When was the last time I was known as “Mommy” instead of “Mom”?

I turned on one of my favorite seasonal movies to get in the mood, Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn, starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. How can you go wrong with those two …

Well, they managed to go very wrong with the song Abraham, in a number celebrating Lincoln’s Birthday. This musical number done in blackface is beyond cringeworthy:

The dance where Fred Astaire lights fire crackers with his cigarette, in the spectacular Fourth of July number, dates the movie. But what style and beautiful line. I could watch any film featuring his peerless dancing. Fred Astaire’s daughter talks about her father in a special feature, Ava Astaire MacKenzie In Conversation With Ken Barnes. She reveals that the fire cracker dance number took 38 takes to film. That’s a lot of smoking!

She also shares that her father took two shots of whiskey before the first take of the number where he was to dance inebriated, then apparently took one more before each subsequent take … and there were seven takes. So, as she says, by the final take, “he was well on his way,” and that was the take they used in the film.

I love the witty repartee between Bing and Fred. The morning after the drunken dance scene, Ted (Fred Astaire) wakes up and asks Jim (Bing Crosby), “Where am I?” Bing tells him, “Holiday Inn.” “How did I get here?” “You were clinging to the undercarriage of a Jeep, I think. Then, pouring him coffee, “Here, have a slug out of the mug.”

(I also love Fred Astaire’s hands.)

The plot is inane: Bing’s character wants to get out of show business so he doesn’t have to work holidays. Farm life gives him a nervous breakdown, so he comes up with the idea of working only on holidays … fifteen days a year.

Japan bombed Pearl Harbor during filming, thus, the patriotic war scenes were added to the Fourth of July number. The song White Christmas originated in this movie (not the movie White Christmas) and became an anthem for homesick troops in WWII.

With every Christmas card I write May your days be merry and bright.

November 16, 2013 by clumpaday

Short/Long-Term Solutions

Clump #89: Place some online gift orders; clear garage doorsteps.

I really hope I can learn the lessons of this 30-day, 30-clump, 30-post challenge: Project Enjoy Christmas. Ordering Christmas gifts in November is much easier than in December. The likelihood that an item will be in stock is so much higher. And if there’s a glitch that adds a little more time, no problem. Wow.

Of course, Christmas is not the only holiday to be mindful of in November. Thanksgiving is coming! I love Thanksgiving. Every year the holiday gets pushed farther and farther out of the public sphere by earlier and earlier ads and decorations for Christmas … where the big money is. The introspective holiday for gathering and giving thanks gets short shrift.

In the spirit of welcoming guests, I took a hard look at the doorway to our house from the garage (sorry for the fuzziness of the photo; hands shaking with sudden awareness):

My long-deceased sister once gave me sage advice about moving into a new house: “Be careful of short-term solutions … they so easily become long-term solutions.” How many times do I need to live that lesson before it sticks?

New home for boots on a tray I’ve been meaning to make into the “boot home” for ages:

Old, old kids’ video games on left (aww, The Jolly Post Office — loved that), to Goodwill; pile on the right, recycle.

This is the container where they were stored in the garage. Looks like it was trying to set down roots. Almost!

The whole garage could use a cleaning, but that’s a clump for another day. Just getting the entrance swept and the door mats shaken out was a big improvement. Aiming for better, not perfect.

My husband helped with the sorting. I told him that in Feng Shui the entrance to the house is very important. He replied, “We were all Fenged-Up.”

Three things I’m thankful for: my husband’s help and sense of humor, light rain on red berries,

and color in trees, even though devoid of leaves:

November 15, 2013 by clumpaday

Life Cycle

Clump #88: Get a move on Christmas shopping; recycle printer cartridges.

Day 15 of my 30-day, 30-clump, 30-post challenge: Project Enjoy Christmas. Halfway through! Today I had to remind myself of the feeling I get when I know I only have a couple of weeks left in December before the 25th. Crunch time. I’m artificially inducing the adrenaline that kicks in at holiday time. It worked. Shop, shop, shop.

I also got rid of a few things. It’s been a while since I’ve recycled our spent printer ink cartridges:

To the lobby of Best Buy they go. Not to be too paranoid, but I could imagine someone checking the video from the store, “Yeah, there’s that woman again, dropping off recycling. No, she didn’t go in the store to buy anything. Why does she always take a picture?” If I had the chance, I’d tell them that my husband is the one in our family who buys technical gadgets. I throw them away.

I saw this great poster in a lovely gift shop on my travels today. But I couldn’t help thinking that if I bought the poster and put it up, would it become like wallpaper … invisible after the novelty wore off?

One thing helping me “to be wholly alive with all [my] might” is looking at the world more closely through my camera.

As the glorious colors of October burn out …

and fade into November’s grays and taupes …

we don’t need writing on the wall. The whole natural world is reminding us: “Try to be alive. You’ll be dead soon enough.”

Today may you live like hell.

November 14, 2013November 15, 2013 by clumpaday

Just Say Go

Clump #87: Empty metal filing box … again.

The box, below, was cleared out in a previous clump, but I recently filled it again in a quick-pick-up-and-stash when company was coming. Nature, and this metal mesh box, abhor/s a vacuum.

Comically ironic: two of the items in the pile were a magazine and a newspaper article on transforming clutter in one month! The magazine article, though very seductive, was disappointing. It offered a piece of advice for each of 30 days. Day 17 was De-Junk Drawers; Day 19: Paper Purge. As if! This was obviously written by an uber-organized person who has no idea what it’s like to struggle with massive clutter build-up.

The newspaper article, written by Lona O’Connor for The Philadelphia Inquirer, was much more useful. For instance, she wrote, “The on-off switch. Another component of those piles are matters you won’t make a decision about and therefore don’t handle. (‘Well, I might go to that convention, so I’ll just hang on to these registration forms for a while.’) Stop. Think. Then either register for the convention or throw the darn paperwork out. Most decision-making is as simple as an on-off switch — yes or no, stay or go — simple alternatives. What makes it hard is you, adding all those irrelevant ‘maybes’ and ‘what-ifs.’ Make this your mantra: ‘On-off, yes-no, stay or go.’ At least half your decisions will suddenly become simple to make. Paperwork follows decision-making.”

I said “Go” to most of the things in the box. I also took the “yes or no” advice and signed up (right away!) for a class I had wanted to take last year at Longwood Gardens. I had been too slow, not due to “maybes and what-ifs,” just garden variety procrastination. The class, Fearless Watercolor, had been sold-out before I’d gotten to it. But not this time.

After:

Longwood Gardens has an indoor plant conservatory which will be beautiful in February. Maybe by then I will be celebrating better decision making without so much paperwork dogging me. Here are two pictures from the iphone photography class I took at Longwood this fall:

When I was taking this photo, a woman nearby told me the flower was poisonous. Seductive yet poisonous, like articles on how to get rid of clutter that become clutter.

November 13, 2013 by clumpaday

Horse Sense

Uncategorized
Christmas Preparations, Fall, Horses, Life, Photos
4 Comments

Clump #86: Wrap more presents; make dining room reservations; reconnect with gift list.

Today I reminded myself how easy it is to get a few, or even a big clump of tasks done early for the holidays … and then fall into a false sense of security. And then … AHH! The days have dwindled down. Emails, catalogs, and flyers are blaring the words “There’s Still Time To Order,” but what you had in mind will be more expensive with extra shipping charges, or is no longer in stock and back-ordered into the new year. I might have to have this little talk with myself a few more times before the end of my 30-day, 30-clump, 30-post: Project Enjoy Christmas challenge is over.

I did get a few more gifts wrapped and written on The List, which was a good memory jog for other things I still need to do/buy. Remember, remember!

One item on my to-do list that felt checked off was reserving space in a private dining room where my mom lives for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. I had called the woman — twice — who helped me out last year, but no answer. Was she afraid to tell me someone else had beat us to it? Yikes! So today while visiting, I made a point of asking in person. Turns out the woman I spoke with last year is no longer working there. Finally, the job is done and a big weight is off my mind.

Visiting with my mom is such a delightful experience. She is compromised in ways common to people her age, but she has the greatest attitude. Her favorite thing to say, about anything, is “Wonderful, wonderful!” I really hope I’ll be able to face old age with even half her grace and good cheer.

As usual, when driving through Lancaster County, I got onto a photo-taking binge. Regular readers will recognize this goose in the town of Strasburg, PA, who has different outfits for every season. She, let’s call her Lucy Goosey, had broken out her woolens. Highly appropriate for the cold weather we’ve been experiencing.

No matter the weather, Amish farm wives hang out their laundry to dry:

I was taken by a lawn blanketed with fallen ginkgo leaves and a plastic snowman (upper left corner) holding forth. To capture the photo, I had to pull into a street quite a distance away. I was pleasantly surprised by a woman who stopped her car and asked whether I needed a ride. “What wonderful people out here in the country,” I thought. My rosy-eyed view of the locals quickly changed when a man (non-Amish) came out of the house next door to this one, shouting, “What’s going on?!” with a threatening tone. I shouted back, “I was just taking a picture.” He didn’t look satisfied, so I added, “The leaves are so pretty,” to which he turned and retreated. I thought, as I high-tailed it out of there, we say “taking,” not “making” a picture for a reason. An element of trespass is part of the act.

My mom has a deep, longstanding love of horses. When I got closer to home I couldn’t help snapping these photos with her in mind:

As I was walking away, I saw this leaf on the sidewalk making a horse-shaped shadow.

Wonderful, wonderful!

November 12, 2013November 12, 2013 by clumpaday

Cata-tonic

Clump #85: Go through, sort out, and recycle catalogs.

The catalogs are coming — the catalogs are coming! My 30-day, 30-clump, 30-post challenge: Project Enjoy Christmas continues with one of the most vexing problems of the season. Just when my mind gets overloaded with extra holiday planning, the volume of mail explodes with catalogs. Vendors I never hear from the rest of the year know I’m a soft touch for their products in November and December. But at a certain point I become overwhelmed and let them pile up. Here’s the current collection, de-clumped from the study where I had guiltily stashed them:

The job: sort through; recycle ones I will not be ordering from; order — now — the gift items I’ve identified. Trouble comes when I see a good idea, and even with a turned-down page corner, I put the catalog aside and it falls into the void of piled up paper.

Plus, I get distracted. I have a tendency to look through catalogs and realize I’m wondering about the models rather than the products the company is advertising. “They’re really featuring her more than the others,” I think. “Are the other models jealous?” This season’s Lands’ End catalog featured a few models with relationship stories. Maybe I’m not the only one who wants to know the scoop about these beautiful people. A mother and daughter pairing was on the cover, in the photo above.

Also, this caption accompanied the photo below: “Colin is used to having his sisters, Anna & Adrienne, put him through the ropes. But he never expected his wife, Ashley, to take their side.” I’ll never get through the pile at this rate, Lands’ End!

And then there’s my annual letter from my friend, Robert Redford, on behalf of Sundance. When I was in my teens, I was driving with my sister one day and we saw Robert Redford driving the other way. Really. It was over in a flash: “Was that–?!” “Yes!!”

So, naturally, I feel a kinship to him as I read his poetic (cryptic?) holiday letter:

I think he’s telling me to go outside and experience the wonders of nature, but the letter is prefacing a whole lot of beautiful stuff I can buy to clutter up my home.

I did go outside and this is what the sunset looked like this evening. And the birds were singing. Thanks, Bob.

November 11, 2013 by clumpaday

Seasonal Journey

Uncategorized
Decluttering, Fall, Life, Photos, Spring, Trees
6 Comments

Clump #84: Mail card; recycle paper from study.

The greeting card, below, was one I’ve had for quite a while. I bought it to send to two dear people we know from our Quaker Meeting who have been trying to sell their house and move. The drawn-out process has allowed us to slip into denial that they would really leave. But yesterday was officially their last Sunday at Meeting before taking off. The card is made by a company called quotable cards.

My sense of loss was echoed by a great weeping cherry tree that stands outside our meeting house:

The few leaves left seemed like teardrops.

From the study, where I had recently let clutter creep back in, I pulled out a big pile of papers. Exhibit “A” of “always some object in the way” from the greeting card quote.

Life’s journey seems easier in the Spring (the same tree earlier this year).

But even in my sad state of mind, I thrilled to the sensation of rustling through fall leaves. “Happiness is the way.”

November 10, 2013 by clumpaday

Sea Change

Clump #83: Change Summer bedspread; clear two bags from study.

I have trouble transitioning. I should have switched out our bedspread quite a while ago. This one is really not warm enough for the cool temperatures of late.

One reason I’ve been lagging is that the fabric design reminds me of the beach and, in particular, this photo taken Memorial Day Weekend at Higbee Beach, NJ:

Subconsciously, I want to go back. Another purple plant picture taken there:

Okay, enough of fantasy land. Time to fess up. I’ve had a relapse. Readers who have been following along know I had cleared out a very onerous clutter pile in our study. It was full of sad and sentimental things belonging to my parents, and/or related to my father’s death. If not for this blog and the support issuing from it, I would not have had the will to accomplish the job. After finishing, I would look into that room for inspiration to tackle other clumps, thinking, “Well, if I could do that …”

And then, the other day, I impulsively invited a good friend over so she could catch up on the latest episodes of the TV show, The Voice (we’re both addicted), which I had recorded. The trouble was, this friend is a self-avowed clean-aholic. So many things still in the sorting-out stage and physical to-do list box were scattered around our living areas. They had grown arms, legs, and tentacles. I madly pried them from many surfaces and shoveled them into the pristine study. Defiled again!

But I will not let this bank of flotsam and jetsam remain. It will ebb away … one … clump … a … day. Here was today’s clump: items taken out of cars and needing to be sorted into piles of keep (and replace), give away, or toss/shred/recycle. Done.

It’s funny how things happen serendipitously. Not long ago the bristle part of my brush became unglued and flew off onto the bathroom counter, smashing this glass container filled with found beach pebbles and shells. It had been there a long time collecting dust, and, honestly, I really didn’t notice it very much anymore; so I don’t feel the need to replace it.

I’m trying to follow the adage that you should only have things in your home that are useful or make you smile, or both. I won’t wait for them to be destroyed to make that determination.

November 9, 2013November 9, 2013 by clumpaday

Taking Control

Clump #82: Recycle old remote controls.

Recycling remote controls at Best Buy: easy. Getting rid of duvet from kids’ bunk beds: difficult. One step at a time.

My husband and I saw the movie About Time last night. I highly recommend it. Funny, touching, romantic, and profound. (“I laughed, I cried …”)

Near the end of the movie, the main character goes through two identical days, but with different results. I was reminded of a quote I had copied down from an Honest Tea bottle cap:

Bread and water can so easily be toast and tea. –Maele Moore

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