Five plants, and counting...

Last week, my office moved to a new location.  Same job, same colleagues, but everything else has changed.  Including my view...

 Looking east toward the Delaware River.  You can see the Ben Franklin Bridge and the spire of Christ Church.

Looking south.  That's the Bourse building on the right side.  In the distance on the right you can see one of the squares of Independence Park, and then the spire of St. Peter's beyond.

And it being me, I had to decorate my new cubicle right away.  My style is so consistent...  The photos take you CW around the cube from the south window.

But best of all, we are free from the one plant rule (which I always thwarted by having two!).  There are currently five on one of my window ledges, a few still recovering from their cold, winter existence in my house.  I think I need more.

Okay, you can only see four of the five in this image, but I think that five is only the beginning.   I have a whole other window ledge to fill....

Where am I?

I found this bank of tiles when I was out and about this weekend.  I love the combination of the clear glass, the frosted glass and the picture tiles.

Any guesses where this was? 

I once was lost...

I hate losing things.  I know that this is not uncommon.

I categorize lost items into two types:  things lost in the mire of my house, AKA eventually findable things, and things lost on the outside, AKA things that are most likely gone.

It seems like there has been a rash of lost items in my life lately:

1.  The toothbrush that I was sure I packed and took to St. Croix

2.  A pair of black pants I wear to work

3.  The metal rulers I use constantly for crafts

4.  Craig’s name badge with the really good magnet from St. Croix

5.  My house key

The first three items fall into category one - lost in the house.  The last is in the latter category.  The fourth is in the murky in-between area.

1.  When I travel, I always pack my toothbrush last thing in the morning.  I know I pulled out the toothbrush holder the night before, and then the morning we left for St. Croix, put the toothbrush in another holder and packed it.  Maybe.  But when we got to St. Croix, I had no toothbrush, and had to buy another one.  But I’m still convinced that if I comb through my bedroom one more time, and check in that suitcase again, I will find it!  I know it!

2.  My black pants were hiding.  I wash them at home, so they weren’t at the dry cleaners.  They weren’t in the closet, the hamper, or hanging up in the laundry room.  They were gone.  Until I remembered that I took them to DC in January in case I needed pants that weren’t jeans, and finally looked under the dress in that bag of clothes on the closet door.  FOUND!

3.  As a result of last month’s craft room cleaning and partial re-organization (more on that, and the January Cure anon), my 12” metal rulers have gone astray.  They have to be in there somewhere, but when it came time to make my valentines, and I finally remembered where all of the rulers ended up, they were not to be seen.  Still looking.  So frustrating.  I know they are in there!!!!!

4.  In St. Croix we were given the usual pin-on badges, along with very powerful, rectangular magnets.  These were fantastic.  We could avoid putting holes in our clothes, but the shape of the magnet kept the badges on, and not spinning around on an axis point like the small circular magnets do.  We wore them daily, and on the last day, I packed mine in a carry-on bag.  I have a memory of pointing out to Craig at some point that he could stop wearing his button, and he took it off and either handed it to me, or stuck in in one of our luggage pieces.  We can’t remember which one.  And now it is gone.  Just gone.  We’ve searched everywhere.  Even though I think this one is in the category of lost in the house, and will be found at some point, I suppose there is a small chance that it was in our checked luggage and removed by airport authorities because of its strong magnetic powers.  Unlikely, maybe, but possible…

5.  Last Friday, as is my usual habit, I left myself just enough time to get to my morning train into work.  I’m always trying to do one more thing before leaving the house.  Usually that one more thing is finishing my breakfast.  Last Friday the one more thing was add a couple more items to the recycling on my way to the train.  I remember picking up my bag, finding my house key and grabbing the empty cereal box to toss into the can as I passed it.  Sometime between that moment and when I arrived at the office, my key went missing.

I am an optimist about the Category 2 missing items.  I almost always think I will magically find things.  And I have!  Earrings have turned up on sidewalks.  My dropped wallet was mailed back to me.  My MAC card left on the supermarket check-out counter was waiting for me when I went back to claim it.  Thin Mints and a water bottle that I left at a dance were still there months later!!!!  I felt sure that my key would resurface.

I turned out every bag and pocket I could think of, kept looking in the train station, asked at the place where I get my coffee.  No key.  I was slowly coming to the conclusion that I most likely dropped the key into the recycling can with the cereal box, and both were hauled away.  But I still kept looking.

It snowed last Friday.  Yesterday morning (Wednesday), as I hurried to the train (now leaving 3 minutes earlier, yet still arriving at the same time, i.e., late, go Septa), on the ground next to sidewalk leading up to the train platform was my key!  Hurrah!  Once the snow melted, it was revealed, probably right where I dropped it...

Valentine's past...

Last February, I was very much looking forward to Valentine’s Day with my sweetie.  We were newly engaged, and this would be our first February 14^th together.  But on February 13^th, I had jury duty…

I’m called for jury duty regular as clockwork in Philadelphia County.  And this time I went in hoping for a quiet day and a nice lunch at Reading Terminal.  But no.  After sitting for most of the morning, I got called up for a panel.  And after more sitting, maybe interspersed with lunch, I got picked for a jury.  I was so angry.  Not dismayed, but actively furious.  I was on a jury once, and I hated it.  I felt that I was the one being held prisoner and forced to serve against my will.  I grumbled a lot and was extremely, stupidly resentful.

The next day, Valentine’s Day, I reported at the appointed hour and proceeded to wait with only a couple of others while supposedly, jury selection continued.  I sat, prepared for a long, horrid day, with only worse days to come.  And then…

Miracles!!!  Someone official came in and said that one of the attorneys was ill and they had to postpone the case.  We were released.  Free!!!  On Valentine’s Day! 

The fairy tale had a happy ending.  Home I flew, and shortly after came my sweetie, who had the afternoon off!!!  Instead of being cooped up in a jury room, I took a walk with the man I love and sat eating ice cream in the February sun.  Perfect.

This year we will cook and share a nice dinner, go to bed early, and read to each other with a fuzzy kitty cat at our feet.  Likewise perfect.

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

Staying on task??

It becomes increasingly challenging to stay on task with the AT January cure as life intervenes and other priorities assert themselves, but the idea is still a good one, so onward with the progress report...

Last weekend's task:  Deep clean the kitchen, buy flowers, plan and cook a meal

Since I'm a big list-maker, I'd mapped out the entire weekend's to-do items, including all of the above.  I somehow neglected to include the getting sick part that kicked in Saturday afternoon and killed most of Sunday, but welcome to life.

On Friday night I moved a loose Ikea cabinet out of the craft room and into the kitchen.  I was still convinced it could be useful, but it never found its home upstairs.  I cleaned off the stool the cabinet displaced, and mopped under and around all of the shelves and appliances and the radiator in that half of the kitchen.

The cabinet is narrow and shallow and just fits next to the radiator.  It now holds plastic wrap and foil in the cubbies meant for wine, and cookie cutters in the two drawers, now freeing up more pantry shelf space.  And best of all there's this empty space in the middle to hold cookbooks, and telephone books (I know, I am the only person in the world to still keep, and even sometimes use telephone books).  I did some other cleaning in and around the kitchen, but as Sunday was destined to be the big day, and I spent most of it in bed, it's still on the list.  But I did buy flowers on our grocery trip, and I cooked quinoa for the first time for a warm quinoa-arugula-pear-sausage-roasted Brussels sprouts salad.  Yum!

Here are this week's tasks and my progress so far...

Day 9:  Create a Landing Strip

The idea here is to have a place immediately as you enter your home to hang up your coat, put down your purse, keys, work bag, etc., and spaces in which to sort and deal with your mail.  I have long used my front table for all of the mail.  This past weekend, I changed the recycling bin so that it fits under the table, but is still easy to use for immediate junk mail recycling (AKA, most of my mail).  I took old mail I need to save upstairs to be filed (true confessions:  it's not filed yet; office = nightmare), went through the recent catalogs, and generally neatened things up.  I still don't have great solutions for coats, purse, and other bags without using the window seat and newel post, but I'll keep thinking about it.

Day 10:  Work on Your Goal Project

So, I did take a full set of "before" pictures of the craft room, but those are worthy of their own post.  Since then I have put all of the stamps that have a place away, created baskets for the uncatalogued, and catalogued, but needing a home stamps, and generally put some stuff away.  I got back to creating my stamp drawer maps (I've done 16 out of 64 or 1/4 of them), which are also worthy of a separate post, but all in all, there is still too much in there, and not nearly enough days left in the month to tackle it.

Day 11:  Try a Media Fast this Evening

This is by far the easiest task since the vast majority of my evenings are like this.  Because my computer is powered by very old hamsters, I rarely use it at home.  I don't watch TV, only the occasional movie, but since the room with the TV also has the broken radiator and a hole in the ceiling, it's really easy to avoid going in there in the winter.  And after work, my cell phone generally stays in my work bag or my purse.  Last night, I definitely media-fasted.  I went to the dance instead.

Day 12:  Declutter Books and Media

I feel pretty up on this task, because it's ongoing for me.  I love books, but I have been doing myself the favor of getting my reading material almost exclusively from the library for some years now.  And because I'm still out of shelf space for the books I do have, I'm constantly looking for books I can bear to part with.   So the instant a book I own seems less vital to my life, it goes in the outbox.  (And coincidentally, if you have or know a pre-teen or young adult who needs something to read, let me know and I may be able to do something about that...)

But here's the rub:  old cassette tapes.  Realistically, I'm never going to listen to these again.  I keep meaning to make a list of the albums and songs I should buy on CD or download, and then get rid of the tapes, but I haven't done it yet.  Maybe that will be a February project...

Oh, and....

I finally decided what to frame:

Where should I hang it??

What's in a name...

For completely unknown reasons today, I started to think about our old set of dairy silverware.  I grew up in a house with a kosher kitchen where we had separate dishes, silverware, pots, and pans for meat and dairy.  We also had “good” dishes for each, and silver for holiday meals, which were meat meals.

I always liked our dairy silverware, which had an asymmetrical swirl pattern.  And in fact, I have the dairy silverware, packed up, in a box, in the corner cabinet in my dining room.  When Mom was selling the house I grew up in about fifteen years ago, and saving as little as possible, she gave me the silverware, which I knew I wanted to use someday.  It’s still in the box.

But, I do have a few pieces of the silverware among my mismatched pieces in the silverware drawer (which include an assortment of my grandmother's meat AND dairy sets!).  But admittedly, these two teaspoons and a tablespoon are not from my mother’s set.  When I first started going to Pinewoods in the mid-90s, the dining hall silverware was this fantastic, motley collection, much of which had “Bd of Ed., City of New York” engraved on the back.  Hidden in among these were three random pieces in that pattern I was so familiar with!  Let’s just say that they didn’t remain at camp, and leave it at that…

Using one of those teaspoons for my morning yogurt, I flipped it over, curious to know the name of the pattern.  And wouldn’t you know it doesn’t say, only the name of the manufacturer:  Simeon L & George H Rogers & Co Stainless.  But in these days of the internet, that’s plenty.  Google Images and Ebay found it for me in no time:  Paramount.

Time to open that box...

2013 House Projects...

So far, I'm still keen on the Apartment Therapy January cure.  It's been fun reading people's Cure diaries after the first week and their lists of projects.  It really does make the month-long project sound possible as long as I stay grounded in the reality of my busy schedule and not even try to take on too much.

Keeping up with the home cure task list, I think I've decided what piece of art to frame.  Besides, Michael's is having a huge framing sale...

Here's the Cure task update and report:

Yesterday's task - plan a party for the end of the month
For this weekend - deep clean the kitchen, plan and cook a meal, buy flowers

Report:

I started thinking about my annual valentine-making party yesterday.  I think I skipped having one last year due to my outrageous travel schedule.  This year it will likely be a small evening event, so all two of you who are reading this, let me know if you want to come.

A deep kitchen cleaning is long overdue.  The oven has had a can of oven cleaner sitting next to it for a couple of weeks now.  I am frightened of the space between the refrigerator and the wall.

Here's the big list of house projects for the year:

Front Porch

Hang original front door

Add window boxes or shelves for summer plants

Move empty pots and soil to the backyard

Replace non-functional doorbell

Living Room/Entry

Organize landing strip; file or recycle all papers

Finish tacking up sofa skirts

Alter window seat cushion covers so that they fit properly

Make a designated space for purse and work bag

Dining Room

Paint small patch of wall under the thermostat

Inventory the corner cabinet

Label all china cases with permanent marker

Kitchen

Repair water damaged ceiling

Re-think spice shelf solution so that there is room for all of the spices

Organize the loose recipes into a box, book, or electronic resource

Organize party planning recipes and ideas

Re-pot the Christmas cacti

Paint kitchen cabinets

Clean oven

Laundry Room

Re-hang clothes drying rack

Corral the endless supply of plastic grocery bags

Repair washer hot water supply

Garden

Stabilize wisteria trellises

Prune roses and hydrangeas

Create a garden care list

Create outdoor storage for mower, potting soil, pots and tools

2nd Floor Parlour

Repair radiator

Repair bay window roof

Repair ceiling

Freecycle telephone table

Office

File or shred all of the papers!

Create a full inventory and index of dance books

De-clutter the doorway shelves

Repair water-damaged walls

Craft Room

Streamline craft room storage

Paint and hang wood shelves

Continue to make stamp drawer maps to enable quick clean-up of stamps

Create zones for different items

Move outbox to another area of the house

Put everything away

Bathroom

Wash shower curtain and liner

Wash mold from ceiling

Repair water-damaged ceiling

Re-paint peeling areas

De-clutter the cabinets

Repair the sink drain/stopper

Bedroom

Keep dresser and trunk clutter free

Repair damaged ceiling

Review scarves and only keep the few I wear; create new scarf storage

Third Floor

Repair hallway roof

Replace damaged hallway ceiling

Keep guest beds made and covered with king size sheets to keep clean

And this month's special focus project:  the Craft Room!!!!

In a future post, I will share the scary "before" pictures with you...