SPRING CLEANING----PART 2

Since the phone hasn't rung, I will move on to Plan B: this office! Last fall when we emptied out the garage for my husband's car, I asked him to take the empty file cabinet and an old chest of drawers out and put them into what is my sewing room. The bureau could hold mending and the file could hold everything from the office that I wanted to keep but didn't need to access on a regular basis. Struggling to get these two items onto what he calls a "hand truck", wheeling it up the ramp, and moving them into the smallest bedroom that I claim for sewing and ironing wasn't easy, but he did it. It took two full weekends to get the garage ready to accept his car, but we did that too. Now instead of going outside to go to work and worrying about slipping on any ice or scraping it off the windshield, my husband can just go into a covered area that is free of these hazards. Mission accomplished. Now it's MY TURN to put the house part of this plan into action.

What will be the hardest part of this will be moving non-furniture things in the sewing room. Years ago I bought some fabric that I thought would cover the big couch in the living room. Being afraid that one section was not enough, I purchased two large precut pieces. They were put into the sewing room with the intention of using them "soon". "Soon" turned into years and these fabric pieces are still in their original state in the sewing room. I purposely got a heavy fabric that would survive cat claws. Well, it's HEAVY! I can barely lift even one piece, let alone both. To cover the couch they will have to be held up on it, measured, and cut to the sizes of the sections that I will then sew together. This is definitely not something I can do alone; it will require help from my husband. Meanwhile it will remain in the sewing room, and I will have to find a place to put it after I try to wheel around it.

The other things taking up space in the sewing room are curtains that I brought with me from back home. They are basically standard sizes that would work as Cape Cod style on my empty windows. (If people want to see into my house, they are welcome. If after twelve years they are still curious, they need glasses!) The master bedroom windows are standard size, and with hangers installed, the blue ones would work. The "guest room" has one window the same size as the master bedroom and the other that matches the windows on the front of the house. I have nothing that would cover both and still match. The sewing room is the same as the other front windows, and I will have to have my husband's help again fastening hangers and putting the curtains up. Being unable to stand up any more is a major nuisance! Today my husband took his Christmas gift cards to the huge store that sells, among other things, guns, like the rifle he brought home. Maybe I shouldn't bother him that much with curtains? On my next trip into the sewing room I should take some stuff that's sitting on the floor of this office and put it into the filing cabinet. That would enable me to MOVE AROUND IN HERE in my stupid wheelchair. (I should be grateful to have it…it beats crawling.)

Someone once said that if you haven't worn something within a period of 2 years, you should get rid of it. The sewing room contains boxes of clothes that I haven't worn since we moved here twelve years ago. I keep taking them out, re-folding them, and putting them back into the same boxes. Some of these things were in fashion YEARS AGO. I am not a person who cares about wearing the latest styles, but some of this stuff has got to go. My daughter didn't want it. I had tried putting it up on FreeCycle with no response. Some of it had belonged to my late mother and had been jammed into boxes that were coming here when we moved. A few things I would LIKE to wear again, but being in a wheelchair takes away getting normal exercise and leads to changing clothes sizes, unfortunately. So those jeans will hopefully help someone out when I donate them to the thrift store. The painful thing is parting with a beautiful jacket from an expensive store that my husband gave me for Christmas many years ago. It was meant for another person, someone with shorter arms. The sleeves didn't even reach my wrists and on that holiday visit to my in-laws he turned down the deep cuffs to make the sleeves long enough. It looked ridiculous, but no one really noticed.