Three little storage problems solved

As part of my healthy eating plan we eat a lot of fresh vegetables. Although the refrigerator in the Alfa is a double door type, I find it fills up pretty quickly when packed with produce. At the house I store things like onions, sweet potatoes and winter squash either in a basket on the counter or in the fridge. But in the Alfa, I don't want baskets on the counter. And since these foods don't really require refrigeration, I needed to find an alternative place for them.  

A bin in a cabinet seemed the logical place. For our last trip I put several onions, a sweet potato, and a spaghetti squash in an open plastic bin in one of the pantry drawers along with the breadbox and a few other things.
But this was not a good place because when the drawer and the door are closed, there is almost no air circulation.  Because the weather was mild we did not run the air conditioner and apparently it got quite warm in the drawer, and within a couple of days I noticed things were ripening quickly.  

Problem #1. What to do with produce that is not refrigerated.

Problem #2. We plug in our laptop and iPad to charge when we go to bed. Each of the cameras also has a cord for data transfer and charging.

We have been setting them up on the table to charge, but the available outlet is behind the leg of the table and a bit awkward to get at.

I have designated a desk drawer in the bedroom for cord storage, and want to develop the habit of always putting them away after use. But this has not worked well. We tend to leave the cord plugged in and the end loose. Downloading pictures only takes a few seconds, but the cord seems to stay out all of the time.

Problem#3. Cord clutter.

OK, so what do a hard-to-get-at plug, USB cords, and onions have to do with each other?  

My magic magazine rack conversion.

Several months ago I bought a wood magazine rack for $5.00 at a garage sale. I thought I might be able to use it in the Alfa, but up to now I couldn't find a good place, or use for it. Recently I got the idea to make it into a vegetable bin!

I cut a cover for it out of some scrap particle board and used some fleece and hot glue to make a hinge to keep the top in place when we are driving.

When sorting through my drawers, I found  two mesh bags with zippers from Walmart that I had never used.  I will put produce in them, and be able to wash them with the laundry occasionally since they are actually meant for washing "delicates."

The fleece fabric wrap around the dowel sides is to hide the white bags, but still allow air flow.

Before covering the top of the hardboard with scrap fleece, I used cable ties to attach a power strip to it. It is much easier to reach than the one behind the table leg, and the power cord will help keep the magazine rack from moving out from under during travel. 

As a more convenient place to keep the USB cords and perhaps a pen or two, I attached a lidded plastic box with velcro squares.  I think it was for storing small floppy discs in at one time. 

When my chair is in place you can hardly see this multi purpose, construction, but I think it will solve several problems without taking up much space.  

I'm also pleased that I used things that I might otherwise have tossed out! 

Reuse, recycle, repurpose...

Patience

I really am trying hard to be patient and take every day as it comes. Last week I spent some time sorting and tossing. So much stuff!

After working on art materials and writing a thoughtful post about moving on, I got a couple of orders in Friday's email from customers who are willing to wait the couple of weeks it will take me to make the animals they want.  One is from a lady that has ordered something for her son every Christmas for the last  five years.  He has quite a collection! The other is from the UK, and the customer promptly reconfirmed when I emailed the shipping cost, and production time details.   So I guess I'll be working on sculptures for a bit.

Craig had a cold early this week and so put off starting any new work around the house.  But he felt better by Thursday, and since the weather was dismal, he took my suggestion to do a little drywall repair in the upper hall. 

 We had a leak there before the new roof was put on and there is some water damage. It's a good "putzy" job for a rainy weekend. It will probably take a couple of days for him to do, and then the hall will be ready for me to paint. I'd like to have that done before we leave for Christmas.

Friday, I spent some time going through my closet. 

I pulled out everything that was too big, worn out, or not wanted.  

I have done this several times in the last two years and although I know I still have too many, I  feel I am getting closer to having the right amount of clothes. 

Over the weekend I measured the length of the closet pole in the Alfa and marked off the pole in my closet in the house to be the same size. There is  24 inches of pole on my side of the closet.  I have installed some plastic shelves and a shoe holder on my side that take up the remaining space. Craig gets 32 inches of pole on his side.

Now I can see what is going to fit. It looks like I still need to cut down by about 1/3. It seems that jackets take up a lot of space.  I eliminated two today, but I still have more than I will have space for.  

I also have more Tshirts and sweatshirts than I need.  I tossed at least a dozen Tshirts into the rag bag today. We will be staining some new doors and woodwork soon and they will come in handy.  Since it is winter now I am wearing long sleeve shirts every day.  I know I'll need both long and short sleeved shirts in the future.  I wonder if I can stow some clothes somewhere other than the closet.

Little by little I have also emptied the overhead shelves on my side of our closet. 






I did another pass thru my dresser drawers too, and have tossed just about everything I don't wear.  I found a couple of pair of shorts that I didn't remember that will fit me now, and got rid of several that don't.

I also found this old treasure: A pair of cotton lady's dress gloves.  I've had them since we lived in Wisconsin 35 years ago.  I had a dressy winter coat that had a fur collar and three quarter length sleeves.  I wore these long gloves with it. I wonder where Goodwill will put them.  They are in perfect condition.

Craig doesn't agree with my way of getting rid of things a little at a time.  He says we can just load up the Alfa and whatever doesn't fit we will dump.  I told him his head will explode from the pressure of all the things he will have to think about in the weeks after the house sells!

[From Craig: as Merikay has been talking about this, I'm about ready to go in and throw almost all of my old clothes away. It would be a lot of
fun, and I would avoid having my head explode...]

 We will get through this.

Closing Down a Lifetime of Work

How do you know when it is time to move on or declare you are ready to retire?

For most of us, what we do has been a big part of who we are for most of our adult life.  

I think I'm at a big transition point in my life.

For years, I considered life and its demands secondary to my art work.  Although making money was nice, it was not the driving force behind the many hours I spent creating animal head sculptures. One of my favorite remarks was "I only sell them so the house doesn't fill up!"  Every sale made room for a new creation.  Yes, I'm also a wife and mother, but in my heart I'm an artist, and making the animal heads is my identity.

I'm sure many people struggle with similar feelings when they retire from their professions. Happy because they will now have time and energy for other things, like RVing.  But also a little sad and uncertain about leaving behind a world with which they were quite comfortable.

I've let my business die a slow death over the last several years. I have not done any shows, nor promoted my web site in any way, nor pursued retail opportunities, nor restocked as my inventory of available work has slowly sold.  

Instead of life being an interruption of the flow of my art work production, lately new orders have become an interruption to my life.  Instead of being excited about a new creative opportunity, I feel like I've "been there, done that" when asked to make one of the animals on my web site.

After forty-some years, I'm ready to close the door for good.

In the last few weeks I've gotten rid of all of the fabrics I have used to make dragons.  Many were scraps or remnants. I have made several hundred dragons, large and small over the years, and so the fabrics were paid for many times over.  I have culled my fur fabrics and will hang onto them until the house sells.  But I won't be buying any more.

Today I cleared out a large cabinet in the studio where I had many bags and boxes of "pretty shiny things": decorative gold and silver buttons, acrylic gem stones, glass marbles and beads, plus bags of old or broken jewelry that had either been given to me or that I had bought at Goodwill. I used such jewelry to make bases for my "Hoard Dragons" to roost on.  

I am waiting for a return call from the local elementary school to see if I can drop them off for art projects. I figure this close to Christmas, some teacher might be able to use them. Our school no longer has an art teacher :-(  I would like to see the stuff be used rather than tossed.

As I sat here today on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, wrestling with my feelings about slowly closing down my studio, the telephone rang.  It was a New York decorator who wants to know more about me.  Seems he had just found my web site and "loved" my work.  He said he is doing a Manhattan hotel and my work would be perfect for one of the areas.  He asked what I had that could go out immediately because the project was almost done and he had a deadline. I told him what I tell anyone who inquires.  I am still making animal heads, but on a custom order basis only.  No inventory, and  that it takes several weeks from order to ship. This was too long for him, but he did say he would keep me in mind in the future. I told him I could do some things for him if he gave me advance notice and we left it there.

Why today?

If he had called several weeks ago I would have been able to do the job.  Except for a couple of international orders, I have not had any business for weeks. In  years when I did shows, this would have been a very busy time with Christmas sales. Not this year.

The truth is I will be somewhat glad to have it end. I was not at all unhappy about not being able to take his order. I got more satisfaction out of making that blanket for the Alfa than I would have gotten from making yet another $500 moose.

I may be able to take some aspect of my work forward, or perhaps I will come up with another wonderful line that will be compatible with full time RVing.  

To quote an old expression: "When one door closes, another opens."  

I just have to have the creative courage to pass thru.

I think I'm ready.

Bedspread for the Alfa

After having good results making the reading pillow and the chair vibrator pad cover out of fleece, I decided to look into making a duvet cover or quilt for the bed in the Alfa. Over the years I seem to have collected a half dozen comforters, and I thought a removable duvet cover would be better than a new quilt.

I was intrigued by the wide variety of fleece fabrics I have seen. However even though there are many available at the several large fabric stores in town, none were quite what I wanted.

I decided to look online and found the Hancock Fabric Site was having a huge sale.  I had paid $12.99 for the one yard of fleece I used for the pillow and seat cover. Hancock has over 900 prints! One of them was the same as the one I had bought locally, so I knew what the quality was. Many of the prints were on a closeout sale for $3.99 per yard.   

Knowing a good deal when I saw it, I looked at all 900+ designs and picked two. I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to make or how. To be on the safe side I ordered six yards of each. One is a Native American design, and the other is a rustic cabin print.  They don't really go together, but that's OK because you don't see them both at the same time.

I've been itching to get started on it, but with railings to sand, animal heads to make, and Thanksgiving to enjoy, I had to leave the fabric alone for a while.

Which was probably a good thing, because by the time I was able to get to work I had nixed the duvet cover as too much trouble to take on and off the comforter, and a quilt as possibly being too warm for summer nights.

Instead I decided on making a reversible fleece  bedspread that could be used as a lighter blanket in warmer weather.

First I cut each six yard piece in half.  I used one 60' x 108' piece as a center panel and cut two 22' x 108' side panels from the second half.  I did this with each of the designs creating identical front and back pieces.

Sewing the individual sides was not too hard.  I had moved my sewing machine to the dining room table because I knew I couldn't manage this work on the small sewing cabinet I normally use.

Getting old is a bummer.  I never had so much trouble getting a bobbin started or threading the machine needle as I do now.

By the time the two sides were put together, handling the twelve yards of fabric was a challenge.

I did six lines of stitching from top to bottom, and a line all around the edge to stabilize the two layers. For each line I had to roll and bundle the spread so I could sew the line.

I made it spread size so that I could bring it up over the pillows when the bed is made.  I find the regular Queen size comforters are a bit short for that.

I also made it to drape over the sides and end of the bed.  

This is the more rustic side.  

One spread, two decors. Which do you like better?  Which seasons do you think each matches up with?

And Life Goes On

We had a pleasant family Thanksgiving.  We do not have family living near us, so only our daughter, her husband and our two grandsons were here.  Their German au pair, Anka, also came.  It is always interesting to share the holiday with an au pair because they tell us about traditions in their countries. This was the first time she had tasted turkey.  She said it was good.

Our son was not able to come this year and that made me a bit sad.

On Friday we took them to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park to see our closest redwood grove.  It is not the most impressive, but this might be the Anka's only opportunity to see the big trees.  

There are none down near San Diego, and I don't think she will get to the northern part of the state during her year.



We also went for lunch and walkabout in downtown Los Gatos.  Some of the street trees are finally at their peak of color.

Each of our grandsons has his own special interest.

The twelve-year-old has always loved math, and has now found some internet sites that are helping him learn about math that's quite ahead of his grade.

Here he is not doing homework, he's just having fun.

The nine-year-old loves all things having to do with food and cooking.  The high point of the weekend for him was a trip to a local specialty shop for oil and balsamic vinegar tasting.  

It is now Saturday afternoon.  They just left for their long drive home to San Diego. We will see them again when we go there for Christmas.

I just wish these two holidays were further apart, or they lived a little closer to us.  

Maybe when we are full-timers we can spend the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas down there.  

Something to look forward to.  But now we will have to get back to work on the house for a few weeks.  We finished the stairwell deck railings.  The only ones left are on the upper deck, and we have decided to let them be until spring.  We will also do the stairs then.

Craig is eager to get started finishing four new doors and a bunch of baseboards and door trim wood that he bought last spring.  When the weather started to get nice in May he shifted to outdoor painting work.  Now it is time to shift back to concentrating on indoor projects.

I also want him to do a little patch work on some of the drywall up in my sewing loft.  It was damaged before we had the new roof put on two years ago, and has to be fixed so I can paint the loft and small bedroom up there.

My goal for between now and Christmas is to help Craig and to clear more stuff out of the studio.  Someday it will have to become a bedroom again. 

So, as the title of this post says, "Life Goes On."

What will you be doing between now and December 25th?

Deadline

As work goes on and new projects are considered, I feel as if there is no end in sight.  

I have set a deadline.  
August 1, 2013.  
The house WILL BE ON THE MARKET.  

No one can predict when it will sell, but in my heart, if there is still work to be done, it will be done while the house is for sale, or not done at all!

Craig says we can do it.  

If it is not on the market by then ...

I will ...

I will ...

Stomp my feet and cry. 

In our Yard

First off, the pictures in this post are all pretty bad because they were taken at dusk from some distance.  I don't have a telephoto lens on my point and shoot.

Behind our home there is a rather steep, dry hillside.  We don't water the trees, but there is one stunted apple tree that produces a few fruit each year.  I generally collect them the week before Thanksgiving, add some purchased ones and make a pie.  

Last week I noticed a doe and two yearlings trying to get the apples with no success. I wondered if it was time to pick them.

Yesterday at dusk, I noticed two bucks eyeing the tree.

The one on the right was larger, and at one point he clacked antlers with the smaller buck to let him know whose apples these were! But the smaller buck hung around and watched anyway.  

"If I stare at it long enough, maybe it will just fall down."

"Who needs a longer neck?"

Determination!

Jump!

He made about a half dozen tries and did manage to snag two apples before giving up.  His younger friend managed to get a few leaves when the big guy wasn't looking, but pretty much stayed out of the way.

We don't "garden" because between the deer, gophers and dry summers it is a hopeless venture.  I enjoy watching this sort of thing too much to want to have deer fences around the place.

This afternoon a large group of does were in the yard. 

That buck will be after them soon, and a new crop of fawns will be learning about apples next year.  I can buy as many as I need at Safeway!