Day 39–His Day Has Finally Come

Well, the new year has finally arrived. And that means that I am finally getting around to putting away the Christmas decorations. I will admit that this is one of the least favorite jobs that I do here at Chez Knit. And there are times when I think…

HEY! Maybe I can just leave the decorations up all year long and then just tell people that Chez Knit is actually a West Virginia colony.

No?

Darn.

But I digress.

When I put away the decorations I try to decide if there are any decorations that just don’t fit anymore. Those decorations that you pull out every year and then put right back in the box. You know the ones I mean. We all have them. I am sure that there are more of them that will show up here in the next few days.

But today…..

I am sorry to say that it is time for Easy Rider Santa to ride right out of here.

Yes, Ardith, I still have him….but not for long.

Easy Rider Santa “came” to me several years ago at The Annual March of the White Elephants. That is just another way to describe our yearly gathering to exchange unneeded, unwanted and sometimes heavily damaged goods. What a family!

Easy Rider Santa came to me fully functional and in it’s original box. SCORE!!! And I have put him out several years now. But he really doesn’t play well with others and must be put in a lonely spot where he cannot incite the other Santas to up and take a road trip.

Good bye Easy Rider Santa. It has been nice knowing you. Ardith do you want him back?? I would be GLAD to send him to you.

Day 38 The Re-purpose

Today I am not cleaning out but re-purposing. I try not to do that too often but you will understand when I tell you the story.

First a bit of back story. In 1998 HHBL and I were blessed to be able to take a trip to Israel with my Parental Units. It was fabulous! And I might have brought some things home with me. One of the things that I brought home and put to immediate use was a mug. A mug that I had purchased from the shop of a potter in Bethlehem. Ah Bethlehem, paradise of the locals who would gladly sell me a carved, olive wood camel for $5 or two for $10! Who would follow me on to the bus to try and get that final sale.

But I digress.

I brought the mug home. I loved it. I used it for tea and for coffee. And then one day I decided that I wanted to do a bit of “home remodeling” without having any knowledge of what I was doing. I got it into my brain that I wanted to get rid of the soffits that were above the cabinets in my kitchen. You know what a soffit is? It is the “filler” between the top of a cabinet and the ceiling. I don’t have any here at Chez Knit because I don’t like them. But at the old house I had plenty of them. And they bugged me. So one day I looked at the soffits above my cabinets and thought

I have never liked those.

I am sure they are just decorative.

How hard can it be to take them down.

I will go and get the hammer and the crow bar.

No one ever said that I knew anything about soffits. Or remodeling. The cabinets were fine without the soffits but those soffits were not entirely decorative. But that is neither here nor there. What I need to tell you is that when I started my mini demolition project I didn’t take the time to remove the dishes that were sitting on the counter. It didn’t even occur to me.

And so it was a very big surprise when part of the soffit came off in a less than controlled manner and crashed down onto dishes, breaking 5 cereal bowls AND…..

Chipping my favorite mug in not one but TWO places.

It was not a good day. But that was many a year ago and the mug has been in constant rotation for tea and coffee. The chips never seemed to be a problem. I was happy. Until recently when I took a look at the inside of the mug…..

Ever expanding cracks and hot liquid are not a good mix. The mug hasn’t yet begun to leak but it is only a matter of time until there is an unfortunate coffee incident early in the morning. But I am not ready to totally get rid of the mug. I love it. So I have given it a new life as something else. For the last two months I have had two very small rosemary starts that have been rooting in a little jar on my window sill. They were volunteers that I found in the rosemary plants that I brought inside at the end of summer.

Have I told you that I love rosemary.

And I love my Bethlehem mug.

And now everyone is happy.

Day 37- And The Pottery Just Keeps on Comin’

I think I have mentioned before that I have a pottery problem.

A dishes dilemma.

I ask myself daily the age old question….

How many dishes does any one person need in her life?

And the answer always is, Not as many as you think.

I cling to my pottery/dishes like I cling to my gray hair. Tenaciously. Like a bulldog with a nice meaty bone.

But even a bulldog has to drop that bone at some point.

This is what is being shipped out.

Sorry for the unfocused nature of the picture. That is because it is not focused. In case you missed it. This is a bowl that came as a Hostess gift several years ago at the
Annual Steal-a-thon Ornament Exchange. I have used it off and on but I have other things that work better and so…..bye bye.

This has been used in the past as a butter dish. We keep our butter out on the counter so that it is ready at a moments notice to be slathered on toast. But the problem with this little dish is that it has no top and is therefore open to the air…and vulnerable to rapacious dog lips. Remember this little incident…..

So I have decided that we will stick with the butter dishes that have a lid. It is safer that way.

Yes, yes I know this is Pampered Chef stuff and I know it is great. But I haven’t used it for any reason at all in about 3 years. And I think I can say that if I haven’t used it in three years then I am not going to use it so it goes….bye bye.

This beauty belonged to Grandma Amsler I believe. I have used it in the past but frankly I am tired of cutting a finger on the severely chipped handle every time I cook with it. It is a small size and that was a plus but I am tired of putting money into band aides.

And finally. Hope, these bowls belong with the set of white dishes that I gave you. Do you want them? If so then you can have them. I am not sure how they missed getting into the box of dishes but they did.

My dish cupboards feel lighter.

Did You Miss Me??? Otherwise Known as Day 36

Well! I certainly didn’t intend to take a good portion of the month of December off. I had cleaning out plans. Great and weighty plans.

And most of them came to absolutely nada.

I only have so many hours in the day. So many minutes in my life. And the month of December were filled with parties. And then more parties. And then Christmas. And family. And friends. And cookies, oh so many cookies. But no snow…..at least not until today.

Can I clean out the snow?

But I am back now and gearing up for more clean out.

As proof of this I offer you my small clean out for today.

You may not think this is a very big offering but believe me it is. It is the first step in breaking my addiction to pottery and dishes.

Good golly it is about time!

I am sure that there will be more pottery to come as I work in the dish cupboards.

That I even have multiple dish cupboards should tell you about the problem.

Sigh.

And to those who have let me know that you are starting the year out with clean outs, my joy is overflowing!!! Jen and Bonnie and all…..

You go girls!!!

Good Golly!

I so did not intend to take a break from The 100 Days Cleanout!! It is just that Thanksgiving and then Christmas have caught up with me. They have beaten my to a pulp and then gone off and taken over. It might have been the 4 parties in 10 days that we hosted here at Chez Knit. And that doesn't include the parties that HHBL and/or I were invited to. Good Golly.

Don't leave me.

We will be back after the first of the year with lots of interesting things that are being cleaned out. I will tell you that the cleaning out is continuing and I took a boat load, or perhaps I should say a car load of stuff to Am Vets late last week. They were happy. I was happy. It was all good. Coco, my car, was happy when I unloaded all that stuff. She was packed to the gills.

And then Shoe Queen could put her car in the garage for the Christmas holidays so she was happy. Of course we don't have any snow at the moment so her car, Annie, could have been out on the driveway. But I am a nice mommy so she gets to park in the garage.

Have a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Try to clean something out for every thing that is brought in over the holidays. I am trying to remind myself of that.

I might be in negative territory at the moment. But we won't talk about that right now.

Day 35-Angels We Have Heard

The house is finally decorated. The tree is finally up. And I have been busy cleaning out Christmas decorations that no longer are used.

The first to go are these.

I know, I know. I am horrible for giving the angels to boot. I hang my head in shame.

But they are still going in the donate pile.

The angels that are standing I purchased somewhere, in some shop, some time ago. I cannot remember a thing about the purchase and I don’t really like them all that much. They have never really played well with the other angels over the years. And so, because of my ambivalent feelings towards them, they must go.

The pile of egg angels in the front are ones that I made many years ago when the progeny were little. I spent many hours doing crafts because it was either that or dig a big hole in the back yard and bury the little ankle biters up to their necks. These angels were actually a project that I taught at a crafting workshop at church. I have a bunch more but these fellows have not fared all that well. I could glue the wings back on but there are other problems with them. Eggs are not generally flat on the bottom and do not sit up well. I sanded the bottoms of these when I made them to help them be a bit more stable. These angels evidently didn’t get the memo. And I am tired of taping their little eggy angel bottoms to the table.

So they get to go

Bye Bye.

I Haven’t Cleaned Out A Darn Thing Today

I hang my head in shame. I haven’t cleaned out a thing today.

This is why.

I have been cooking. And baking. And generally getting a bunch of prep work done for a party on Monday.

My kitchen looks like a bomb hit it and I have managed to use every measuring spoon and cup that I possess. And I possess more than my fair share.

And the bowls! Oh the bowls.

Plus the food processor.

And various pans.

I have used 2.5 pounds of butter in the past three hours.

And 2 pounds of powdered sugar.

And pounds of coconut.

And mounds of chocolate chips.

And blocks of cheese.

So maybe we can say that I cleaned out various shelves at the local Wally Mart.

Yeah, that’s it!