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The Uplifting Effects of Allowing Oneself to Grumble

Grumble, grumble, grumble. Sometimes minor annoyances seem to take on a life of their own. It is not that they can't be resolved, its not even that they even ruin your day. Sometimes, when too many things come undone, one simply wants to grumble.

My knees hurt. They have hurt for a week. No actually, only my left knee has been painful for a week, my right knee just started acting up yesterday. I barely got my 10,000 steps in, but I did; 10,012 to be exact. 10k steps is a pretty low-activity day, but I've done worse, far worse.

The fluorescent lights in the kitchen are not working. I don't like them, but they are there, and the kitchen is dark without them, I bought new fluorescent tubes. Then I had to buy a 6-foot ladder so I could reach the fixture to replace them, I don't know how I managed to move from New York with two step-ladders and without our previous 6-footer, which was far better made than the one I bought yesterday. But there you have it. The past is the past. No point in fretting over it.

Before my back surgery I was afraid to climb up on ladders as my balance was very poor. In fact I am still pretty nervous about ladders. But up I went anyway, and I'm glad I did. I replaced all four bulbs and the fixture still doesn't work. It must be either the ballast or something in the switch. Time for professional help, which is timely as the bulbs in the ceiling fixture in the master bedroom just burnt out again, for the second time in less than 60 days. It uses halogen bulbs that are none too cheap. Something is wrong there as well. How convenient that my electrical issues have so conveniently aligned their petty revolts.

One of the master bathroom sinks detached from the cabinet. It was an undermount sink that was apparently simply glued to the granite, which I am not convinced is correct, but which nonetheless needs repair. Moises was standing next to it on the counter when it fell. Needless to say, he was a bit startled. I located the company that installed it originally, and am now waiting for them to email me the contract I need to sign before they will agree to come out to fix it. And waiting…. If I don't hear from them by this afternoon I will have to call them again. In the meantime, I am using the other sink, the one I continue to think of as "George's sink" even though I am well aware he will not return to reclaim it. Whatever happens, the master bedroom and bath with return to normal and there will be both light and water.

And very simple pleasures, like putting a puzzle to rights, take on a joy that far exceeds the effort involved. One of these days my grandson will figure this puzzle out, and he will be amazed at how simple, and obvious it was all along. And I will lose the pleasure of watching him trying to sort it out, and the pleasure of putting it back to rights.

Overall I am feeling far more hopeful, despite my grumbling. Or is it because of my grumbling? They are all minor things, these annoyances. Yes, there is always much to do. Yes, things always go wrong or break or change in some unanticipated way. But I am growing stronger, and not just in my ability to do things, but in my ability to not do, to go with the flow. What will be done will be done, and what is not, well, its ability to annoy me will fade with time.

April 28, 2016
Scattered Thoughts on Saturday Morning

The knockout roses in the yard have been throwing out a few scattered blossoms. It seems early, but I am attempting to cast my fretting-cap into the wind and simply enjoy.

The last of the "Meet the Candidate" luncheons was held on Thursday. As usual, it was lovely, and I very much enjoyed meeting the conductor for this week's symphony performance. The luncheon was held in a stunning mid-century modern house in South Knoxville, and as we were driven up the steep, narrow, and winding gravel driveway I could not help but think of my former home in Hyde Park. The weather is better in Knoxville, but I don't miss my driveway at all. Seeing the house however did spark a few moments of almost-regret. There were many similarities between this house and my former house, and some differences too, but the similarities were enough to spark memories. After all, for a long time I had simply assumed that the Hyde Park house was my forever-home, and there had been a brief moment of insanity, shortly after George's death, when, discovering that the Hyde Park house was back on the market, I had considered buying it and moving back.

As I said, it was madness, and I am grateful that I did not succumb. I'm not convinced that I believe in forever homes anymore, if I ever really did. What I loved was the home we made together, not the place itself. I suppose that is what I see as key. Places are just places. It is not that they are unimportant, but they are considerably less important than people. Home is with the person or people you cherish, and who cherish(es) you in return. The Hyde Park house was our home together; but it was home because I shared it with the person I loved and who loved me. It cannot be my home now. It would be a shadow house, built on memory and death. I don't mean George's death by that, but death to the spirit, the way defining oneself by the past tends to close the door on possibilities and therefore on life.

The luncheon house reminded me that I can't really do strict mid century again. I probably never could. It was George's house and George's style. Accommodations were made, as in all relationships. I suppose, since I was young when I married, and the house came with the husband, I've always assumed it was my style as well. And of course there are aspects of mid-century design I like, but not a whole house. I am far too eclectic. And I want deeply cushy chairs that I can curl up in cat-like. There you have it.

Thursday I met the conductor. Last night I attended the symphony. The performance was fabulous.

I've been feeling badly about not yet reviewing the Knoxville Symphony performance at Big Ears, and it does still plague me. It was a fabulous concert, and the orchestra got good reviews in the national press. Since that concert I have been thinking the orchestra should be doing more work like the pieces they performed that evening. We have an excellent orchestra, with talented and sensitive musicians, artists who are willing and capable of find the beauty in the new as well as the familiar. At big ears, I had been blown away. In the Dessner, the orchestra perfectly balanced the fine tension between sweetness and severity in the piece, and Phillip Glass' Cello Concerto #2, was stunning, performed with what I can only describe as a sense of delightful joy. That may not have been what the musicians felt as they were playing, but it was what the audience, or this member of the audience, experienced. It is easy to overplay the Glass, to make it too severe, and rob it of joy. That performance created the perfect meeting of modern and classical, minimalism and lush romanticism. It appealed to the head, but also to the heart, and there were moments when I was brought to tears, and a moment in the fourth movement when I could not avoid the chill the music brought down my spine.

And yet, in a way I got my wish. It seems to me that this week's concert had everything one could wish for. The lush beauty of Dvorak; Elgar's Enigma Variations, stunningly, and movingly performed; and a new work, Adam Schoenberg's Finding Rothko. In Finding Rothko, the orchestra reproduced that sense of music as something that creates a living space, a space you are invited to inhabit. The orchestra pulled it off beautifully two weeks previously with John Luther Adam's Become Ocean; a performance in which one could hear and feel the waves, feel the water rising around you, filled with power, and powerlessness, and even serenity. Finding Rothko was similarity well performed. Like a Rothko painting, except with music instead of color, one is drawn into the experience through subtle layering of sound and musical shading. The performance was almost like inhabiting a Rothko painting, like a vivid color experience of the same intense feelings that are engendered when one inhabits a Rothko space, such as the Rothko Chapel in Houston. Stunning.

April 16, 2016
Three Things Thursday

1. This is Big Ears Festival weekend and my calendar is full. Granted it is not completely full with musical, or even Big Ears related events, but I have tried to keep that the main focus of the weekend. After all, I've been waiting for this for months! I'm hoping I've managed to pace myself well. I'm not really of the temperament to flit from thing to thing, and I need time to process and absorb, seemingly more time the older I get….

2. I changed the front entrance of the house a bit. I moved the planters my grandfather made with the intention of putting them on the screened porch, but I haven't actually found the right space for them yet. I know the front porch wasn't right simply due to a lack of light. I had to rotate the plants daily, a task at which I more often than not failed.

I initially wondered if moving the two yellow Panton chairs up front was a little bit weird, but since moving the chairs to the front, I actually spend more time in the yard. It is a nice place to come with a cup of coffee or tea, to read the paper, or just to take a short break from my work in the flower beds to rest or dream. I had long wanted a place where I could keep a chair, where I could simply sit and admire the garden, but also a place where I didn't have to move the chairs in off the grass every week before the mowers came. Why didn't I think of this earlier?

3. Last summer, when my mom was visiting, I bought a package of Hello Kitty Band-Aids on a whim, figuring if I needed a bandage, why not have something that would make me smile? Well, I'll be sporting Hello Kitty on my right index finger this weekend as I gallivant around town. Without fail, it seems that whenever I am really busy and want to be particularly efficient, I up and do something stupid. This time, I sliced the end of my finger, right at the tip, fully across. I spend two hours Tuesday evening holding my hand up above my head while applying pressure and making noises that caused both Tikka and Moises some distress. It is surprising how little one can do without using the index finger of one's dominant hand. Even though the cut is not that serious and is healing nicely, it is still uncomfortable, so I am once again behind on yard work, and just when I had a dozen irises and assorted other things to put in the yard. What is life without a few nicks and bruises along the way?

I did manage a little yard work yesterday, but I knocked the Band-Aid askew planting some hakonechloa, and got some dirt in part of the cut despite wearing a double layer of gloves, After cleaning everything out and applying a small super-glue stitch to the one area that had opened up again, I decided that its probably best that I'll be busy going to concerts as I should avoid playing in the dirt for a couple of days. By the time the weekend is over I should be well on the mend and back to gardening.

March 31, 2016
Playing with Scissors

I've been engaged in a bit of spring cleaning, primarily cleaning and updating the kitchen cabinets. Far from being all work and no play, there were opportunities for a little bit of fun. But then perhaps I have a rather low threshold for what constitutes fun.

Some time ago, I had purchased some heavy organic flannel with the intention of making protectors to sit between my plates. Then I was either preoccupied, or lazy, or some combination of the two, and I never got around to making the plate protectors. Since I was already cleaning the cabinets, and hence removing everything from the shelves, here was the perfect opportunity.

Besides, I got to play with crayons and scissors. First I traced various sizes of circles, to fit my various sizes of plates, onto the flannel. Then I took a pair of pinking shears and cut them out, and stacked them by size. That part was actually fun.

Then I got to put everything back on the shelf, which was actually rather satisfying. Admittedly one could use other things, paper plates or napkins, even paper towels, to protect the good china, and you can buy plate protectors made out of thin synthetic stuff, but I like the flannel better. I suppose I could have even used the felt they sell at JoAnn stores, but although I have no real scientific basis for bias, I prefer the natural cotton to the synthetic felt that is generally available.

I suppose protectors aren't strictly necessary for everyday dishes except that I tend to use a mix of porcelain and pottery, modern and vintage. Increasingly I think if something is too good to be used, it is too good to own. But that doesn't mean I don't want to care for things. It really is not much extra work to remove the flannel as I use the plates, or to place the flannel between plates as they are returned to the shelf, and the between the plates as I stack them on the shelf, and the reduced risk of chipping and rubbing is well worthwhile.

There is flannel between all of these plates, although you don't always see it. In the end, I hadn't purchased enough fabric, only two yards, and I seem to have a lot of dishes. That two yard piece made enough protectors for all the plates seen above, plus 8 large Juliska pasta/soup plates, as I did accidently chip one by banging it a bit too heavily. I'm a bit of a clutz and I'd rather take the time to take care rather than waste time berating myself for my clumsiness. I am happy enough with the results so far, and I've ordered more fabric as this is just the everyday stuff, and I want flannel between the layers of the "good" china as well.

March 24, 2016
Of Pillows and Dreams

I have a couple of new pillow covers. Looking at them reminds me of the things I still want to do and need to do with the house. At the moment I am still preoccupied with the garden, and sometimes frustrated by my slow progress. But, as I said earlier, it is not a race. And at times, slow as I am, it seems the garden is progressing faster than anything else. But then, that is one of the wonderful things about gardening, it takes on a life of its own.

I picked the pillow covers up in Perry, Georgia, on my way south to Sarasota and North Port. Tikka and I had stopped early, and we were wandering around downtown, which has been rather charmingly restored, when we stopped to look at a window and were beckoned inside the shop. The proprietor was Turkish; the shop sold Turkish goods, and he had been open for two weeks.  I looked around and admired various objects and asked about history and culture.  I admired a pillow and he brought out stacks of these covers, in myriad sizes and colors, and spread them out across the floor. I picked this one, in the middle of the photo above, originally thinking it might be a gift, but it has ended up being a gift to myself. Then I chose another. I suppose I was getting a little carried away. I could have bought more. There were many other beautiful things, pottery and rugs and beautiful lamps.  But my imagination was limited to pillows.

Luckily for me, although I actually didn't realize it at the time, I had two pillows at home that were simply begging for new covers. The original covers were bright red ultrasuede, and although they were beautiful, they were the wrong shade of red for my current house. Now, I have at least two perfect pillows, and they remind me that there is much still to be done, that all the pillows are wrong or the covers are shredding from years of use.  Much mending and refurbishing is required. But this photo reminds me the process of life, the once perfect orange pillow is now in tatters, awaiting transformation. The patchwork pillow is something new created from something old, but the focus is on the new, on recreation, on moving forward, on building and creating. The photo reminds me that it is the wrong shade of orange, that once seemed pretty and desirable, was but gloss, and not built for the long haul. I am working on a piece of needlepointing that I intended to use to cover this particular pillow. I've been working at it rather half heartedly though, and perhaps it is time to mend my ways. Of course I could just cover this pillow and make a new pillow with the needlepoint.

It seems I am coming back into myself, and I look forward to tackling things that for a long time just seemed to be overwhelming.   I was overwhelmed for a while, overwhelmed after George died, then overwhelmed with things I had taken on, and then in an odd way overwhelmed with things that were taken away. Strange as it sounds that loss of things that I relied on to keep me busy, to soothe my mind, made it harder to do the things I was supposed to be doing. I had too much time on my hands, and I hadn't yet found the resilience I needed to pull it all together and get myself back to being the person I wanted to be, I needed to be.

I don't want to be a person who lets things fall into tatters around herself. In one ways these pillows are acting as a totem, reminding me of something important on my path to becoming the person I want to be, the person I am meant to be. These small bits of fabric, pulled together from other pieces, remnants perhaps of other objects, other uses, reminders of other lives, are more than the accumulated bits of their pasts. They have been salvaged and become something new. Perhaps it is time for me to salvage myself.

But who is it that I want to be? Or more importantly, to quote Pema Chodron, "How do I really want to be", because this is what I am really getting at – what is the core essence of the person I want to be? Am I actually working toward achieving this goal, of becoming the person I want to be with all my being, or am I letting distractions altar my course? Am I becoming a whole person, a person whose disparate pieces, whose ups and downs, successes and failures, forms a harmonious fabric? Or am I just a pile of bits of pieces, rags, and whole cloth, that never quite comes together into a pleasingly coherent form?

Who do I want to be? I'm not thinking about a job, or whether I am crafty, or a gardener or whatever. I always thought of what I wanted to be as at least partially defined by what I did, or didn't do. But I'm wondering if that is really just a gloss on the important question, if not the wrong question altogether. I also cannot define myself by the negative, as in "I don't want to be X".    I'll be 58 in a few months, and perhaps past the age when I should be deciding what I want to be when I grow up. And yet, I'm still deciding. Or perhaps the pieces are simply beginning to fall in place.  I see that the fabric has to be rent asunder before the pattern can be found and something beautiful can be forged from the remnants.

March 17, 2016
Cleaning out Closets

Four years ago today we closed on this house. Then the process of unpacking and settling in truly began. I don't know specifically why I thought of that today, about moving in, it is not an anniversary I have marked on my calendar. Perhaps it is just that I have been cleaning out closets this week, and that act of clearing out and letting go, both physically and metaphysically, has proven to be an interesting journey. A journey that has hijacked and interrupted other plans I might have made for this past week, even other blog posts I had planned to write.

But the time for this particular journey is now. It began with the master bedroom closet, and grew and grew until I had pretty much emptied every closet in the house. Once again there are piles and boxes everywhere. I was surprised that such a physical process, cleaning out, also had such strong methaphysical and metaphorical implications. But it appears to be so.

This time I will see the project through to the end. Every thing and every one has a purpose in life. That purpose is not fulfilled by sitting in the closet waiting for "just in case". I am determined to release the burdens of past-expectations, of failed promises, and lost intentions. I am sure this will not be the last closet cleaning of my life. But for now, I must see this one through. I shall return, hopefully with a clearer head as well as cleaner closets.

January 26, 2016
Slow Day, Snow Day

I took a rather slow day yesterday. It was snowing outside and although Tikka and I went out for our walks, where we romped and played and got thoroughly wet and snow covered, we basically stayed home, curled up in the sunroom, watching the snow while ensconced in a cashmere. Not such a bad life, is it?

I am apparently taking another slow day today as well. My sinuses are acting up, and my energy levels are low, low, low. I don't think I am sick though, hopefully just an accidental dietary indiscretion with its accompanying histaminic reaction. It is as good a day as any to feel under the weather, the sun is shining, the snow is melting, and all my appointments for today were cancelled.

My New York self would say that it wasn't that much snow, which it wasn't. But Tennessee is not upstate New York either, and I was perfectly happy to stay home. I read my assignment for tonight's class, which has now been cancelled, and took the unexpected gift of a big block of time as incentive to get back to work on cleaning out the closets and storage areas of the house. I'll continue to work on this today, and probably the rest of the week.

But I also spent time reading and doing needlework. More importantly, I've found inspiration time: time thinking and dreaming and sketching a little bit, time working on inspirations for sewing, for needlework, for my home, just general ideas. To say the least, it felt good. It has been a long time since that creative spark has fired, and although I think it is still mostly sputtering, it is wonderful to see that life is still present. I've never considered myself particularly creative, and certainly not artistic, but that drive to make things my own, to envision the world in a particular way and shape my external environment to echo my inner thoughts and visions has always been there. As I clear away the deadwood, it feels like things are falling into place.

January 21, 2016
Finally! Pursuing a Dream.

There has been a new addition to the living room.

I'm following through on my dream of learning, or relearning, to play the piano. I realized this fall that a keyboard actually works better for me at this point, space and portability-wise and will meet my needs while I start out and figure out if this is something I am going to stick with and pursue or not. If it sticks, and I still want a piano, I will buy one.

The picture that was between the cabinets had to be moved to accommodate the keyboard. And the print I rather absently mindedly stuck up there needs to be centered. At least until I find something I love to occupy that place.

I've been playing every day for at least an hour, and often more, even though the first couple of weeks I really just picked out melodies and a few simple harmonies, mostly just reviewing the hymns to be sung in church each Sunday. This was mostly so I could figure out the alto parts, if I didn't know them, or figure out suitable harmonies for my rather limited range. I don't know that it matters, as I sing rather softly anyway, and have trouble sustaining a note and carrying a tune, but I love to sing, even softly, and picking at the piano was a good excuse at refamiliarizing myself with the keyboard.

Last week I started practicing more formally, actually working on a few chords and simple pieces using both hands, rather than simply picking melodies, and reacquainting myself with the pedals as well. I only had two years of lessons, but wanted to play as long as I remember, and did practice for years after my formal lessons ended. We'll see how it goes.

October 26, 2015
Circuit Boards and Sewing Machines

I cleaned out the garage a few weeks ago and at that time I brought the box labeled "speakers and stereo cables" inside and put it on the living room sofa, where I could not ignore it. There were two reasons for this, the first being that it is well past time that I get the stereo system up and running, and the second being that I needed to get everything that doesn't belong in the garage out in order to move to stage 2 of the garage storage plan, namely organization. Don't hold your breath, I have a remarkable capacity for sitting on projects, especially big projects with no externally regulated end-date.

Thursday the box got moved to the floor so I could sit on the sofa. Saturday morning I thought the situation was ridiculous. The simple truth was that I had attempted to set up the stereo when we first moved in only to find that the CD player didn't work. I made some attempt at replacing it locally but found nothing that was musically up to the standards of my existing unit, and the entire process of researching equipment and procuring it online was more than I could bear, as was, apparently, the thought of packing it up and sending it to the manufacturer for repair. So I shoved the cd player back on the shelf and piled entire process back into a box, labeled it speakers and wires, and stuck it in the garage. Out of sight, out of mind.

But it was time.  I told myself I could at least open up the cd player and see if the problem was something simple and obvious, like a fuse. I can replace a fuse.  But when I opened the box it wasn't as simple as I had hoped. It actually took me a few minutes, in my disappointed haze, to make the connection between what I saw, and what I know, or knew. I don't really know what I expected; what I found was a computer. In retrospect this is not really surprising.

Eventually it dawned on me that I might, in fact, be able to do something here. I still have my multimeter, I still have a few tools. Although it has been years since I have repaired or built computers and circuit-boards, and I have no knowledge of stereo technology, this looked fairly simple, and I thought I might be able to diagnose a simple power issue. In the end it was simple. The components in question were visibly damaged and it was a simple case of replacing a few wires and connectors, and then using the meter to check the power flows.

The most remarkable thing, really, was the way this connected me to a younger version of myself, my younger Jack-Jill-of-all-trades self, the young woman who worked for a computer time-sharing company back when PCs were new, the young woman who could make our mainframe talk to any pc program on the market; the young woman who could build a pc, fix a motherboard, design a database, reconnect a broken satellite link, the young woman who thought APL was fun. Even though I had long since realized I didn't want to design computers and didn't have the patience for programming, realized that since I didn't dream computing I had no future in a field where living and breathing your work were de rigueur, I have to admit I had missed that young woman's attitude – her deep conviction that there were no problems without solutions. It was a pleasure to meet that girl again and to realize she had been with me all along: older yes, hopefully wiser, but still filled with hope and determination. Determination seems to have been dormant lately; I'm glad to have her back.

So I set up the stereo, connected the speakers, and listened to Olivier Latry playing the music of César Frank.   Admittedly the sound will be even better when I get the bookcase speakers up off the floor and actually in the bookcase, but that requires moving books, and snaking wires through cabinetry, and I wasn't really up for that task this weekend. Just hearing music throughout the house, good full rich sound in all its glory, not just the limited sound of an MP3 through headphones was joy enough.

That was Saturday. Sunday I finished setting up the sewing room. Or mostly finished any way.

I'd been unpacking for weeks, and most every thing was put away. All that was left was unpacking and setting up the sewing machines. You would think that would be the easiest part, but it ended up being the hardest. Sunday I pulled the machines out of their cases, unwound yard upon yard of bubble wrap, and inspected each machine. I noticed that there were a few, hopefully minor, mishaps: a broken bobbin attachment; a few cracks in incidental pieces; a door to a compartment that would not close completely; mostly all cosmetic rather than functional. Then I started setting machines  on tables: two sewing machines, my old Elna and newer Bernina; the serger; an embellisher.

I had hoped that I would get everything up and running, that I could take a photo, and I could begin actually doing some test stitching. But that didn't happen. Disorganization ruled. I laid out the machines in the positions I thought I liked for ease of use, pulled out their cords, and started crawling under the tables to plug things in, only to find that some of the cords didn't reach, only to rearrange everything and start over. And over, And over.

Of course, I should have just attached all the cords to the machines and lined them up on the center table to begin with. I should have assessed cord length, space requirements, ease of use, suitability of extension cord placement if necessary before I started positioning machines and crawling under tables. But I didn't. It was Sunday afternoon. I was tired. I let my excitement get in the way of my common sense. It happens sometimes.

Now all the machines are lined up, all their cords are attached. They stand at the ready, waiting.  Soon I. too will be ready. But this time I will measure and plan, I will make sure that I have everything I need, I will be methodical. Who knows, perhaps once I'm done with this I will be prepared to climb on ladders and snake speaker wires through cabinets. Perhaps not. Perhaps I will simply sew.

July 20, 2015
The Joy of Small But Functional Spaces

When we were looking for a condo in Knoxville, there were a couple of primary considerations. Whatever we bought had to have two bedrooms and two full baths onto the main floor, and it had to have a laundry room with a sink. In the end it was the laundry room that was most problematic. The house we ended up in was the only house on the market at the time we looked that met all the above criteria, and the only house we looked at with a sink in the laundry room.

It became evident after we moved in that the laundry room must also double as utility closet and storage. So shelves were installed and many bottles and baskets and piles of rags and laundry and what-not accumulated on those shelves, to the point of becoming an unholy mess. After George died I straightened up and reorganized a bit, but never really pulled it together. It got to the point that I hated the laundry room, hated having to do laundry, hated getting anything out or putting anything away.

It was a pretty sorry state of affairs.

Then about six weeks ago Lisa posted about refreshing her laundry room and I was inspired. That very week I decided to clean up the laundry room. I took everything off the shelves, eliminated things that were no longer used, and started to rethink how items were stored. This is the view of my laundry room, in mid transition, from the door. As you can see, it is small and there are no windows or spaces for pretty posters, but at this point it is beginning to work well.

I realized that I didn't really like bottles lined up on shelves, especially miscellaneous small bottles, and the plastic bins I was using were not only ugly but actually impractical. Small bottles of cleaning supplies could be more effectively grouped in baskets, as could mop heads, cleaning clothes, and other miscellaneous items so I went to Cost Plus World Market and bought baskets. (Thank you Lisa.) The fabric boxes on the top shelf were already in place, and store items that are needed infrequently.

A fair amount of planning went into what is stored where, based on frequency of use and ease of access. Various attractive boxes found in the house were also used to corral small items, like batteries, and small white rags (in shoe boxes).

After I had gotten everything organized on the shelves, I addressed the countertop. I originally asked that the counter top be installed so that I could fold laundry as I removed it from the dryer without having to carry it to another room in the house (another downside of my previous house). But the height of the surface, perfect for me, was too tall for most of our caregivers, and they did the majority of the laundry in the house. We also needed far more space for rags and dirty laundry than I need now, so the pull out mesh baskets had been installed at the bottom of the shelving unit.

I realized that I didn't need the amount of laundry space offered by those mesh baskets, and I missed my folding space. It took me a couple of weeks, to get back to that project, but I eventually took them down and bought a pretty basket to hold the dirty rags. And now I have a laundry room that actually works.

And yes there is still a bottle of vodka in the laundry room.

April 21, 2015