Ready to Roll

This is the view as I left the basement 5 minutes ago (it's time to make lunch). Man, I had forgotten how much fabric I have! Lots of it is "inherited," and I don't know what to do with it. I'm hoping to make lots of totes and storage containers (for CDs, etc.) and use a lot of it up. There is a "shopping night" at our homeschool group meeting next Monday night, so hopefully some of it will sell. I'm also thinking about opening up an Etsy store, although I'm more likely to just give it away for Christmas of whatever.

Projects currently on the table are a mini messenger bag made from the leg of an old pair of jeans, and a grocery-style tote bag. Pictures will go up as things get finished.

Progress

So! The table is cleared off, and I've got some of the stuff out from under it as well. The carpet padding that was on the left is in the garbage pile by the stairs, waiting for Jeff to feel well enough to take it upstairs. The carpet remnants are over on the right, waiting for me to clear enough floor space to lay them out. I still need to get the TV and other assorted large boxes out of the way, and there's a table in another part of the basement that I need to clear off so I can use it to hold my sewing machines and other various items. And the laundry seems to have grown by a fair bit, but at this point, I'm just chucking it in the washer arbitrarily. Oh, and everything needs to be washed down--it's cobwebby and buggy and nasty.

As for the plan to put the tools on the shelves, some of them did make it over there, but most of the small miscellaneous stuff is in paper tote bags on the floor to the left. It's going to be even more difficult to get to those shelves soon, because that open area is going to be for the other big boxes and such.

But I see progress, and even a light at the end of the tunnel. At this rate, I feel confident that I'll be able to start sewing in earnest by Monday. Yay!

Frustration

I'm planning on doing a lot of sewing for Christmas this year. I mean, a LOT of sewing. And I'm really excited about getting started.

I use my dining room table to sew. And therein lies the issue. We use the dining room table for meals, and Jeff uses it in the evenings when he plays his online game. I have room for the sewing machine while he's playing, but it's loud, so it's hard for him to hear, and of course I can't do anything big like lay out fabric. Also, constantly setting up and taking down is tiresome and inefficient.

So a while ago, I decided to make a space in the basement to be a full time sewing area. I knew it would take a while to get stuff cleaned out, but the girls and I started working on it. We made some good progress, but then I ignored it for a week or two, so of course the mess crept back.

I started back on it yesterday, and again we made some progress. We already have a table in a corner of the basement that is right by an outlet and has great light (seriously, this bulb is amazing--it was in the house when we bought it, and it's like looking at the sun, it's so bright).

Here's the problem:
All the crap that is still ON the table. Pay no attention to the laundry--that's where the laundry chute dumps (have I ever mentioned how much I love having a laundry chute? The only thing that would be better would be a dumb waiter, so I could send stuff back up the same way.) so things tend to pile up. But the rest of the stuff . . . I don't even know if that TV works, the ceiling fan doesn't work, and then there's all the tools.

The "plan" was to move all the stuff on and under the table over to a shelf unit on the other side of the basement. Here's the problem with that:

I can't even get to the shelves. Yes, there is a bit of clear floor--that's the progress I made yesterday. Still, it's going to take considerable time to be able to get to the shelves, to clear them off so there is room for the tools, and then to move the tools themselves. I look at the whole thing and get so overwhelmed that I just don't know how to start.

I know, I know. Just start. But it's incredibly frustrating to still be so far from actually being able to get started on what I really want to do, which is sew. It's kind of like driving home from Florida, and you finally hit the Michigan border. You think, "Yes! We're almost home!" And then you drive for two more hours.

I even dreamed about it last night. I dreamed that Jeff went down there and cleaned up. I mean, there were boxes stacked neatly against one wall, but other than that, it was empty. It looked like we had just moved in! And I was so happy, because it meant I could get right to work. When I woke up, it took me a second to realize that it was only a dream.

At this point, I don't even know if I should keep working on it right now, or just cut bait and deal with working on the dining room table. If I did that, I could start right away, but I'd have to deal with making sure everything gets put away all the time and not being able to work whenever I want. If I go full bore on the basement, I might be able to get up and running by Monday.

Yeah, the pull of a dedicated sewing area is just too strong. I'll keep taking pictures and posting about my progress.

School Pictures

#0257

I decided to go vote early, to get it done. Jeff has the day off, so I didn't worry about taking the kids. I got up at 7:22, and was there by about 8:45. As I was getting close, I saw that there were a LOT more cars than usual parked along the street. When I got there, the line came out of the building, and snaked down the sidewalk to the parking lot (our polling station is at a local church).

So I got in line and started moving. Moving slowly, but still moving. Then not moving. I heard someone say that the machine that tabulates the votes wasn't working. So we waited some more. The woman behind me had her daughter with her, and even though she was only five, I was impressed at how patient she was.

Finally, we started moving again--the machine had been fixed. We moved slowly but steadily after that. By the time I got into the building, it was about 9:40. The line then broke in two, splitting the alphabet down the middle. This didn't work as well as I would have thought. My line moved much more slowly than the other; people who were well behind me in line outside ended up voting before I did, which was a little frustrating.

Finally, I got my ballot (I had to point my name out on the list), voted, and got out of there around 10:15. Jeff left when I got home and was back within the hour. Yeah, great idea I had to go early. :)

But now I've voted, and I need to run a couple other errands (and get my free coffee from Starbucks!) before I go to work. Then "my teen" is coming over to work on German, and I'm going to watch the election results. Should be an interesting night!