Organization @ MindSay

searching for homasote was productive. I wanted a piece to pad and cover for a table top in my sewing studio which serves as a 3 x 5 ironing surface... great when you are working with large piecesof fabric like roman shade, curtains, or table linens.  After the people at lowe's ruined three sheets on their dime we took homne a 4 x 6 piece and jim cut it down for me perfectly.

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the leftovers I covered with fabric for more bulletin boards. If I could I would have every wall in my studio covered with a pinable surface for hanging patterns instructions notes swatched... you name it. But  it's too late now. wel not really but jim would lose it if I came up with yet another profect as today he is screening in the deck between the house and my studio.

if you need a consult over organizing your kitchen or workspace I will do it for free.

well that's what it's worth hahahahaha.

no really I have GREAT ideas.

just ask

Like Hilary and Obama would make a great team !!! unbeatable too.

Any of you who read my blog here know that money is NOT in great quantities here, although we are certainly not starving! :P  Fact is, the results of the flood disgusted me.  With the cat litter (4 kitty boxes worth) and misc bugs, it was just gross, so ... it kinda got swept under the proverbial rug.  For the most part, the only time we go to the basement is to do laundry.

Well ... yesterday, I ventured a look.  Talk about DISGUSTING!  Funny thing ... the basement fairy didn't come and clean it all up for me.  So, today it begins.  I bought the three of us wor gloves, and we're going to tackle the basement before it rots altogether.  I measured to replace the downspout, and by golly, I think I can afford it!  The top is down, but I think I'll ask my oldest daughter's boyfriend (he has a blazer) to take me to Lowe's tomorrow morning - or some morning this week to get that.  The rest is just ... disposing of trash, sweeping, a bit of scrubbing with BLEACH, and a fresh coat of paint.  This will not all be done this summer, I'm certain, but ... perhaps all but the painting ... ?  The front porch is scheduled to be painted in August, if not sooner.  Again, if I can get all my kids and their boyfriends to help with the heavier stuff ... Well, we'll see.

In the midst of all my apparent rambling here, there is a lesson.  I have a tendency at times to sweep "ugly" or "uncomfortable" things under the rug instead of dealing with them head on.   I am easily overwhelmed by "messes".  As I sat on the porch yesterday trying to read (F. Peretti's Visitation),  I was RESTLESS ... I had TIME to think things through, to mentally organize the undone chores and make some sense of them.  I happen to think I had a bit a divine assistance in the matter of breaking down the chores into "bite size" pieces, manageable tasks, so that we are not overwhelmed with the amount or degree of difficulty of the tasks.

Point is ... we have begun to take steps to remedy the situation and bring the basement back to life.  It's the first step that is always the hardest.  There is ugliness in our lives that will not go away by itself.  We can try to close the door or sweep it under the rug, but ... it's still there, growing.  Could it be that God whispered in my ear yesterday, "DEAL with it & I'll help!"  ... ???  :)

~ B

Friday my second oven goes in.

It's the same brand I had in montgomery (seen above in my 1925 art deco dream kitchen) - a huge fisher paykel aerotech convection. It's been sitting in the utility room for a year waiting for jim to create a cabinet under the counter at my baking center. In Montgomery my baking center was across the kitchen from the oven - custom made for me - and topped with a slab of pink and white marble. With everything within reach I could roll out scones in less than ten minutes. a full blown genoise in 15. and that's moving at a leisurely pace.

In this kitchen we had a desk area next to the pantry. 30 inches high with space for a chair which meant it could easily be converted into my baking center. We topped it was a wonderful black soapstone slab from brazil- yes you can even buy soapstone over the web- and jim is reconfiguring the open book shelves over the desk into cupboards with oak doors to hide baking supplies. I also got a great idea from an organization blog to put my staples inside the deep drawers so the conter doesn't have to store my tall canister jars. Now only the mixer sits atop the counter and everything else will be hidden. I cleared room in the pantry for all my baking sheets, forms ,pans etc because they have been in three different places and whenever I wanted something other than a pizza pan I had to start hunting.

I adore being organized and now it's all clustered in one location as it shoud be. Brioche anyone?

okay I confess it....it takes a visit by relatives to get me to thoroughly clean the house. we are pretty organized and only have a few areas of entropy at a time but i have a pretty high tolerance for my own dirt like bathtub rings or spots on the floor. but today we both really CLEANED. down on your knees scrubbing in little corners cleaning that you do for a tour of homes or maybe if you are considering selling your home. or in case the queen drops in.

when i was working full time i was shamed into hiring a cleaning service. I was at a staff meeting and the head of the center  ( a very  borderline MD PhD who was brilliant and cruel but for some unknown reason didn't give me as much crap as she gave others) was taking about her cleaning woman. I said I had this ethical thing about paying someone to do work I could do but didn't want to do.... she countered that I was full of shit, I just didn't want to a paye a livable wage to a cleaning person. so........ the next week I hired someone at a very comfortable for them rate and stopped worrying about toilets and dust kitties etc. to put it bluntly ethics went poof and i threw away the rubber gloves.

But when I went to part time I didn't feel that I should use money that way and besides the cleaning woman I had first in Bama had OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and was FANTASTIC. but she had to quit because it was feeding her disorder. My next cleaning woman, Carol, a very  nice jehovah's witness , wanted me to be part of her life and all i wanted was an anonymous relationship with the cleaner to whom I wrote weekly checks. And she was an perfectionistic as Ann, so i thought i could have that dirty a house for free.

Anyway I digress. oh hell. why not  digress? I wanted to tell y'all about a writer from the 40's who is great fun and sort of invented the modern spy novel.. Eric Ambler. My husband introduced me to his novel a Coffin for Demetrious and as you read it you can just imagine Sidney Greenstreet saying the lines.  it's fun to find a new/old writer who might be less formulaic and writes well.

all of this is to do anything but return to cleaning for "los hespuedes" I still have two toilets and two bathroom floors to go.  We have five toilets in this house. do you think it excessive? (I won't clean the studio  toilet--- no one but Abs and i see it.) but before I sign off I wanted to mention that the section of the Lewis and Clark trail that heads north from Cannon Beach is stupendously beautiful although lots of ups and downs and some scrambling and LARGE mucky areas after every rain. but it goes through old growth Sitka spruce forest and every now and then opens to amazing views of the pacific. This is where we saw a bald eagle preening itself in a half barren pine. very very very nice.  and then we stopped in a little gallery and bougt some art to add to our wall of western photogrpahers in the den. 

speaking of photographs.... the mindsay blogger paviel does gorgeous work at very reasonable prices and he has begun to sell his work.  I bought one and it's hanging over my desk in the kitchen.  so check him out and get the link to see more of his work. and make him sign it, he might be famous one day.