let's add some teal

The Great Moth Infestation has finally been handled. Any yarn that wasn't thrown out was put in the freezer, thawed, microwaved, rinse and repeat several times. Sweaters were taken to the dry cleaners. Blocks of cedar/lavender sachets/cedar and lavender sprays were purchased. The salvaged yarn (mostly acrylics and cottons) were re-wound with my swift and ball winder and put into ziploc bags. Take that, you little fuckers.

Quite frankly, my knitting corner was asking for it. I had yarn hanging out in baskets and boxes. Even with all of that gone it was still a mess. I had knitting/other crafty books spilling all over an end table.

Yes, they were filed away neatly at one point. Shut up! Know what else is a mess? Your mom!

Trench and I took a trip to our favorite little gem in Chicago, Nadeau, which sells furniture from India and Indonesia for WHOLESALE PRICES! We combed through the warehouse and finally settled on this beauty.

We moved the table off to the side and will most likely be getting rid of it. You can't tell under all those books, but it's an antique that I grew up with. I'm sad to part with it, but I'm hoping someone in my family will take it back. Otherwise I'll try finding it a good home elsewhere. Here's how the cabinet looks filled up with books and yarn.

It would be prettier if the yarn wasn't stored in ziploc bags, but unfortunately ziploc bags are now an indispensable item. I did try to organize by color (which wasn't hard because I mostly have purples and reds). I was shocked that almost all my books fit on the bottom shelf.

I don't think this would have held even half of what I used to have, but I think I was due for a purging anyway. I've decided not to add anymore to the stash until I get through some of what I already have. I haven't done much knitting in a long time, mostly because the old light fixtures we had were so dim, but we're replacing those too so things are better. I just cast on for a new project and I'm falling back in love with the craft.

Besides that, we also found this little table that we couldn't resist getting.

We almost always watch TV by hooking it up to the laptop so we can watch Hulu. The laptop would sit on a dining room chair. It was such a fixture that we decided the laptop needed its own table to sit on.

I'm liking the way this corner looks now, although in its natural state there are a lot more wires and such hanging about. Next on the agenda...a new lamp, ditching the old end table, and replacing our not-very-old purple chair that our cat Bowie decided to turn into a scratching post.

entre-vu

Trench and I moved into our condo almost two years ago. We had a fit of decorating/organization, threw a housewarming party, then promptly gave up. We're finally picking up where we left off and doing projects like putting our CD collection on itunes so we can sell the CDs (except for a few sentimental favorites), and organizing areas that have gotten cluttered. Today I fixed up our front entry way. We did a good job of decorating when we first moved in, but it's been starting to look a little shabby. I had a couple of nice pictures that were just sitting out without any frames. I decided to finally go buy some today. I went to the closest neighborhood with cute boutiques and couldn't find a damn thing until one furniture shop owner recommended that I check out Equinox. I did, and it became my new favorite store. There were shelves of cute frames! Big enough for my 5 x 7 pictures! Huzzah! It has all sorts of cute items for the home as well.

So here's a shot of my now much more put together front entry way:

The large picture on the wall is actually a stick-on decal from Blik. We've named her Matilda.

Blogging about blogging

I haven't updated this blog very much. Why is that? I love writing and when I do update I feel accomplished and proud of what I put out there. So why am I posting once every few months? And promising to post more, then not doing it?

The simple answer is that between work and school, I have a lot going on. Which is true...when school is in session there's a lot that I need to get done and anything creative is put on the back burner. On the other hand, I always have the time to check facebook. Why is it so hard to find the time to do something enriching instead of something passive?

It isn't that I don't have ideas. I love reading design blogs and craft blogs and food blogs and fashion blogs. I'm not opposed to incorporating a little of each of those into this. I've probably written more about food than anything else, so why not turn this into a food blog? Trench and I are getting back into the swing of decorating our place and have bought some new fixtures for it, so why not post some pictures of my new light fixture or new dishware? I love dressing up and I'm attempting to break old habits (like only wearing black and red). Why not post some pictures of outfits? I think that with each of those ideas, I get worried that no one would want to read about it. I worry that posting about trying to eat healthy would make people roll their eyes and think of me as an HTTH (Holier Than Thou Hippie), or if I posted pics of outfits that people would think I was bragging or vain. Suddenly the challenge becomes how to incorporate some self-deprecation into what I'm trying to say. There's also a fear of putting too much personal stuff out into the public.

It's all so silly, because the only people even reading this thing are my friends, who are the most supportive people in the universe. It's not like I have an audience. Then I get depressed because secretly I would love to have a blog that went viral and had a large amount of people reading it (or so I think anyway...the reality might not be as fun as I think). Years ago I started a blog about working in a spa. It was a really good idea, and the type of thing that probably could have gained an audience because there's nothing else like it out there. The flipside is that it meant writing about my job on my off hours, so it languished until I couldn't even remember what my password was to get in.

So I'm going to make the promises again about posting more. It doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be self-deprecating, it doesn't have to be that interesting even. It just has to be out there. I can even make a game where one week I pretend to be a design blog and another week I'll pretend to be a fashion blog. Who knows, eventually maybe something will stick. Till then, I'll just keep throwing spaghetti at the wall.