Happy leap day! A bonus day is cause for merriment. Or, in my case, cause for tending to the niggling things. In addition to my massive cleaning spree, I’ve been slogging through the mountainous mending pile that’s been accumulating on my ironing board. You know, the usual: holes in socks and jeans, ripped seams, garments that need to be shortened, curtains that need hemming, etc. etc.

Remember the navy and black stripey dress? It just never felt quite right, so I hacked a few inches off and now I love it as a t-shirt.

I removed shirring from the waist of this dress because K found the elastic bothersome and the dress kept riding up. I’m happy that it still fits her and I’m sure it’ll be in heavier rotation now. Ohhhh, and then there are the socks. Darning socks is one of the least pleasant activities for me, for obvious reasons. Who wants to patch up holes in items that never seem entirely fresh no matter how much you wash them? And sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it because the puckering that results from the mending tends to irritate the soles of my feet, but then I am inevitably proud of myself for not wasting otherwise perfectly good socks.

And after months of avoiding it, I finally took the fifteen minutes it required to hem these curtains for K’s room. She immediately decorated the window with the adorable heart garland I received as a gift (Thank you, Beccy!).

My ironing board — the default dumping ground — is now free and clear. Although I’m still sneezing like an iguana (who knew? Iguanas are supposedly the “sneeziest” animals. I’m a sucker for animal trivia), my increasingly tidy environment is making me feel worlds better.

What about you? Are you spring cleaning or tackling your own niggling things? Or maybe you’re giving the whole concept the heave-ho?

P.S. Furoku friends! Part 1 of #12 is headed your way tomorrow!!

 

Last night, I trapped myself inside of an IKEA Hemnes dresser. I was trying to single-handedly move this massive thing through an extremely narrow space into the utility room but there’s this funny little protrusion of knobs and metal casings that I’m pretty sure is part of our ancient heater, and it’s located in such a way that I couldn’t simply slide the dresser through. All the drawers had been removed so it wasn’t exactly heavy, but I quickly became aware of my faulty logic: I propped two of the legs on the metal casing, thinking I could get inside the hollow interior of the dresser and lift it up and over the protrusion. WRONG. I crawled inside but wasn’t strong enough to lift it nor could I maneuver in the tight space. Then I accidentally un-propped the legs so that I blocked the opening where I was able to initially crawl in, and now I was well and truly stuck.

I hollered for K, but she was two floors above me and couldn’t hear my pleas for help. Crouching inside of the dresser, I contemplated my plight. The faint strains of piano music floated down from above, which meant she had started practicing, which meant she might be clueless of her trapped mother for at least another hour. I had no idea when M would get home from work. Conundrum. I thought of the book entitled The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an IKEA Wardrobe that I purchased many months ago and made a mental note to read it. I had a whole new level of appreciation for the absurdity of my situation. Maybe it could become a book! It lacked in plot somewhat, but could I incorporate some deep insights that came about from my unwitting incarceration?

That daydream was cut short because K and I must be cosmically connected or she didn’t want to practice her piano or something since she came bounding down the basement stairs calling my name a few minutes later. “Why are you inside of the dresser, Mama?” It was a very good question.

Between the two of us, we were able to release me from the dresser innards and move it smoothly into the utility room. We high-fived at this impressive display of girl power, and I now finally had enough room in the other part of the basement for my outrageous fabric stash.

Remember how I was going to go through and purge? Didn’t happen. I decided to just move everything back into the basement because I was beset by choice fatigue. I left just two of the baskets you see above in my sewing area and congratulated myself on this wise choice because 30+ bins of fabric = insanity. Besides, I’d already spent too much time inside of a dresser and I’m a woman on a mission to get things done. Upwards and onwards!

I have been deep, deep, deep in cleaning mode. I’ve finally fully tackled our heebie-jeebies-inducing utility room and I’m almost done with the rest of the basement. The next step is going through the monstrosity that I call my fabric stash. It’s grown quite a lot in the last couple of years, and I’ve hauled most of the bins upstairs to go through them and mercilessly purge.

The Marie Kondo method is firmly entrenched, and I’ve been asking myself “Does this spark joy?” in rapid fire. I was very good about leaving the photos toward the end of the basement cleaning because once I start going through them, I’m a lost cause.

That photo up there is from one of the around-the-globe trips my parents liked to take us kids on. I was about 4 and my brother was 3. Check out how I’m sporting and thoroughly rocking the knee-high socks. My mom made everything we’re wearing, except for the socks and shoes.

I love how faded and oxidized the photo is. She had scrawled “Toledo” in Japanese on the back and I remember how my mom always had a small 35mm film camera with her (Olympus brand maybe? I’ll have to ask her – unlike me she has recall powers akin to a Clark’s Nutcracker). “Kochi mité! Kochi!” Look this way! This way! My brother usually ignored her, but I obliged. We don’t seem to be pleased that we’re in spectacular Spain.

I also found one of my favorite photos of K when she was about 2:

She only had about 8 teeth at this time, and now she looks so grown-up and different and just lost three baby teeth in quick succession so she only has three more to go. The tidal wave of time is really hitting me.

Note: I did not make any of these clothes. Back then, I could barely thread my sewing machine.

And she was about the same age here:

One of the few photos we have together since I’m always the one snapping the pix. We went to a photo booth at the Seattle Center and we never quite figured out where to look. Ah, memories. Before I knew it, hours had passed while I perused photos and no sewing was done. Perhaps I’ll get around to the Hampshire Trousers this week!

P.S. Speaking of cleaning, I’m going to attempt some organizing and sprucing up of this little blog over the next few weeks so things may start to look funky and postings may get a little sporadic as I wrestle with WordPress. Fingers crossed that I don’t do any permanent damage!!