Treading Water...

... is a term I use when I feel that I'm not getting anything done!
I've mentioned in past posts that I'm getting my house ready for sale.
I have a way of picking the right (wrong!) time to make major decisions in my life and this is one of them! I only wish now that I'd have rented these past 12 years instead of having bought my house. But if I had rented, I can guarantee you that housing prices would be going for double what I paid for mine and then I'd be kicking myself for renting.
Today I finally painted the last bedroom which also happened to be my sewing room. I emptied it yesterday and today when I woke up I vowed to hit it hard and not stop until I was done.
That's what I planned.
But since when does anything go as planned.
I had one wall remaining that needed to be taped off when I ran out of painter's tape. It so happens that the previous owners put up wallpaper border sans sizing. Which means that if I try to take down the border, I rip off the cheap textured finish on the walls. So in addition to taping windows and doors, I had to tape the top and the bottom of the border.
Sure, a quick trip to Wal-Mart will fix that.
I hadn't counted on the blizzard that apparently hit while my back was turned.
After I forced my storm door open, I had to shovel my way to Hans' SUV (I borrowed it this week in order to move massive amounts of my junk) and as his vehicle was only about 5 feet from my door this should tell you something.
I had already spent an hour and a half shoveling my driveway out when I arrived home on Monday (it usually takes 45 minutes) but now the end of my drive (where it meets the road) was drifted heavily and no vehicle was getting through that! So about an hour later, after I shoveled some key areas, and cleaned about 8 inches of heavy snow (separated by layers of ice from the freezing rain) off of the SUV, I finally arrived at Wal-Mart.
But my purse was at home.
I kid you not.
After retrieving my damned purse I was back at Wal-Mart and while they did have the lavender 'quick release' painter's tape that I needed, they only had it in the jumbo (read expensive) size and I only needed enough for ONE wall!
Let me also mention that I did not wash my hair this morning as I intended to remain home bound, and an hour of sweaty shoveling with a hat on my head did nothing to improve the situation.
It dawned on my as I was leaving the store that my outfit of oversized, paint covered sweat pants, teamed with my holey, wine stained (red wine spilled all over it last night) long sleeved T-Shirt, and clad in Vet Tech girl's third grade boots (one size too big but perfect for me after all these years) that I have become a typical Wal-Mart shopper.
Heaven help us all!

I found this among my sewing stuff as I was cleaning. It's an old J.C.Penney bag from Sept 30, 1942 (over 56 years old) and it holds 3 1/2 yards of sharkskin fabric at 49 cents a yard! A friend of my great-grandmother passed away several years ago and her daughter gave my mom a lot of old sewing stuff. I ended up with this.

I have no idea what to do with it. It's a creamy off white woven and has such an interesting texture. Someday I'll look up the care etc... of this fabric but since I'm not a very good sewist, I'd hate to ruin it by cutting into it.






Here's the bag with the receipt.
















Here's a view of the fabric.












The sewing room before I emptied it.











I've filled 4 big plastic storage bins with sewing junk and since Hans has a one bedroom apartment with minimal closet space I ended up doing this.

These are reusable storage bags that you fill with clothing and bedding and then suck the air out of with your vacuum cleaner.


Here is a bag of my summer clothes before sucking out all of the air.



And after sucking out all the air.
It does flatten them but they are still heavy. But at least I can store them in the basement laundry room for the winter and then I can reverse the process this spring with my winter clothes.









Tomorrow I need to load an amazing amount of heavy tubs into Hans' vehicle for a trip into the Big City and then next week I hope to tackle even more cleaning up, packing, Salvation Army dumping, and all that jazz!

BTW, I was very honored to receive the Kreativ Blogger award from Angelia and Cindy. I plan on acknowledging that tomorrow.
Thanks ladies!