Saturday, January 6, 2018

Although there were errands I could have done today I chose to leave them all and spend the entire day at home.

I spent all morning going through some files on my computer. That led to some updates to my website, as well as getting pages ready for my Project Book. I’m so glad Stacia got me started doing those pages. I don’t have a colour printer anymore so I create pages as PDFs and have them printed at Staples. I hadn’t done a printing update since March last year so I decided to send my order in rather than go to the store and print the pages myself. They were ready earlier this afternoon but, as I said, I decided I wasn’t going out.

I thought I might get everything set up out on the deck and sandwich a quilt but when I stuck my nose out the door it felt cold so I decided that task could wait for a nicer day. I planned to spray baste the sandwich (before adding the pins) and I wasn’t sure how things would stick in the colder (and damp) weather. It is raining now so perhaps it was just as well I didn’t get started.

There were no shortage of other things to do. I have a miniature meeting at the Guild on Tuesday and my project was barely started. I’m using a different technique in order to get a certain look that I want – with one row finished I’m not sure the look is going to be right but there is no way I’m going to start over. Think miniature – half inch squares in some spots!

Friday, January 5, 2018

I knew I had a busy day planned but I didn’t think the day would be completely gone before I was finished all my tasks!

Before heading out for my cleaning gig at the Hall I loaded up my cans and bottles, as well as my recycling for the depot. The trunk of my car was full of bottles and the back seat was full of cardboard, styrofoam and plastics, as well as a big bag of shredded paper.

The Hall cleaning came first. I’ve only done it once before so I don’t have the routine down as well as our regular cleaner – she takes two hours but I took closer to three. There is so much debris tracked in at this time of year and neither the broom, the mop or the vacuum seem to be able to rein in the pine needles. There was still a bit of snow on the deck so I shovelled it off; it was raining out but I thought it would disappear faster if it was thrown out onto the driveway.

I stopped at the bank and Canadian Tire on my way to the recycling depot. I am donating our Tassimo to the Guild and I wanted to purchase some pods for it so I could make sure the machine was still working. I had to pick up something else at Canadian Tire so I decided to get the pods there rather than make another stop. After the recycling depot I was off to the bottle depot – it seemed like a lot of cans and bottles for only $5! Just as I was leaving the bottle depot the gas light on my car came on – I had planned to make that stop next anyway.

It was almost two before I was home. I had a nice long chat with Stacia and then did a bit of cleaning in my own house. My wrists are sore from all the mopping, wringing and overall use – hopefully they will still allow me to do some knitting this evening.

Thursday, January 4, 2018

My plan for today was to do a couple of quick things that resulted from the Board meeting last night, get a deposit ready, and head out for a few errands – the bottle and recycle depot as well as get some gas. Then I remembered that I had to do the cleaning at the Hall for awhile (our regular cleaner is having surgery), but if there wasn’t anything in the Hall over the weekend it could wait until Monday. As luck would have it there is an event there on Sunday so I’ll do my running around and cleaning tomorrow. Those full days at home are so hard to come by!

First on my “quick list” was changing a wrong mailing address with Revenue Canada. I spoke to someone who couldn’t change it because I wasn’t on the list of Directors that she had. I had our last filing in front of me but she didn’t and wouldn’t budge on making the change. I demanded (yes, I had to demand) to speak to someone higher up who would have access to our latest records and I finally got someone who could help me. Sorting it all out took a long time, but hopefully the address has been changed in all the right places.

The deposit was quite quick, as were the other items on my list. I had barely moved on to something else (shredding more paper) when the phone rang and someone wanted to drop off money for Sunday’s Hall rental; it was either redo my deposit or create a new one so now I have two deposits to make tomorrow. I have to let the renter into the Hall (and check her out) on Sunday afternoon; I’ll stay for at least part of her event and then go back to the Hall, do the cleaning for next week and lock up.

I was ready to do a bit of sewing by the time lunch was over. I put the binding on my card, as well as the binding on the quilt that I used as practice with the long-arm. Both are ready for some hand stitching so I’ll do that until it is time to get ready for the Guild meeting tonight.

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

I have less than ten minutes before we head off to the Cranberry Hall Board meeting. I spent all day in my studio – most of the morning was spent getting reports ready for the meeting tonight and for the Guild meeting tomorrow.

When the work was done I got busy on a card; since I was using a Splendid Sampler pattern I did an extra block for my Second Time Around quilt. It’s the first sampler block I’ve done for ages and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have the binding left to do on the card and some stay-stitching around the edges of the block but it feels like a productive day.

I found a suggestion for 31 days of decluttering. It’s going to take me longer than that but I thought I could work at the Day One suggestion until it is done and then move on. Paperwork was the first de-cluttering goal so I shredded a couple of bins of paper today; I still have a box full and there would be more if I cleaned out my filing cabinet, but first things first!