As I said in my last post I was having a great time looking after my grandkids for a week. Well, the week ended on Saturday. It was a busy one and I’m so thankful I had that opportunity.
Busy as last week was I still managed to get some purging done at home.
I tackled the old sewing basket. This we inherited from Tim’s mother. It’s a good, sturdy one and it holds a lot. Over the years I’ve stuffed it so full of notions and sewing stuff that it had become next to impossible to find anything in it.
You know all the buttons, snaps and clasps that come attached to any new piece of clothing you buy? Jammed in there. Along with spool after spool of thread, sewing needles still with the thread in them, straight pins, safety pins, iron on patches, zippers and elastic. There was a large mason jar full of buttons – that Tim’s mom had collected. (My button collection is stored elsewhere.)
Needless to say it needed to be cleaned up. It took me an afternoon, but I did it. I chucked most of the elastic – because it wasn’t elasticky anymore, and I rounded up all the loose needles, de-threaded them and stuck them back in one of the three packages I found.
Then I had to unpackage all those buttons. All those tiny little plastic bags they were in bothered me. First, what a waste of plastic and second, they were hard to get open.
Back in the day extra buttons were tacked to the inside of a garment – on a hem or a seam – a far more efficient and useful method. I’d think this way of providing that extra button or snap would be cheaper for the manufacturer. And it would save a helluva lot of time for the wearer when they needed to find that matching button. ‘Cause there it would be, right on the garment! Sometimes, old ideas are best.
This week is another busy one. We have company coming and I’ve got a bunch of stuff to do to get ready. A leaky shower head to fix, window frames to paint and coat hooks to put up. It seems like there’s always something.
I find myself wishing that all the things I needed to get done were already done. That I could spend an entire day writing or baking or reading or walking. Anything but attending to what has to be done. Because when I do any of the former I’m left feeling guilty that I didn’t accomplish any of the latter.
My goal today is to turn that feeling of guilt into a feeling of accomplishment. I’ll get what I need to done and then I’ll focus on what I want.
All That Matters 