I’ve been thinking a lot about material ‘things’ lately.

When I moved out of my rental house I got rid of a lot of crap. I either donated it or just threw it away.  I decided that I needed to seriously simplify the things in my life. I am not the best housekeeper in the world and I’ll be the first to admit that. I like to believe if I were home more often I’d be better, but I’m not so sure.

In my new house I’ve done a good job of keeping the bedroom sparse and picked up and I’ve even managed to keep the dog hair off the floor for the most part. (Thanks to this sweeper Mom and Dad got me that can be used on hardwood floors.) That room has been limited to just what is needed there…no clutter.

I’ve done pretty good with the living room too…though it feels too sparse…it has no decorations yet-or at least not cohesive decorations. There are odds and ends things that were in my last living room, but they really don’t fit the scale of the new room. This house has 10.5′ ceilings.

The craft room is the one room that I planned to have ’stuff’. Art is a big part of my life and art has many accessories. Long term I plan to make built in cabinets for all that ’stuff’ though.

The bathroom is making do until I remodel it this fall.

The last three rooms are driving me crazy though-kitchen, dining room and mud/laundry room.

The kitchen and mudroom are just getting by. The kitchen has some semblance of order when the dishes are done-but for a person who likes to cook and loves kitchen accessories, two feet of countertop and one drawer just don’t cut it. I can’t fix that until next year. It will be an expensive project. The mudroom will be fixed before winter, but right now it has no electric, no walls and a hole in the floor. (There technially are walls, but they are the exterior sheeting and the studs on one side and the original wooden siding to the house on the interior).

The dining room could be put together though…there’s just all this ’stuff’. The dining room is where I drop my bags/purse after work, where I sit in the evenings to use the computer, the table where random stuff sits… All of it has a place it could be put and yes, I could try to not put it there as a dropping off point, but I’m not very good at that.

Some of it I am noticing is this ’stuff’ I’m trying to weed out of my life. On my desk there are little notepads that I brought home from work because I didn’t use them there, so I don’t know why I would use them here? I have six glass globes (for candles or flowers) sitting on the library table that I use as a buffet table.  I don’t think I even have places to put six of them, so why do I keep them?

I think there is a lot of worth in having few things that you really love, compared to many things that don’t matter to you. I’m becoming a lot better at that, but obviously I still need to work at it.

This is Izzie. She’s only about 6 weeks old.

Paul hasn’t warmed up to her yet and Gurney is still scared of her.

I said I’d never have a female cat, but she’s just so dang cute.

I don’t like posting without photos, but my camera cord is lost somewhere that is in the mess that is my living room which is also storage for everything that should be in the craft room…so I’ll post a picture of my house.

You can find more pictures here.

In past news (obviously per the previous picture)…my house did finally close (April 15th) and my parents and I spent a couple weeks refinishing the hardwood floors before I moved in. The construction workers did all their bit and they did a wonderful job.

Once I find my camera cord I will post pictures of my -new- craft room.  The paneling/red carpet/dungeony feel has been replaced with wood floors (that will be stripped this fall to match the rest of the house) and clean, bright white walls and ceiling.  I do feel bad that the first room I painted in a house I own has white walls.  It’s so boring, but also has no glaring reflections onto what you are working on.

There will be a quote painted on the wall and maybe a graphic of some sort, but I haven’t decided what quote yet.

I’m sort of doing something new at work…IT. That’s good, but I have the feeling it is going to put me back on a five day work week…which isn’t good. I had to go in today for a few hours to get something working.

My house didn’t close this weekend like it was supposed to, so I spent today working on miniatures.

Friday I went to IKEA to get a new FIRA mini chest.  These are the two I have now:

These are how the drawers are arranged:

This is the other box:

I also finished some mini food which I will try and get on etsy this week:

I’m ready to stop.

Today I spent $337 to fix my car.  New ignition switch and a new Engine Oil Pressure Sensor.

I also went to Hobby Lobby and bought some stuff for Valentine’s. The light in the picture is funny, but…red and pink paper, red and pink sparkly heart brads, candy heart buttons, two heart punches and a some matching ribbon.

I also bought some glitter this weekend at Wal-Mart. It is Martha Stewart brand that I had been wanting, but they put it on clearance:

Hobby Lobby has also started carrying themed cupcake liners, and well, I must have them:

And finally, for Brian, because I’m sure he misses my ‘Salad For Dinner’ post…this is what I had for dinner tonight:

Two totally unrelated things.

For Christmas I received a Kodak EasyShare Z1485 IS camera (in pink!). It is a 14 mega pixel point and shoot camera. I’ve been pretty happy with it so far, but I’ve not yet printed anything off of it either. It came with a $55 voucher to kodakgallery.com for non-prints merchandise.

It has a ’stitch’ feature to take panoramic pictures. My last Kodak camera did not have that feature, but I’ve been having fun playing with it:

This is a picture of my parents’ living room. In person it doesn’t look nearly this large…or fish-eyed.

Tonight I decided to make a pincushion. I ended up with this. The base is a paper mache-box painted a creamy color. The house and yard are made out of felt with embroidered accents. I’m listing it for sale in my Etsy store.

Tomorrow I’m going to make cards with my mom and contractor #2 is coming to look at the house. I don’t want to write about what contractor #1 said until I talk to this guy tomorrow. *crosses fingers that he has nicer things to say*

So I don’t think I did too badly on my goals for the past year.

•I managed to decorate for all the holidays I have decorations for.

•Instead of finishing my dollhouse I started another, but the first is mostly covered in bricks, so that’s a plus.

•Blogging well…I was aiming for once a week, but I only managed 31 posts…21 short. Let’s chalk it up to life changes and move on…

What’s going on now:

•I’m now single after four and a half years. That’s not what or where I planned to be at all, but maybe it is for the best?

•I’m in the process of buying this:

Not the greatest looking house in the world but it will be -my- house. Plus I’m getting a home renovation loan, so that should help. The seller has accepted my offer and I signed a ton of paperwork at the bank today. Finding contractors to fix it is my next step.

•Gurney and Paul are still mine. The cat was never an issue, but I would’ve fought for this had I needed to:

•I spent the last month of 2008 in and out of doctor’s offices and the hospital due to a spider bite. If you’re not queasy you can click here. I’m warning you, they’re gross pictures. I am now released from the wound center at the hospital though and I’m told it should look normal again within six months.

For the future year:

•I’m going to try and blog, I really am.

•I want to create more things. I wasn’t so hot in the crafting sense last year. If I get this house though, I will have a permanent crafting room.

•Gurney will have a yard for the first time ever. He should be happy.

•Paul will have a house that is not on a highway, so he can go outside. He should be happy.

•I need to get serious about my diet and menus and start doing weekend cooking again. Weekend cooking=less stopping on the way home for something. I have also, for the most part, cut High Fructose Corn Syrup out of my diet. I’ve lost almost ten pounds by doing that alone.

I’m heading to bed now, but Happy New Year to anyone who reads this.

I tried out my new salad spinner tonight. It isn’t the best quality, but it was $5.99. It is one of the smaller ones, perfect for me.

The tomatoes are from the garden. There are ton of romas to be picked. I cannot decide whether to make salsa or tomato sauce. (I think mom is wanting salsa and I am wanting tomato sauce.)

My kitchen has managed to stay clean for two days now. I’ve been making a point of not dropping stuff on the table when I come home, but actually putting it away. What an idea. *grin* I’ve also washed the dishes as I’ve used them.

My house will be clean and simple one day. Really.

It’s a halfway better looking template…

And I know I have ignored this blog for the past month and a half…maybe more…but life happens sometimes. I am trying to simplify everything in my life though so I have more time to do the things I want to do, rather than the things that just need done.

My new policy is that if I have some bit of clutter that I move around from place to place, and it doesn’t really have a place of its own, then it goes into a box to be donated. There is still clutter around, but it is mainly doll house and miniatures supplies/items/works in progress. I’ve even managed to kill off quite a few houseplants (odd for me) so there aren’t even as many of those to keep watered.

Ryan is coming home for a week, the first week of September. I am also taking a week off then.

Today Mom and I redid part of the kitchen. The landlady didn’t want the paneling painted, but I did get rid of the country blue wallpaper.

This is what my kitchen looks like now:

At least the side with the sink. The opposite wall has the refrigerator, microwave and a metal shelf with lots of glass jars and colored bowls on it. And that curtain material? It took -months- for me to find it, but I absolutely love it. Retro in muted colors. The painting you can sorta see over the stove is one I did in college, it is ribbon candy, I just never took it down after Christmas. The flowers are fresh cut zinnias.

Now I just need to get the rest of my house that clean…

As for this template, the blue text needs to go away.  And those smiley faces…I assume those are new with the theme I was redoing, but they have to go. I’ll get to it soon. Really. I try anyway.