Postby Kathryn-in-Canada » Fri Feb 08, 2019 9:41 am
I lost a long post from my tablet after successfully opening the day. Sigh...
I'm up.
I've just finished tea, chocolate and light therapy.
It is another grey day here but to change things up, it is above freezing. At least it will be for a few more hours and then will plummet. But we have high winds so it would not be pleasant to be outside. High enough gusts that they hurt my ears because of the air pressure changing and pushing on my ear drums. The chandelier is swinging.
My focus today is cleaning and organizing. Dh has someone coming for coffee at 1 so by then, aside from vacuuming and mopping, I want to get the craft supplies konmari'd. I've moved them all to the sorting table from two locations. I have material craft stuff in a third spot but I don't want to add that in, because I consider that sewing, therefore another category.
The table is piled high. The supplies from the kitchen share a deep cupboard with catalogs, manuals, travel brochures and practical items like suction cups to hang things in the windows. I had no idea how deep the cupboard is but I'm now gathering boxes that I can use as 'drawers' so I can store things in the far back, under shelf, and just pull out the box to get access to those items. I assume I'm finding new homes for the papers since they'll be dealt with during the paper section of Konmari. I have a bag of craft supplies I found during the office supply Konmari, so I guess I'll have another bag of papers to deal with later (I have one now from the other kitchen drawer I cleaned out.)
That reminds me, I have two empty drawers in the kitchen right now. DgsM2 asked me what was in one when he was here and I told him to guess. He doesn't understand that so just opened it up and was surprised it was empty. Hmmm, can I use those for 'safe' craft supplies so he can fetch them himself? I have nothing kitchen related that need to be there.
I don't know how much of this stuff I'll keep. One of Marie Kondo's questions for deciding if one should keep a long-unused item is "Do you see the person you want to be wanting/needing this item?" Along with "does it spark joy?" this is a very useful question.
My craft supplies have remained untouched for almost 20 years. I last used most of them when I had the daycare. When we moved, I kept the items I thought I would use with grandchildren. So now I have to figure out if I will ever do crafty things with my grandkids. That's an unknown. They are over here a bit more than they were at first, so maybe dd will let me have dgs for longer stretches of time. He likes painting and we could paint on the balcony or in the kitchen for easy cleanup. And eventually, he'll get fine motor skills.
At present, he loves pulling out Nana's Pencils and having me draw things for him (really, really, badly.) We do markers at his house but I let him use the coloured pencils in the living room here because they can't cause too much trouble, unlike water based markers or crayons (which can get crushed and ground into floors when left lying around - don't ask how I know this!)
So I will have to ask myself "how much I will do with grandkids?" I don't have to do anything crafty, so the question really focuses on me, not on the grandkids. What am I willing to do with them?
Thanks for bearing with me through all this pondering, I think I might be getting rid of a lot of the items because I'm always busy when the kids are here and will likely always be busy when they are here so won't have time to supervise crafts like I did with my daycare kids.
That's an indication of how my energy level has dropped as I age. I used to have a craft project ready every day in December when the kids got home from school. We'd have snack and then work on making a decoration for the daycare tree. That wasn't for one kid, that was for 5 - 7, aged 2-12, depending on the day. I can't imagine having that sort of energy on a daily basis. This is also why I'm in awe of LadyM who is older than me by a little bit, and doing this daily.