Spring Cleaning! ... More to come... ugh.

BEFORE:

Really? Just a box full of yarn? No rhyme or reason at all.

More boxes? And plastic shopping bags? Really?

Are those hanging strands? That's just a sad sorry tangle waiting to happen!

I am not now nor have I ever been a particularly tidy person. Yet even I have to admit that a little bit of organization goes a long way towards inner peace. Thanks to the inspiration of one Argus Filch of Hogwarts fame, I picked myself up, dusted myself and my pantry units off, and started organizing.

Kevin and I have both long called this the "yarn tower" and rightly so. It is the tallest thing in our apartment. Literally 3 inches more height at it will be holding up the ceiling. It's a bit intimidating.

How did I do it? ZIPTOP BAGS! They are a miracle. Not only do they keep yucky things off the yarn, but they hold the yarn in tidy groups and you can press some of the air out to make the yarn more compact. Genius. Anyway it took a solid 12 hours of work to get it from that up there... to this down here!
Good lord I can even see the floor again! Hallelujah! Not all of it fit I must admit. I ended up hiding away some roving (I don't know how to spin yet) in the closet and since we have a flat screen now, I placed a couple boxes of "iffy" yarn back in that empty space where the not flat screen used to take up. Those iffy yarns may or may not be hitting the road. Only time and my very whims will tell.

Question 2 - Grow up and Get a job

8 Questions Part 2

What do you want to be when you grow up?

This answer is incredibly boring, but I'm the kind of person that treasures security. I want to be a property owner. I'm still young, and I have lots of time to accomplish that goal, but for now? I'm impatient.

As a child I lived in a comfortable home with my parents and my younger brother and we had a modest back yard where we could play on our swings and help Mom plant her garden (sometimes slightly overgrown) and sit on the picnic table and blow bubbles while Dad mowed the lawn.

Some day I want that for myself.

No Recycle Bin

I know. It makes you sad, doesn't it? Kevin and I live in a small apartment in an average sized apartment complex. There is no recycling pick up. Still, we are avid recyclers and while sometimes it requires a bit of sacrifice, we do what we have to do to avoid enlarging our carbon footprint.

The nearest recycling drop off that takes everything (plastic 1 and 2, aluminum, cardboard, paper) is roughly a 20 minute drive That means we have to make every drive really count. We make as little trash as possible. And when we do make trash, we save our trash. We save it until we know that the trunk and backseat will be stuffed before we make the trek.

In our one bedroom hole in the wall, saving up trash can take up a lot of space! Here are just a few of our tips.

• Instead of a bin, try a cardboard box. They are everywhere, so you won't have to look too hard. I find enormous clean boxes at my workplace which supplies were shipped in.They serve as my recycle bin, and I don't have to bring back the container!

• Smash your cans! Not just the aluminum cans, ALL the cans. Aluminum cans buckle easily (save your pop tabs though! That's another post!), but soup and veggie cans can be a little tougher. Use your can opener to remove the bottom of the cans and you'll have a much easier time flattening them.

• Use market bags. Avoid bringing in what you don't need by keeping your eco-friendly market bags in your car, purse, or bike basket. Every rare once in a while, go ahead and use a brown paper bag so that you can....

• Have a separate paper recycling container. Keeping paper separate from plastic and metal makes for much tidier recycling areas. Break down cardboard boxes (like cereal boxes) to save space and stand them up in the brown paper bag. You'll be shocked at just how much paper and cardboard will fit in the bag without tearing by sliding your papers in vertically. As a bonus the bag is recyclable too, so there is no bringing back a container after drop-off!

• Very important! Before you toss something in the recycle bin, consider whether you might have a use for it. I'm a crafter, so tins, glass jars, boxes, zipper pouches and many other things make excellent containers for my knick-knacks and notions. Cereal boxes turned wrong-side out make excellent mailers for small non-fragile items. Plastic jugs from milk or cider can be washed and reused. While waiting for the water to get hot for dishes what have you, why waste it? Use a jug and put that water in the fridge for drinking or boiling later.