This week I’ve been systematically clearing up and cleaning through the whole house. It’s a rather surreal experience to clean somewhere and then come back the next day and find it still tidy and as I left it. This is only possible because two of the children and my husband are away. What it all means of course, is that I’m actually getting somewhere.

The house is clean and I’m now starting on bookcases and cupboards. I did get slowed down a lot by this one though. It’s so delightful to sit on the floor and sift through knitting and quilting books that haven’t seen the light of day for a while. I’m trying to get rid of things that I don’t think I’ll ever need – in general, that is….but here that was difficult. I know that I will probably never make a Baltimore Album Quilt, but I still can’t bring myself to get rid of even one of the 5 books I have on the subject.

What I am getting rid of though are a few of the very beautiful ‘craft’ books, which contain projects which I would be hard-pushed to spend half an hour on. Do you know the type of books I mean? They always look gorgeous, with fabulous photographs, but the content? Zippo, zilch, nichts….nothing. Who writes these books? Who uses them? Or have I just made a mistake and they are supposed to be sitting on a coffee table waiting for non-crafty people to ooh and ah over? They are all books that I have been seduced into buying on Amazon; books that I wouldn’t have ever handed over good money for if I’d seen them in the flesh (in the paper?). Books which I know categorically I will never, ever use. They were just a big disappointment, a beautiful one, but a disappointment none the less. So they can go off to the next church book sale and make a little space for me to fill with something a bit more worthwhile. Although looking at this, you’d have to say that the space is full and I probably have enough projects available to me to last for this lifetime. My husband would at this point take control and tell me that I can only buy a new book if I get rid of an old one. He’s probably right……..

So I’ll plod on. It feels good, all this clean and tidy space. It won’t last once everyone comes home, but for now I’m enjoying it. It certainly adds to my feeling of inner zen…..

Helen

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 5th, 2010 at 1:04 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.