I am still very agressively still looking for "normal" yet!! I have almost hit the mark of being a "widow" now for six months. It still SUCKS!!
I have been dreading all the "firsts" fast approaching!! It will be "six months" on September 07. It will also be Max's 67th birthday on September 25. I know I have to learn to get over these "days". I have learned I definitely do better when I have people around me. 99% of our "dear" friends have made no effort of so much as a telephone call since the day of Max's services.
I also am just plain lonesome too much of the time and so very much appreciate having company. I am now looking very much forward to a very special visit from Debra Hall who lives in Georgia. Ironic, friends who live two blocks away have not even called, but yet Debra is getting on an airplane and coming to visit me next month. She will be here from Thursday to following Wednesday and I can not be any more delighted!!
I am almost giddy with excitement even!! Wanda in Canada has been trying to find a free time to come and may yet this year also!!
I just can not wait for Debra to arrive!! Company and a stitcher!! Can not get any greater than this!!!!
I have been very busy. Karen (she is daughter of man who shared the room with Max while he was in the nursing home) has become a literal "sister" to me. She checks on me daily and has come to help out while I have been down sick since I lost Max several times. Karen's husband went out of town two weekends ago for a four day trip. Karen came here each day at 10:00 a.m. and stayed till midnight each of these four days.
She is a real power house when it comes to cleaning and organizing. She could only be better if she was a stitcher and could understand all the "beloved" treasures we collect. Max's room was the "catch all" that he named "THAT" room. The "Hoarders" television show had nothing on this room whatsoever!! That thing was packed floor to ceiling and wall to wall to the point it was actually very dangerous for me to go near. Much of this huge pile could have easily fell on top of me and trapped me and I fully realized this and finally just avoided this room no matter what. Karen charged in there and started to drag things out to me where I could begin to sort them. Did not take too long and my legs began to ulcerate from me being on them too long and weep so I had to stay seated for the entire four days. It did not hamper us too much as there were boxes upon boxes that just needed sorting. I believe Karen pulled about twenty-five 40-gallon big trash bags full to my trash tote before the four days ended with at least six trips to Good Will additionally. What a difference these four days made. The room is again very nice, but I still have a few more boxes that I want sorted and removed as soon as I can get them done. Karen believes there is at least a dozen fully packed boxes of simply stash in that general area. My "Stitching Sanctuary" is now also loaded with about a dozen fully packed boxes of stash to be gone through.
Hopefully, I can get to all these in next week or so!!
Now, I suppose these pictures are all out of order, but they will be sort of explained under each.
I have also started at least a dozen new stitching projects that I will picture in my next posting!!
Now, what am I going to do with all this stash I know I will never use. I have big large tubs of fabric and shelves and shelves of charts and books and countless boxes of things. There are fifty or more kits that I know I will never do also. BIG PROBLEM is I have no idea of how to go about trying to put these things up for sale and/or give away. Kathy K. originally had a great plan of doing a simple 20 items each week and clear them out to just re-post another 20 items. This was fantastic idea, but I would be spending the rest of my life doing this. I do not want to be overwhelmed with posting pictures and bookkeeping of who gets what while waiting for checks to arrive to send all these things out to their new homes. I only intend to charge $1-$2 for most things along with actual postage. It just does not seem worth it as I am now looking at such a large amount of things!! Any ideas???
Above is the beginning of the mountain of trash bags Karen placed out for collection two weekends ago!!
Above is just some of the many Mill Hill kits I have found thus far. I know there are many, many more. I have already seen many doubles.
Above is some more of the Mill Hill kits I have discovered. I do NOT intend to get rid of many of these, only the duplicates.
Above is the bookcase that I have NOT been near since some time prior to the accident in 2002. Many caregivers added charts and books to these shelves. I do not even have a rough estimate of what and how many are on these shelves.
Above are the same shelves from above picture. Can you see how each shelf is bowing in the middle of each shelf. I fear some thing is going to snap if these charts are handled too much!! The blue basket on the left is full of new "tuck" pillows in Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas patterns. God only knows what all is where!!
Above is a picture of the middle of the room in my "Stitching Sanctuary".I used to have my lift recliner in this left corner and always spent my days and evenings in there. When Max's condition worsened, I had to start spending every moment Max was awake right with him as no one could predict what he might decide to do and thus I moved my six OTT lights and magnifying lights out to the main living room along with my lift chair.
I have since found I enjoy the big screen television over the fireplace and am most comfortable in the living room and plan to just stay in there. I only an a bit unhappy with the fact that I must put every little needle and thread away each evening or my living room begins to appear a bit "messy" and "unorganized". But, I am learning to pick up all my stitching things each evening before bed and simply making it a habit now.
Well, above and side ways, (one of these days I will learn how to edit these pictures) is another shelving unit that is crammed full of various fabrics.I still have large plastic bins full of fabrics as not one more will fit on these shelves. Got to get better organization.
Please send me all your ideas on what I should do to find all the boxes, upon boxes, upon boxes of stash a new home as soon as possible!!
I have vowed to my self that I will find "normal" again and get my life re-organized again. For years, I was one of the worst obsessed compulsed perfectionists any one could imagine. It was BAD!!!! I guess I sort of lost this with the accident memory loss, but it seems to be re-emerging a bit again. I sort of hope it will, as my life surely needs organization!!
Love and Hugs!!
Deborah
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13 comments:
Dearest Deborah,
You are in real trouble... You have waaay to much stash and I do not think you would like to spend your time organizing it. If I was in your shoes I would make a "surprise bags" worth $5, $10 and what ever dollars and sell these bags.
love you much,
Evalina
I agree with Evalina. You could also sell some on Ebay.
Besides selling it, you could do like another lady did in her blogs. She started a box of stash that she started as a Traveling Stash Box. This box has been to a few people so far and they have taken what they want from the box and added some items from their stash and offered it on their blogs. Someone was picked and the Traveling Stash Box moves on.
If you want to practically give it away, but don't wanna deal with the minutia, I'd be happy to help you with some of it, Deborah. We could organize a list of what you want to give away, and then list all the pieces on your blog. I'll be happy to sort out emails of who gets what on a first come first served basis. The only work you will have to do is coming up with the list and shipping things out after they're paid for. If you don't want to wait on checks, you could accept paypal payments only. You set up a free paypal account, they transfer funds to your account, and you transfer said funds to your bank. When they hit the bank, you ship out the charts. This way you don't have to worry about listing fees or commission fees or any of that stuff. You could also list your fave designers on your site (your top ten to give people an idea of why types of charts you've been collecting all this time) and then sell grab bags. You could put five charts in the five dollar bag, ten in the ten dollar, and fifteen in the fifteen dollar. I would suggest making sure no duplicates go in the same bag. That way you don't have to keep track of what chart goes to which person. Ten people order a five dollar bag, you grab random charts, put them in envelopes, and they're ready to go!! If you want me to help you out with this, just let me know. I can't come to where you are, but I'm willing to take the time to do what I can from here because you've always been an outstanding person to me. A hero, so to speak.
Hi Deborah,
You could list it on craigslist. Just make up boxes and sell each one for a lump sum. But then you have to allow strangers come to your home.
I do like Evalina's idea to make up grab bags. One of the online LNS's used to do that once a year for their customers. It was always a great seller.
The owner would sell the grab bags for $15 and put at least $50 worth of stash in their, and tried to put things she knew the buyer would like. It was fun! Unfortunately, she went out of busines. :(
Hi Deborah,
I was going to suggest grab bags, similiar to Evalina's idea. Good luck!
Us stitchers all think alike! I was going to suggest grab bags also. You could put items into a box or envelope and have them ready to go and when someone pays you, simply put their address on the envelope/box and send it on it's way.
That's a lot of stuff :-) I'm glad you got help from Karen.
How fun that you are going to get a visit from Debra!
I hope you can do something with the ideas of the others for your stash.
The grab bag idea is a good one, but I hope you don't do anything until I get there. After all the years of hearing about your stash, I've been looking forward to playing in it. I could help you get the grab bags ready to go so that when someone sends the money, all you'll have to do is put the address on and send it off. Looking forward to our week together; I want to stitch, visit your LNS, stitch, play in the stash, stitch, eat some chocolate, see if there's a quilt shop around, stitch a bit more, and then maybe, just maybe, we'll get some sleep!
The grab bags sound like a good idea. But please wait for someone to help you, like Debra. There are LOTS of people out there who just expect charts for nothing! Don't send out a bunch and just expect postage on it. Those charts cost you money and you need to sell them. And I'm not talking just $1 or $2 either. You could always sell them on Ebay for WAY more money than in the groups. I just don't want you to be taken advantage of by a bunch of people only interested in free stash!
Wow Deborah you have so much great stuff!
I agree with Evalina and others you should do surprise bags and sell them for $5 or $10 plus postage. I know I for one would buy quite a few.
I can tell you any of those doubles you have for mill hill will be easy to get rid of. Just email me my dear and I'll likely take most of them off your hands! ;)
I wish I was there to help you organize and sort it all my dear.
But I'm glad to hear that Debra is coming for a visit, it will be too much fun I'm sure.
*hugs*
I would do like they are suggesting and the bigger the box the bigger the price. Place them in priority boxes for a set prices for specific sizes.
With the number of patterns you have, what about kind of a modified grab bag.....maybe you could do a "teddy bear" grab bag, a "wedding" grab bag, a "sampler" grab bag, a "Christmas" grab bag....or whatever. If people get stuff they don't want/like they can always pass them on.
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