You'll Help Me, Won't You?

I am bucking a long-standing tradition of making no New Year's resolutions for two reasons: the sewer backed up into our basement just before Christmas and I've seen several episodes of Hoarders. 

Consequently, reduce, reuse and recycle is going to be Naperville Now's basement theme for 2011. But I need your help in the form of comments, reminders, and encouragement. Also directions to an electronics drop-off site.

I have been captivated by a most excellent article by Martha Beck since it appeared in O Magazine in 1999:

"There are two ways of going through life: Gather everything in sight, just in case you need it. Or, trust that you'll find exactly what you need, just in time. Guess which one lets you really stop and smell the roses?"

This may be the most liberating essay I've ever read. Too bad it took me two years, the sewer and the A&E Channel to tip me into action.

By New Year's Day 2012, my goal is to have a basement that looks like this:

Or as close to this as possible. Bear in mind there are things I cannot change about the basement, like the HVAC stuff and, possibly, the quantity of Christmas decorations. (And then there's that stupid crawlspace, which should be stricken from the home engineering handbook. If you're digging a basement, dig the whole goshdarned thing. Don't leave a huge square of dirt just for grins. It's gross. And damp. And gross.)

My accomplished son-in-law, bless him, built 8 feet of freestanding shelves over the weekend. These will hold a few strategic items off the floor, and as for the rest, I hope to be able to reallocate all of this stuff from my house to someone else's via the online Naperville Yard Sale.com. Or to Goodwill, which just opened south of us. Or I will recycle it. Or repurpose it. Somehow.

Then I shall paint the floor a lovely shade of grey and close the door.

I think this is doable.

Anyone have any thoughts on mold eradication?

P. S. My pal Nancy informs me that the Naperville Park District is recycling broken Christmas lights. You can read about it here. Too late for me, but perhaps it's not for you. You have until Feb. 1st .


HBTY

Hard to believe, but our iPad-winning, life-saving, true-blonde baby nurse turns 24 today.

Not sure how that happened, or where I was when it did. Probably driving carpool. And doing laundry. And volunteering at school. And cooking (what a waste of time that is.) And trying to quit smoking. Any millions of things mothers do.

I would tell my younger self to pay attention more. Be in, as they say, the moment. The laundry, the toys, the dust, all of it can wait. But I didn't hear that part very well, at least not until later. Sometimes we can make the rules for our lives. And that is a gift.

How far that little candle throws his beams.

So shines a good deed in a weary world.

William Shakespeare

To our good deed-doer, Happy Birthday. The Baskin & Robbins ice cream clowns await.

Major Award

In the late 60s, I won a tiny black and white television by correctly identifying several cartoon characters and the Kellogg's cereal they represented.

This feat is still referred to in reverential tones by my family because it was the only time any of us achieved such heights in the contest realm.

The next generation, however, is an entirely different story.

Our daughter, AJ, may be the luckiest person on the planet, starting with Astro Jetson, a stuffed animal she won at Naperville's Last Fling balloon pop. ( I think she was 4. It was all she could do to carry it home, given its height. And what my husband was thinking to let that child throw a metal-tipped dart anywhere still eludes me. But, I digress.)

AJ also has won lunch with a favorite teacher (in a grade level not her own), raffles for hair care products and craft supplies, and the occasional speech and writing awards. (She is also amazingly gifted in finding usuriously-priced items at mind-blowing discounts. Jimmy Choo heels, for instance. For $75. At Nordstrom Rack. Perhaps the state of Illinois should hire her as its treasurer.)

Luck? Diligence? Maybe a bit of both, as her latest endeavor has earned her this major award:

for renaming her hospital newsletter The Stethoscoop.

Now that is seven kinds of cool.

And look -- no rabbit ears.

Ever won a contest? Let us know in the Comments section.

Alive

Being sick for a week is not how I planned to start of 2011, so I am declaring Jan 10th New Year's Day. (Naperville Now can be very despotic in that way.)

I have a great story to tell you about a major award, won by our daughter in St. Louis. But first, I have to go to work.

So, more -- much more -- tonight. (Unless I come down with hemorrhagic fever, which wouldn't surprise me in the least.)

Gesundheit

I recommend buying stock in all manufacturers of tissues. Naperville Now is going through a box every 30 minutes.

Hate hate hate being sick.

I'm thinking I must agree with Erma Bombeck: "Housework, done right, will kill you."

If I'm dead by morning, you'll know it was the evil basement. Feel free to keen and wail.

Waste Not

While I am cleaning rugs and sketchy basement floors, my friend Joyce has agreed to write a guest post on a subject that is terrifying to us both: the memory thing. Forgotten Christmas gifts. Forgotten appointments. Found objects that we do not remember buying. Garage door up or down? Car locked?

Our children cast a gimlet eye as we protest we do NOT remember commiting to babysitting or remember an event that they told us about a week/day/minutes before.

As long as I remember who Joyce is, I am somewhat reassured that we are in this brain dilemma together. Hers is compounded, however, by her love of and creation of many, many forms of ART. Textile, mostly. But that is only the starting point for many, many other projects. All lovely, by the way. But we are both in need of a professional organizer and, possibly, a personal assistant. Preferably hunky. I can share.

Here's Joyce:

In the immortal words of Dan Quayle, "It's a terrible thing to lose one's mind.  Or not to have a mind at all."  Though he was trying to quote, and mangling, the American Negro College Fund's tag line, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste," Dan was on to something.  As any woman who is nearing, in, or past menopause knows, it IS a terrible thing to lose one's mind or not to have a mind at all.  This tragedy plays out in bizarre ways when the woman is trying to live a creative life.  

Creativity has come to require massive quantities of stuff -- "collectables" (formerly other people's stuff), found objects (ditto), decorative papers, a dizzying array of adhesives (how many ways are there to stick one thing to another?  you wouldn't believe.), stamps, inks, pencils, stencils, awls, needles, fabrics (both vintage - other people's - and new), beads (ditto), wires, pliers, scissors, charms, felt, books, yarn, embossers, glitter, sequins, buttons, ephemera (other people's old postcards and photos,) hole punches in a dizzying array of sizes and shapes, and did I mention adhesives?  I wouldn't want to leave out the decorative Japanese rice paper tape, a product currently very popular, carried, surprisingly, in Anthropologie as well as in high-end arts and craft stores, the uses of which are chronicled in a book devoted entirely to that product.  Which, I am embarrassed to admit, I own (otherwise how would I know what to DO with the decorative Japanese rice paper tape?).  

And if the creative woman ventures into Archiver's or Paper Source or Art Mart, she will find, and buy, tools that she had no idea anyone would ever need, but which she now must own.  A hole punch that is spring-loaded and can punch a hole in the middle of a page -- no longer constrained by the space between the hole punch part and the hinge of the apparatus; a pen-shaped tool that has a tiny spot of sticky material on the end that picks up a minute piece of paper and a release mechanism that drops it just where you want it. Seriously. Once you know it exists, how can you do without it?  And even if you can do without the item, you are held hostage by the gorgeous packaging, and by the grouping of this item with other beautifully packaged items that attach to it for even more obscure purposes.

So here is how this all relates to memory.  Six months after buying the stick-and-release tool, I run across it in my drawer (or even worse, in the original bag in which I brought it home from the store) and think... what did I intend to do with this?  More likely still, what IS this?  And wow, I paid $13.99 for it?

Thus I have made this 2011 New Year's Resolution:  Do not go to bed until you have written detailed annotation regarding whatever art item you bought that day.  What is it?  What project do you expect to make with it?  This note must be securely attached to each item bought, or can be attached to bundled items bought for a specific project.  This at least gives you a prayer of remembering that brilliant insight you had about the decorative hole punches in the vintage fabric that will be made into a pillow trimmed in thimbles.  

It's me again.

By the way, the fabulous PaperSource is opening a new store in Naperville. Would it be just mean to invite Joyce to the grand opening?

Not So Pastalicious

You know when you have dinner catered for a group of friends? And it's all nicely cooked and in foil pans? And you are really looking forward to Lemon Chicken and Mostaccoli? And you get everything tucked into the oven? And 45 minutes later, you remove the pans, add extra sauce and put everything back into the oven?

Well, remember to read the directions and add a cookie sheet under the stupid foil pan, or it will collapse in a steamy heap on your Oriental rug.

.

And no, the 5-second rule will not apply.

My New Year's resolution is to eat out more.

What's yours?