Where I Go, Kitties Try to Go!

Wherever I go, kitties try to follow. Are they trying to help unpack, longing for my company, or just trying to find places to play?I know that Starkit gets lonely because if I want to get her out of a room I just have to close the door for a couple of minutes. When I open the door she is anxious to get out! It takes Jettkit much more than a couple of minutes to decide she wants out. She was just looking into the den because she knows I have been in there as recently as a few minutes ago and she wants in. As soon as she hears me open the door she will no do doubt come bounding back into the living room to see if she can make it into the den before I shut her out. I will try to keep her out because I am working on unpacking boxes in there today. Next post will include a better picture of Jettkit where she doesn't have her eyes half-closed.

It's too bad that it will be too wet to go to a flea market tomorrow as I have found more stuff that needs to be sold! I'm still looking for somewhere to go to soon. I'm also trying to figure out when I can have a yard sale. My last landlady wouldn't allow me to have one, but I will be allowed one here. I am thinking of holding it the first weekend of October so I can have a good spread.

Some things recently unpacked:

• A pile of Ree's comic books
• A few of her wildlife information cards
• Her set of "Weird'N Wild Creatures" cards (complete, I believe)
• Walkie-Talkies in need of new batteries
• Some belts & clothing from my 93 year old friend who is in a nursing home
• Some of her cheap costume jewelry
• A kid's size 6-8 Washington DC t-shirt from about 8-10 years ago
• Floppy disks with photos
• My matchbook collection, which I would sell except they take up little room & I don't think the market is strong enough for them right now
• Cord to plus Ree's cellphone into computer which is great because she has lots of pictures to upload to computer & music she wants to put on her phone
• Charger for my cellphone that my nursing home bound friend usually calls me on because my other number is long distance for her

Some things that found homes, even if temporary:

• 2 of 3 old fishing poles - the 2 bamboo ones have gone above a door; the 3rd has a reel & no good home yet
• Elfa drawers (some drawers put in drawer units already set up in Ree's room, some units set up in den, even if they go elsewhere eventually)

Fun in the Sun

We had a lot of fun tie dying yesterday. There were about 20 people, ranging from baby to adult (the baby didn't participate however) as we tied and dyed at a friend's house. I wish I could have found the bag of plain t-shirts, tote bags and the like, but most of the socks were used anyway. I did end up purchasing t-shirts for Ree and myself on the way. I tie dyed that shirt along with a dingy white one - a comfortable favorite that now has a new life.

While it was hot yesterday, the official heat wave is over I think. We had some rain, but not until after the tie dying was done. Whew! Today it is much more comfortable. Now that the shirts are rinsed, washed and ready-to-wear I am going to do some unpacking.

In case you were wondering about the photos that Ree was working on - 5 ribbons came home Saturday! Next photo drop off is next week, but those only have to be matted so it will be less of a chore. I'm going hang the winning photos in the house because they will take up less space on the walls.

What a Difference a Few Open Windows Makes

Yesterday I awoke without much hope of getting anything done; it was day three of our first heat wave of the summer. I was determined to make some progress though. My first chore, done before breakfast, was unpacking a box of books that resided under the kitchen table. Since the not-so-brilliant movers told me they weren't going to bring my biggest bookcase into the house because they claimed I didn't have room, finding places for books is getting more and more difficult. There must have been at least 4-6 boxes worth of books, along with a few other items so I really wish I had the use of those shelves now.

Today I had to go somewhere that was over a 2 hour drive, and had errands to run beforehand so I tried yesterday to make up for today. I hate leaving the kitties alone for so long so my mother came over to feed them, give them water, and probably to give them some good belly rubs. The key to yesterday was getting more windows open and getting more of a cross-breeze going. The house was much more tolerable.

Here's some of what I accomplished yesterday:

• 2 or 3 boxes of books unpacked (can't remember how many)
• many previously unmarked boxes marked with basics of their contents
• a bunch of boxes moved out of the dining room and into the rooms in which their contents belong
• boxes that need sorting marked with their priority level; for instance some big boxes without many items are now marked priority because they are a huge waste of space
• the dining room made safer for the kitties because hopefully they won't be able to climb up inside the light fixture
• found some tie-dyed items made last year that I can bring for examples
  

Here's one thing that didn't get accomplished

• the blank t-shirts, sweatshirts & tote bags for tie-dying have not been found

Major accomplishments today:

• went to frame-it-yourself shop with Ree to frame one picture and mat a series of 3 (wish I had realize how much time I could have saved in the first place)
• went to agricultural/town fair two hours away to deliver 4 pictures and a story

Pictures of Frisky Felines

It's been too hot to do much of anything; we're having our first heat wave of the summer. It's not too hot to show off the little kitties - or not so little as the case may be. They are not quite 5 months old, but already Jettkit weighs over 7 pounds, and Starkit weighs over 6! It must be that expensive Wellness dry food they eat, although they have turned up their noses at the kitten canned food, and now enjoy AvoDerm complete with avocado oil. Yes, it has avocado oil, although I don't know how they decided that it would be good for kitties. Next week they might turn their noses up at that as well; they are rather particular it seems.

Despite the heat, I do have an unpacking chore that must be done tomorrow because I am leading a group of kids and adults for a day of tie-dying next week. I have to find a bunch of plain t-shirts, sweat-shirts and tote bags. While I myself had put all the dyes, squeeze bottles, buckets, and such exactly where I knew to find them, I didn't do so with the stuff that I would like to sell to people (at cost) so that those excess items leave my house. This time I am going to keep a marker with me while I go through boxes and write a basic list of what's in the unmarked boxes on the outside. This should cut down on time spent digging into boxes looking for stuff. I seem to do that a lot, usually under the watchful eyes of the kitties.

It's Miserably Hot Again!

You know it's hot when the kitties are lounging about instead of making mischief. The bad thing about this is that when the bedroom is finally almost decently cool, the kitties come "alive". It was Starkit who sprang from inaction at 3 AM to attack one of the mini-blinds, making an awful racket. They are very nice name-brand mini-blinds so I don't really want either kitty to demolish any of them, but Starkit was making the attempt. So, a few minutes after 3, I grabbed the "Bitter Yuck" spray, made sure I didn't have it pointed towards my face, and gave that mini-blind a good spraying. Then I took her to bed with me, held her for a minute until she sprang back into action. She headed right back to the mini-blind. This time the attack didn't last long. I won that battle, but fear I have not won the war.

I certainly haven't won the war of unpacking; I'm still up to my eyeballs in boxes. Ree and I spent a couple of days trying to get her project ready - photo entries for a county fair. I bought inexpensive frames and tried to put screw eyes into them for picture wire. Most frames, however, are not made for attaching picture wire. I hadn't looked up anything on YouTube, otherwise I might have seen the D-rings. My mother, Ree and I finally went off in search of them. I found something similar, so Ree was in the back seat with the cordless drill, my mother was in the front seat with the picture wire, and I was trying not to go so fast that I would get a speeding ticket. We were about 10-15 minutes late and were not able to get the photos entered, all because of the difficulty attaching picture wire. I could spend about 5-6 times per photo and have them all professionally framed, but it's crazy to spend that much when this is for a junior category with a top prize of about $5.

We're looking for another fair to enter the photos in. We're also waiting for the weather to cool down so I can do some major unpacking. Hope it's not as miserable where you are. Look for kitten picture on Tuesday; I have already taken some, but have to get to bed now as I have to get up early. I won't mind as the car has air conditioning!

Where are the Picture Frames?

Three or four years ago I had a great decorating idea - I was going to turn most of my wood picture frames gold with this gold rub that I got at a nearby craft shop. The goal was to have a more unified look since I have many different kinds of frames. Somewhere in a box there are one or two frames with pretty gold rub on them, but there are more frames without. I went in search of this box of frames yesterday and today because Ree needs some frames for a project she is doing. It would be nice to save money and space by borrowing some of the old frames that have photographs in them, as well as using some of the empty frames.

You may have guessed by now that I never found the frames. It's not that I didn't find any frames or pictures, I simply didn't find the box that I know contain suitable frames for the new photographs. My guess is that it's buried deep in the dining room, possibly near some paperwork I really would like to find.

What have I found instead? Here are just a few things:

• Kitty in a chandelier - to be honest, I didn't see this, but I did see the light swinging shortly after I heard Ree telling Starkit to get out of the dining room light fixture (I dont know if it's actually a chandelier, but I think it might be original to the house so I have to move quickly to get the nearby piles of boxes out of the way)


• A small box inside a big box with picture hangers, as well as some mini-blind brackets that I bought for the old apartment that I had wanted to leave for my former landlady so she could put the blinds up that had fallen down over the years


• Framed photos, unframed ones, and framed counted cross-stitch pieces that my sister had made for us several years back, nothing with frames that will work for this project

The "chandelier"/light fixture has survived another day!

Flea Market was NOT Helpful

On Sunday morning I left my house with high hopes. I was going to unload most of the tins, and sell some of the other wares as well. It was to be decluttering heaven. Instead, the flea market was not helpful. Not only did I not make a profit, I came home with almost everything I set out with. You may be wondering how many tins I sold - twelve! Somehow, even though I sold those twelve I have more than I started with. My mother found some tins that my father had bought on eBay years ago, so I took some of those as well. I think that out of twelve tins, seven were one that my father purchased.

On top of not having a successful day, I came home to wild kitties. They are not used to being alone so long, and they don't particularly care for it. They are not allowed the run of the house when we are gone for more than an hour or two. As you may have imagined, they came bounding out, spending the next twenty minutes or so careening on slims paths between boxes. So I fed them their canned food which slowed them down for a few moments.

Progress of the Shelves that Are Supposed to Hold Craft Items

Perhaps a picture really is worth a thousand words. Before this photo was taken there were many, many tins here, which was a huge waste of space. While the shelves are not yet being used for their intended purpose, they are currently being used for a holding area. Down below, on the bottom shelf as well as below it, are bags of fabric and some other items. The whole unit is about 6 feet wide.

Within the next 24 hours I will post the flea market update (the kitties do not like spending the day without human contact I think), and more of my unpacking adventures. Also, I am going to take pictures of Starkit and Jettkitt on and in boxes. I will post a couple of the best ones so you can see for yourself how adorable the little rascals are.

Hercules I Am Not!

Yesterday I made a potentially dangerous discovery lurking above eye level - a box. "A box," you might ask, "isn't what this is all about?" Yes, this blog is all how there are too many boxes because I am too much of a pack rat. This one box was scary because I had to reach above my head to get it, and, un-beknownst to me, it weighed about 30 pounds.


Who would do such a thing? Who would put a 30 pound box that high with a weakling and a child in a house? I don't know, but I have a likely suspect - one of the movers. I had some not-so-brilliant movers who may very well have put that box up high. I did have some other helpers, including some movers to finish the job when the first ones mucked up the packing of the storage units, but they didn't really bring more than a couple of things into the house. Not only was it too high for a heavy item, since there were many light tins on the bottom shelves, heavy things should have been put on the bottom shelves or on the floor. This should have been a no-brainer.


My advice to anyone planning on hiring some not-so-brilliant movers - don't! My advice to not-so-brilliant movers - wise up and don't put heavy items high up where people can get hurt getting them. Just imagine what would have happened if little kittens had been lurking when the darn container of doom dropped to dining room floor! If I had not been careful, this could have turned into "Disaster in the Dining Room", and made this a gloomy post that even Hercules wouldn't be able to fix.

• Flea Market Report: I have more than 4 boxes full of tins for Sunday
• Found: most of my silverware and my large frying pan
• Unpacked: a box of books, kitchen items
• Nearly Full: the Elfa shelves
• Still Curious: Starkit and Jettkit

A New Look & More Unpacking!

Ree suggested that I change my blog to brown to match the millions of boxes it seems we have in the house. I hope you like it!

I now have about 20 more tins to sell, including some duplicates. I have been hard at work on the Elfa shelves - they are now a mix of tins, crafts supplies, a few odds and ends, and some boxes that just happen to fit in the right place for now. Many of the craft boxes are too tall so I will be transferring things to shorter boxes as I have them available. Others, as you may imagine, lay underneath big piles of other boxes. I figured that it was better to have well-packed shelves as I can finish the organizing later. Making more floor space is one of my goals after all.

We have been doing well in the kitchen despite too many boxes; success is being measured by the fact that we actually eat most meals at the kitchen table instead of on TV tables in the living room which we mostly did at our last apartment.

The kitties are enjoying the boxes still, and we have been opening windows for them in most rooms, except the bathroom and den which they are never allowed in. The black tiger, Jettkit, has begun to fetch toys. Starkit has found a deep hiding space down amongst the boxes. She likes to dive in there. (Those are their Warrior names.)

Back to Business!

It's been quite a few days since I posted. The heat was terrible last week. Even though I don't think it hit 90 degrees, it was miserably humid. One night I had gotten enough windows open and had the place almost cooled off when a familiar smell wafted through the windows - skunk!

I took my younger daughter to a model horse competition last Saturday - a two hour drive stretched to more than three in a traffic jam on the way out, and since there was other stuff going on the same day we didn't get home to long after midnight. It does seem lengthy to keep saying my younger daughter so I will give her a name - Ree. It's not her real name, but a nickname she likes.

The kitties are well. They are the only ones enjoying the boxes. When we finish unpacking we will have to buy one of those big cat towers; it's too bad that they are so expensive. It's not enough that they eat one of the most expensive kitten foods around - Wellness - and that they have one of the most expensive litters on the planet - Kitten Attract - we will have to get them an expensive tower. I guess the food is a good investment as they are healthy and growing well. The kitty litter is worth every penny because one of the kitties confused the bathtub with the litter box for a couple of weeks. She uses the litter box now, but we keep the bathroom door closed so she doesn't get confused again.

As to the unpacking, perhaps your interested? Slow and tedious, due to the heat last week, the long, long drive, and just generally being busy. Yesterday I started going through all the tins that are out on the Elfa shelves that are supposed to hold craft items. I am taking some to the flea market, I have put some small ones inside others, and put things in some others. As I make room on the shelves I put boxes of craft items up there. I can make a lot of room this way; I have a large collection of tins.

It's going to be very hot today, but we have some new fans so I will do my best to work on unpacking today. I have to get to the flea market Sunday, because the drive Saturday killed the whole idea of getting up at 5:30 AM the next morning and getting on the road by 6:15.