On Being Ruthless

I firmly believe everyone has a junk place. Maybe it’s your basement or attic. Maybe it’s a spare room that could hold guests if it weren’t for the clutter. Maybe it’s just a designated drawer in a desk or in the kitchen. If you’re lucky, you could have all of those.

Discounting my attic and basement (a.k.a. storage areas for things my parents should have thrown out and never did), I’ve ended up with two junk rooms.

The lesser offender is the library. It was the first room I redecorated when I took over the house. The central feature is four bookshelves. Plans to add some sort of reading chaise were put aside when I realized I owned other furniture. Besides, the library also acquired a few more things – a shelf unit to hold china once I moved the china cabinet to the garage, boxes of writing samples, baskets of holiday decorations, etc.

The greater offender is the guest room (a.k.a. my old bedroom; a.k.a. where I fostered cats for some strange reason). Although the room was pretty well cleaned out when I had the kittens, it managed to accumulate more stuff: long boxes of comics, materials for scrapbooking, my mom’s genealogy research, old photos, luggage, scuba equipment, etc.

As part of a spring cleaning burst, I decided to de-junk the rooms.

Prisoner in My Own House

As I type this, I’m sitting in my living room. I’m trying not to think about the errands I wanted to run, the groceries I wanted to buy, the mail I wanted to bring in from yesterday or the trash that needs to go out tonight.

I’m trying very hard not to think about the fact that I CANNOT GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!!!!

More Links

As mentioned in the previous post, I fell behind on posting interesting links. I’ve been collecting them, however, and storing them in my cheeks for the winter. No, it’s not winter yet, but here are some links to explore while you prepare for hibernation.

I hate the rampant abuse of quotation marks, and so do the people who run this site. Quotation marks do not indicate irony, and they certainly don’t belong in many places you see them. In my opinion (and 8 out of 10 grammarians agree), quotation marks should be used when you’re quoting someone, to set off titles or when you need to indicate you’re writing about a word as a word.

Odds and Ends

Wherein the author discusses hypermiling, decapitation, pipes and wall hangings. In other words, thoughts that are too long for twitter but not long enough for a complete post.

When gas crept up and over the $4 mark, I heard a lot about hypermiling (and more here and here). I gave it a whirl. Not the dangerous stuff like drafting off trucks or coasting with the engine off. I kept to more practical things. Instead of highway driving at 70 mph or more, I decided on 58 mph with cruise control whenever possible. I discovered my car’s momentum will carry me through most exit ramps without the need for more acceleration or hitting the brakes. I’ve figured out that coasting in to stop signs and slowly starting up from stops is good.

Sneak Peek

Here’s a pic to whet your appetite for the newly designed Tammy room. Okay, some of you have seen it in person, but for those of you haven’t …. Ta da!

Since the photo was taken last week, I’ve added pillows to the furniture and rearranged some of the knick knacks. There’s still nothing on the walls (speaking of which, they still need touched up) and I may nudge the couch about a half foot to the left.

Eckie conveniently wandered into the shot. She’s now figured out how to get up on the couch and loveseat. The chair and ottoman either confuse her or she’s not interested.