Churning, Lusting, Heaving and Tackling

So what is CHURNING?

Churning: the term for the act of moving one item to another without discarding any item.

Apparently that's what I do!

Who knew!

I picked up this book while waiting to check out at the library.

 

What a relief, I am NOT a hoarder.

But I'm a collector with hoarding tendencies.

Or that's what the book says.

I could see that.

Since my spare bedroom and basement is full of Stuff.

and then I've been LUSTING.....

Yep, I have House Lust.

I'm obsessed with looking at real estate listings of houses out of my price range.

Now I don't look at REALLY expensive homes,

Nope. just the ones that almost seem possible but are not.

 

and WHY do I do that?

I think I have it figured out.

Because I'm tired of Churning and never getting anything accomplished.

Oh sure, I do a painting here and there.

A load of metal to the junk yard.

I wonder if I had one of those houses, would I fill that up too?

I know several people who can't even parked their cars in their garage because it's full of stuff.

Back to the book.

The great thing about the book is that it is NOT just about organizing.

It's about the WHY?

Why do I drag home Stuff and

Why can't I get rid of Stuff.

There are many different types of people with different levels.
The worst of "hoarding" down to lesser "collecting" problems.

All with different reasons.

After a lot of self examination, I think I know what started the problem originally for me and why,
but I won't bore you with the details.

and I'm pretty sure why I collect this stuff NOW.

For ME, it's money. or lack of.

So if it's free, I gotta have it, right?

and if it's a bargain, I need to get it. To save money.

Example: I have bought several gallons at different times of mis-tinted paint for $5.00 each.

What a bargain!

Not really. Not when none are really quite the color that I want.

Yep, Penny Wise and Pound Foolish,

and I'm left with several gallons of paint.

Anyway....the Good News?

This book clicked something in my brain.

Not only has it helped my to figure out the WHY,
it's helped me figure out HOW to let go.
I've gone through all my clothes and bagged up things like crazy.

I'm HEAVING chairs and lamps and things out into the van and I'm dropping the whole shebang off at the back door of Goodwill and not going around and into the Front Door.
That's one of the secrets.
Not to just clear the Stuff out, but also not to drag more Stuff home again.

I've made another pile of metal and taking it this week down to the Recycling Center.

Suddenly my house seems bigger!
Maybe I don't NEED a new home!
?

So, if you have a problem with too much Stuff, I recommend this book.

Maybe it will help you too.

I'm excited and I feel like I can breathe.

Yep, I'm getting rid of stuff!

and then I'm TACKLING the TO-Do list of fixing up my house.

 

SCREENSAVERS and RERUNS

This post might run a little long but it might be a while until I post again, so here we go.

First. What's on your screensaver?

For the longest time I had an illustration of an old black scrawny mean black cat.

Go figure.

Then the other day, somehow I accidentally replaced it with a different photo.

I assume it happened when I was "saving" a photo.

While I liked the photo, I didn't want it for a screensaver.

So I sat for a while and thought about it.

I put up a background photo of a wide open plain with a horse running across it.

It wasn't right. I wanted something inspirational, something to motivate me every time I sat down to the computer.

I finally found the perfect photo. It motivates me and it makes me feel good.

I actually stop for a moment each time and just stare at it.

Beatrice Wood.

What could be better for me?

A beautiful artist that enjoyed life and created Art.

She didn't worry that she was too old. She never worried about retirement.

She just kept going, well past 100.

Here's more about Beatrice.

So, What's on YOUR screensaver and Why?

OK, the second thing.

I got an email for a Call for Entry. I'm not even sure how they have my name and email but....

I would have less than 2 weeks to have something ready to submit to them and I don't want to slap something together.

But that's always my story, never ready for when opportunity knocks.

And if I enter something, I want to be happy and proud of it, not just lukewarm.

I need to have Art ready and I don't.

I have so much on my plate right now and I guess that I always do but my Art always gets shoved to the back-burner.

Spring of course has added to my MUST-DO List.

So something has to give and I guess for a while it's the blog.

I'm not going to disappear completely, (sometimes I truly think my blogger friends are the only people keeping me sane but...)

I just don't have enough time for it all.

I will continue to read all my favorite blogs,

I plan on doing that on my coffee/non-cigarette breaks at work,

but it's hard for me to "comment" while at work.

WordPress loads slowly for me and Word Verification on Blogger stalls me and I can be in the middle of a comment and get called away or get caught when SOMEONE comes walking through my area.

So, yeah. I'll be lurking but not always sending out my thoughts.

Just so that you know, I'm still here, silently reading.

Same thing with Posting. I have a few posts that I've been working on, things I wanted to share but never finished, that might get published at some point but other than that, I will be missing in action.

I DO want to try to post my current Artwork but even that will be short and sweet.

I also check Facebook in the mornings before I leave for work, so you can always send me a message or whatever HERE.

I have to check in daily with Facebook just to share Cat photos and Inspirational or Sassy quotes and stay in touch with local people who don't have time to actually TALK to me.

and so...

This where RERUNS come into play.

I don't know about you but sometimes in the summer I watch the reruns of shows that I don't watch during the regular TV season and I find that I was indeed missing something.

On some blogs, including my own, there are links to past posts to read...kinda like "reruns".

There are many blogs that I Follow and I will happen to read a post that was written before I discovered them and then I'm so glad that I did.

So I will do RERUNS of some of my old posts.

Not actual new posts but a link to a past one that I liked writing or that was, for some ODD reason, popular.

Some people never watch reruns so I get it if this isn't something you will want to bother with.

But I thought it could be a way for me not to be completely forgotten.

So what will I be doing when I not glued to my laptop any more?

Well - Finish the remodeling I'm doing

on my bathroom

and my bedroom

and the spare bedroom

and the kitchen

and the laundry room

and the stairs

and the living room

 

and landscaping the yard

digging up flowers, moving flowers, putting down grass seed.

putting up more fencing.

terracing the back yard

and painting...

the address sign I'm making for my house

and the front steps

and the shutters I got from ReStore

and the picnic table and

oh, my ART

to sell at the Farmers Market.

and in case someone else sends me a Call for Entry.

and to finish my illustrations of my book about Kanga

so that I can start the one about Blue.

and of course....working at my day (and sometimes weekend) job.

Oh, I need to fit in walking too, with my dogs.

so......

When I finally CATCH UP...

I'll be back in full force. Posting and commenting.

it shouldn't take me too long, right?

I DID IT, ALL BY MYSELF!

Most of the things that I do, I do by myself
and I'm fine with that.
Just because I'm alone doesn't mean that I'm lonely.
I wish there were more things that I could do where I could take one of my dogs along.
Blue draws a crowd and Nora goes crazy on strangers and there's really not a lot of places that allow dogs.
But if I have to do something NEW, I like to have someone with me.
Maybe my sister or my nieces or one of my friends.
Last Fall I went to the Metal Recycling Center with my sister and then another time she went with me.
I really thought that I was paying attention as to what to do and remembered the procedure, the steps of scrapping metal.
So this morning I loaded up my van with every little piece of metal I could find.
The weather had decided to climb up to the high 50's.
With a touch of Spring in the air, I was revved up to start the Spring Cleaning Process.
So off I went.

I felt nervous but I was sure that I remembered what to do.
I drove up and went inside and the woman at the counter asked me which vehicle was mine.
I told her and she said she didn't have record of it driving through and I said it was still parked out front.
A guy waiting behind me started to tell me to drive out and around to the scale.
The woman said that they had to get the weight of my van unless I needed to go to the other special metal drop off area.
Did I have special metal?
I shrugged and said I had some rebar and an old bike and a couple of old dehumidifiers and...
She sent a guy out to look at my stuff and he told me to drive on over to the scale where my van would be weighed and then he'd meet me around back.
So I got in my van and started to drive to the scale when someone HONKED at me.

There was a truck on the scale and I needed to wait.
So I waited and when it drove off the scale I started up and someone honked twice at me.

I turned around and saw that there was a line of trucks waiting that I wasn't aware of.
So I backed up off to the side and let the trucks go.
Then it was my turn.
I slowly drove and drove and then I heard a voice calling out of the intercom to STOP and back up.
I did.
The woman's voice nicely told me to stay there while she got the weight and when she flashed the green light, I could go ahead.
I waited for the green light and then drove around to the back where men were hurling stuff out of their trucks onto a pile.

A worker came and looked in my van and threw a couple of things on the pile and then left me to continue.
OK....this is metal stuff, I don't have the strength to hurl it.
I pulled some of my scrap out and carried it to the edge of the pile and tossed it.
Some guy was aggressively flinging things out and I just keep gently tossing.
I looked out at the mound of stuff.
There must be something wrong with me but it made me kinda sad, seeing the old bikes and things piled up like that.

Then I got back in my van and drove up the scale.
I hesitated and then I heard the woman's voice again.
"Pull up a little further"
I inched forward and then I realized there was another intercom on that side of the scale too.
The woman told me to always pull up level with the intercom speaker so that if she had a question, I could hear her.
Then she got the weight again and I drove around and went back inside.
I hate being the new kid.
I felt so dumb but she was very pleasant and said "See, that wasn't too hard."
She asked for my drivers license and then gave me $37.00!

I drove home with a rush of adrenaline.
I had done it all by myself.
I went to the library and then stopped at the grocery store and came home feeling happy.
I looked around and liked that there was an empty space here and there.
I started cleaning and moving stuff around again.
Hmmm. I wonder if I have some more metal that I could get rid of?

Illustrations of TYKE and FRITZ

In my post before the last one I showed my completed commissioned paintings of Tyke the Eskimo Dog and Fritz the little Wirehaired Dachshund.
I want to thank everyone for the kind comments.
Some of you have No-Reply on your emails so I could not email you back my thanks, so I'm thanking you here.
(A LOT of  you have No-Reply. I wish you didn't but whatever you think best.)
Anyway, I've been sketching out illustrations for my book on Kanga and I just stalled.
Then I got to looking at my photos and these two little faces just called out to me.

 

So, I just did little illustrations of them, no pressure, just whatever I felt like doing.

I was experimenting, drawing out lettering and I decided to make little mini paintings.
This is what I came up with -

Now I need to get back to drawing that cat!

I WANT A BLANKET FORT.

Just dropping in with a really quick post.
Lots of ideas about Art and about my Blog are swirling in my head
but I have no time or energy right now.
Last Sunday, Jimmy Chew was all hunched over and crying in pain.
ARE YOU GETTING SICK OF SICK DOG STORIES? BECAUSE I AM!
anyway, lucky for us I had some pain pills left from another time he hurt himself.
NEVER EVER give your dog IBUPROFEN or ALEVE or TYLENOL it could be FATAL.
Anyway, it helped him some and then I took him in for a chiropractic adjustment on Monday.

His neck seemed to be in bad shape.
We figured it's probably from him jumping up and down and up and down when I leave him in his kennel.
I rarely kennel him but sometimes I can't take him with me and if I left him loose he will chew my house into tiny pieces.
So probably the jumping ....and the fact that I'm always grabbing him by the collar when he's acting crazy doesn't help.
(I have now ordered him a harness instead.)
Doc gave him a chiropractic adjustment and then prescribed more pain meds and muscle relaxers.
On Tuesday Jimmy had a laser treatment.
Wednesday night he seemed better.
Thursday morning he was hunched over again, panting and crying.
I had to lift him into the van and carry him inside.
They did X-rays.
A slipped disc. Third one down in his vertebrae.
Another chiro, another laser treatment and meds refilled again.
Friday, another laser.
Jeez, I'm going to working there FOREVER.
Anyway, MUCH better TODAY.....Finally.
I myself, have been working everyday this week and this morning and tomorrow morning.
Lily helped me this morning. We were crazy busy.
So many dogs and so many more coming in...she said she doesn't know how I do it everyday.
Day in and Day out. I told her that I didn't know either.
I usually just try not to think about it.
I'm exhausted but it's Spring Break and it's going to be this way for a while.
Then it will drop off and then....
it will be Summer.

Finished the Paintings before the Crazy Weekend!

I thought I'd do a quick post before leaving to start my first shift at work today.
I'm doing the double shift thing, that's what happens when someone gets sick and you manage the place.
It's a VERY busy weekend and the kennel is at full capacity, actually overflowing because it's the start of Spring Break season. But I'm fortunate because my youngest niece Lily works with me and has volunteered to come help me on both shifts. Thank God for that kid! I adore her. She will be turning 18 next month and she's been helping me since she was 9 years old. When she was little she wanted to have a REAL job and Doc told her when she could drive, she could have one. So last year when she got her own car, she kept him to his word. She has been learning all my quirks and preferences all these years and she's dog/cat crazy just like me, So I am VERY lucky.

So...... I FINALLY finished the commissioned paintings of Tyke and Fritz for Anne!!!!
She wanted Bright and Folk Art, so I layered papers and paint in turquoise and bright green.
Then I layered up the dogs.
Below are the photos of the dogs and the paintings :
TYKE

 and FRITZ

 

 I'm off to work now! Have a Great Weekend!