5 - Creating OOAK (Order Out of Alarming Kaos :o)

My house scares me. Not because it's evil or eerie or even somewhat eclectic (which it is :o) but because it has been invaded. By what, you ask? Well I'll tell you ~ my house has almost completely disappeared under a deluge of craft supplies and vintage items that span decades (literally). First there was my own personal stash (which was already a teeensy bit *cough, cough* out of hand), THEN there were the boxes and bins belonging to my grandmother (Nana), the ornaments made by my great grandmother (her mother) and so on.

Some of it has been fabulous fun to sift through, like the family photographs dating all the way back to the 1860s (translation: watch for a blog post on my heritage scrapbook album, I'm so into it :o) There was the vintage jewelry she had stuck in a seriously tacky ceramic container; Trifari pieces that were drop dead gorgeous and some other amazing bits and baubles (hours of fun trying on and bringing back some fond memories). These fabulous finds were mixed in, mind you, with some cheesy plastic jewelry and dead tape (eew).

Then there were the things that were not so fun. Like the piles and piles of knitted "squares" that were NOT square (or any other easily identifiable shape; Nana had Alzheimer's). She made them by the dozens ~ no two the same size or shape - complete with holes and dropped stitches - impossible to use for anything. But the thing that really hurt my feelings was "The Tree". I've unofficially dubbed it, "Lamenting Loretta: A Felonious Folly" as this is nothing short of criminal...

Needless to say, I will be dissecting this and remaking some of the pieces into vintage jewelry for my shop (after I pick out the "keepers", of course ;o)

To top it all off are the evil dust bunnies on crack that I seem to be chasing

everywhere. Have you seen them? They look something like this...

Note the small beady eyes which have no problem spotting clean surfaces in dire need of a "dustover". For the past several years I have been battling them to no avail. Craft supplies and everything else had to be kept in boxes, storage containers or bags to prevent a light coating of dust from rapidly accumulating. It was a constant battle to keep up with that seemed to be getting worse, and I fought it bravely right up until the cancer. Now, I'll be the first one to admit I don't like to clean. While I may derive that certain satisfaction that comes with a job well done, I would be lying through my teeth if I said I liked it. Along with a cancer diagnosis comes surgery (or in my case surgeries), chemotherapy and a whole host of other raindrops on your parade that cause a lot of things to fall by the wayside (cleaning being one of the first casualties in the new war).

Why am I off on a tangent telling everyone about my dust? Because there's a moral to this story. A number of years ago, we remodeled the house and added a much larger central heat and air unit. In addition to some serious square footage, we added a half roof on the back side which created a nice big roof instead of several smaller ones. We also ended up with some storage space for "outdoor safe" items. Had it not been for the air handler going out a couple of months ago we would never have discovered that the people who installed the very expensive, brand new unit forgot to seal off the air intake. What does this mean? Well, instead of pulling air from the house, it was pulling air from the attic between the roofs. Nice hot, stuffy, dusty, gritty air which burned up the coils in the old handler and cost us around $1,300 to replace. Of course the man that owned the business that did the installation of our new A/C retired quite awhile back...probably to some remote island in Bimini. The moral? Check behind your contractors (which we did) even if they come highly recommended (which he was), and if you haven't a clue what to check find someone who does (that's the part we missed).

Anyway, if I can put in about 8 to 10 hours a day, I probably have a mere 6 - 8 months of cleaning and destashing left do. I'm sure if I hurry though, I can Git 'er Done (as they say). Hmmm, you know I don't remember seeing that big box before, maybe I'll just take a minute and see what all's in there...