Preparations

Winter is certainly coming now.  It snowed for several hours today - none of it stuck.  I watched it all as I cleaned the upper floor of our house - the bedroom, closet, bathroom and my Yarn Lab.  Some of these things I did WAY before I got involved in Project 333, some of these tasks were just reinforced by living in that disciplined way.  Here are a few things I regularly do with the changing of the seasons.


Bedroom/Bathroom/Closet
1. Move the past season's clothes into the seasonal closet, pulling out anything that I wish to discard, donate, or repair.

2. Empty off shelves and wipe them down. Consolidate garments by like kind, refold and stack.

3. Dust all lights - with the winter gloom upon us I need every tiny watt of light I can get.

4. Go through my bedside table, remove items that shouldn't be there. Vacuum the drawer clean and make sure the following is in there: small pill bottle of advil, my asthma inhaler, the charger for my Kindle, my Kindle and its handknit cover, a lovely scented moisturizer, a nail file, chap stick, my sleeping mask, and my nutrition book.

5. Go through my exercise drawer and get rid of socks with holes, stained t-shirts, and put away all swim suits except for my lap suit.

6. Clean off the top of the bureau - put away jewelry that I won't wear in the winter.

7. Clean out medicine cabinet. Check for expired items, and put toiletries in their correct spot. Travel items go in their travel bags under the sink. Nail polish get rotated out for winter appropriate colors, and old polish that is gummy gets tossed. Ditto with makeup. Replace my summer moisturizer with winter moisturizer.

8. Make sure both sides of the bed have a box of tissues.

9. Refill Q-tips and cotton pads.

10. Clean nail and cuticle tools with rubbing alcohol.

11. Vacuum the cat's chair, and the mattress on our bed.  Put flannel sheets on the bed.

12. Go through summer shoes; throw out worn-out shoes, pull shoes I wish to donate, and all summer sandals get packed in the seasonal closet.

Yarn Lab
1. Get everything off the floor and vacuum everywhere.

2. Put skeins away in their appropriate tub. I have a general system: Tub 1: sweater quantities of yarn. Tub 2: Cottons. Tub 3: DK, Worsted, and Aran skeins of wool. Tub 4: Lace, Fingering, and Sport skeins of wool. Tub 5: exotics: camelid, angora, possum blends, silks. Sock yarns go in a zip bag that comforters are sold in.

3. Magazines get organized in magazine holders.

4. Gather random stitch markers from every surface and put together in a jar.

5. Identify and pull skeins/scraps that I wish to donate, put with other Goodwill items.

6. Get all music CDs back in their jewel cases and into their box.

7. Books go back on bookshelf in my own organizational system. Basic catagories: Reference, Socks, Lace, Colorwork, Cables, Thematic books, Yarn collections.

8. Put birdfeeder on the window.

9. Clean the cat's bed and return it to the center of my desk in front of the window (in front of birdfeeder). (If I move it she complains bitterly, then sulks in her old spot.)

10. Put away my teaching notes from past classes - each class has a file, swatches, etc. Make sure notes for improving each class are tucked into each file.

11. Put away handouts I get from classes that I take along with their swatches.

12. Identify and consolidate scraps I want to keep for swatching design projects or class swatches.

13. Put yarn for upcoming projects on open shelving unit. Should always include one sweater, one fingering weight project, and two hat projects.

14. Put all buttons away that may have gotten pulled out and strewn around while trying to finish a project.

15. Put all needles together, then size them and put them in the pendaflex folder. Ditto with crochet hooks.

When I am done with all these things I feel like I am ready for winter.  Everything is snug and clean and in its place.  I am not flustered with clutter or an over abundance of things that are not relevant to the season I am living in.  I have a few things left to tick off on this list - that will happen this weekend.  But I am happy with my surroundings in my snug little house!