Andy, Get Your Gun

The yellow-topped bottles are the best but
are also the trouble makers

I'm in love with a tall spray bottle. Pretty sick, I suppose, even for a cleaning freak. Before we judge, however, remember all the spray bottles we've used that spit, dribbled, and squirted, then went limp on the squeeze when you needed them most.  This industrial strength bottle creates a huge, perfectly fine mist when needed or can produce a stream that shoots four feet.  I love tools that work.  I love the way this basic helper functions.

Towel bar installed

There's often a catch or a small flaw, so here it is. The bottles are too tall to sit on the shelf with the cleaning supplies.  I've perched them directly under the cupboard (remember the idea of storing like things together) on the back of the wash machine. Talk about an unruly gang of helpers. These guys cannot adjust to the sloped surface and tend to tip every which way.  My confined wrist was ready to have me put "duke it out with them and win" on the Things I get to do today.

Ducks in a row

First, the old towel bar from the recycling collection was measured and found to fit, just barely. Next out came the first tool that was my very own--the cordless drill. A week ago I could not hold or tighten the bit or use this tool. But today the wrist is healed enough to accomplish all of these with ease.  I've got my gun!

And now the part of me that glows when things are organized is beaming with delight.  This gun slinger has the whole bunch of reprobates lined up in cooperation.

Andy's Gun

Librarian's Dream

I get to organize all these headings and
started with "needles and hooks"

Heaven is organized.  I know that.  Give me a pile of widgets, just any kind, and my first urge is to sort them and put everything in order.  So when the sorting of Karen's knitting realm brought forth a huge bag of every sort of knitting needle and I took home my 1/3 of the stash,  I could feel the confusion settling into the needle cupboard--not heavenly.

I joined Ravelry (www.ravelry.com) over a year ago, entered my name and looked at a few patterns.  That was it.  Asta, who introduced me to "frogging," also took me by the knitting hand on Monday and gave me a helpful tour of Ravelry.  Last night I overdosed/blissed by organizing my new inventory of knitting needles.

My collection of knitting needles: at least 30 of them from Karen

Charts, squares, numbers, descriptions, categories, those all sing sweetly to my organized side.  Even though it was getting way past my bedtime, I carried on with this most delicious of Things I get to do today until all the needles, short, long, circular, double pointed, fat and skinny were cataloged into their appropriate chart home.  I slept with finely organized dreams.

Nested or Perched

We all like storage space in the kitchen.  Haven't met anyone who has too much, though the workmen when we remodeled a number of years ago were certain I would be the one.  When I cleaned out the kitchen cupboards awhile back, it seemed smart to sort everything, donate stuff I didn't use, and make sense of what was put back which would give me more space.

Unruly serving bowls.  Nesting is not their thing

What I found was that some newly-acquired, already much-loved serving bowls were little trouble makers in the cupboard because they were not compliant nesters.  Who knew nesting was a necessary quality in the kitchen.  Turning the unwilling-to-nest into cooperatively organized dishes now stacks up on the Things I get to do today.

They are all very happy to perch

I'm a great believer in turning parts of my world upside down.  Here's a safe but terrific place to start.  Kitchen tip: to stack identical bowls, place one top-down on the shelf and perch the second one on its flat bottom.  Too simple to qualify for a "tip?"  Well, my sweet, cluck-cluck hens enjoyed hearing about it. And it prevents chipped edges on the lower bowl when taking the top one in or out of the cupboard.

Purposing

That must be a word.  I looked it up.  "Purpose" means the reason something is done.  Repurposing is an upscale word for recycling.  When I'm "purposing," I find myself wandering around the house asking out loud to no one in particular, "I bought this thing in my hand.  How it is to be used?"

A good example:  A couple of years ago on one of my first trips to my favorite store I picked up a small piece of shaped wood.

99 cents.  Has to be good for something.

I bought it because deep inside I knew it had a purpose and in the right setting it could tell me what it was.  And I bought it because it cost only 99 cents.  And now these several years later, I did some purposing with it.  When I arrived at the paper towel holder in the pantry, the little shaped wood strip hollered out, "I'm home!" So was born "The Other Paper Towels."

At home next to the paper towels

One reason people grab the paper towels for a messy clean up is they
are so handy.  Now very tired old rags that can be thrown away or
washed are equally accessible,  Always good to have choices.

Some of my ideas really get me going.  You may have sensed that in the root cellar write up.   In all that "going" excitement, I can be a bit careless about measurements (it's happened at least twice in the recent past).  When the root cellar was finished, there was a bin/drawer to spare.

With this bin another episode of purposing began.  Starting in the garage which is neat and tidy by general garage standards but could use improvement by mine,  I held up the bin and asked how it was to be used. The workbench cupboard said "home" to three bin/drawers.  Here would be enough storage for a multitude of items on the bench that had been homeless statistics all their "lives." There would even be space left over for the little miscellaneous piles in the cupboard itself.  It should be noted here in all fairness that the orderliness of the workbench was never much of a concern to me until I needed the area for woodworking.

Next the purposing moved to the pantry.  I love to organize and reorganize--my spaces are always clean and neat long before they are thought about artistically (if ever).  Already I'm planning my next trip to my favorite store to buy the five similar-but-smaller bin/drawers that will fit in the pantry.

Am I off balance or just a little crazy?  Finding a purpose for something gives me thrills and chills and keeps my list of Things I get to do today long and luscious.  "Install bin/drawers" will be at the top soon.

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