Getting ready for a sale.

In my new solo life here, having my lawn mowed, and any yard work that needs to be done, is a financial consideration.   I am not going to do it myself, I've decided that  a while back.

So, I guess I'll just do what I can afford, and hope for the best.

Here's my back yard after the first spring mow.

It's obviously way bigger than I need.  But I've spent years clearing what used to be an old barn yard, and now I hate to let it go.

Oh, it would grow up in a heartbeat, if I stopped mowing it, and I have nothing against wild, green spaces.  The problem is that it wouldn't be a flowery field from Pinterest.  It would be a hot mess, with the sumac and the knotweed (we call it bamboo) and the locust trees totally taking over.  

So I just can't do it.  

In my efforts to continue to clean out this big old house, and downsize, I am having a SALE.

It's on May 20th, 10-4, and it's all weaving threads and weaving tools.  I have shelves of cones of thread that I haven't used, and probably will never use.  They need to go to other weavers.

I'm digging through drawers and cupboards and finding all kinds of things, like this old quilt that needs to be finished.

 It's a beautiful piece of work.   The wedding ring quilt is one of the hardest to get right, IMHO.

Anyway, I put it away, for sometime after the sale.  I don't have time for it right now.

I just happened to catch this turkey vulture as it landed on a nearby pole.  

He didn't stay long.

I had work to do anyway.

I needed to wrap up one project on my sewing table, before I start assembling all the cones of yarn I want to get rid of.

It's a dress/tunic that I made from several different pieces of woven and hand dyed yardage.

Not entirely sure that I like it as a dress, but maybe shorter, as a tunic, I might really like it better.............

So after the sale, I might try to make another one.

The front.......

The back........

Eighteen years ago, we cleaned out my  father's house after he died.  He wasn't exactly a hoarder, but he was certainly a collector of strange things.  His house was a wreck.   I say he wasn't a hoarder, because he was functional.  He could sleep in his own bed, eat at his table, 

shower in his bathroom, and sit in his recliner and watch TV.  He could cook on his stove, and do dishes in his sink.

But there it ends.

The rest of the house was totally trashed.

We filled thirteen 30 yard dumpsters to the tune of $11,000.

I vowed I would never do that to my children.

Then just recently, a lifelong friend of mine died suddenly, and she WAS a hoarder, and she was not functional.    She could get herself to the store to buy wine, but she couldn't get to her bed, she had no vacant place to sit, she couldn't use her washer or her dryer or her shower.  The stove was buried, the kitchen sink was buried.  

Disturbing does not begin to describe it.  

Now her poor brother has to deal with it.

A whole houseful of it.

So I have this real need to simplify my life and my home.  That is not the kind of legacy I want to  leave behind.

Needless to say, there will be a lot of "stuff" in my house when I leave this world, but I want it to be useful stuff, and organized useful stuff.

Not junk.  Not boxes and drawers full of unidentified junk to go through.

Thus .......the purge.

Naya and Willie do not care one whit.   As long as they have their food dishes, and their soft, comfy beds to lie in, and Willie has his tennis ball, the rest is just fluff.

We could learn a lot from dogs.