No Pride

As you know my niece recently had a birthday.* Because she's always trying to get into my craft room, the dude and I gave her a list of crafts we could do together: craft cards, style a scrapbook, concoct candy, sew an Ugly-style doll, make Muddy Buddies, construct a wreath, fashion a fleece scarf, applique an apron, paint a pot, transform a t-shirt, brew up body products, jazz up a switch plate, stamp-a-stack, decoupage a decoration, can a jam, string a necklace, knead ze dough (bake bread), or make felt acorns. We thought she'd choose a couple at some point shortly before she came over to work with us.

But she was kind of excited: she sat down with the list and put checkmarks by the ones she really, really wanted to do; circled the ones she kind of wanted to do; and struck out a couple (wreath making, applique, stamping, stringing). The most popular was the switch plate, which I had put on the list to round it out, although I had seen directions for it in a couple of the books I flipped through. At first, she had to ask what a switch plate was. It turns out, however, she had just told her mother the butterfly switch plate she had to have when she was younger was "babyish." She's also interested in canning, bread baking, making a fleece scarf, and making cards.

This means of course, that we actually have to--ahem--be able to work walk in the room. Fortunately, craftzine is in the midst of showing how some professional crafters organize their spaces. I'm taking careful notes.

The title of this post refers to what I am about to show you. I want you to know that I come by my disorganization honestly. When I was growing up we had what we called "junk rooms." If you've ever watched Clean Sweep, you know exactly the kind of room I mean. When I was very young, it was our toy room--you'd be knee deep in toys until the hammer came down. In this (rather seldom) cleaning frenzy, we'd always discover toys we had forgotten. You would have thought we'd have learned from this. In our adolescent days it was the room that had the attic access. Things were always getting dumped there on the way to the attic. (And you've heard plenty about that attic lately**.) When the dude (not the tidying kind) and I lived in our two bedroom apartment in L.A., half the study was given over to the crap. There was a little path so that you could get around the outside of the room where the bookcases were. Now, it's the craft room. (Although the basement is starting to get out of hand too.) Here's what I need to fix up in the next two weeks:

So you see what I am up against. I do hope you don't think less of me...

* Though high pitched, the girls were really very good. I only had to use my teacher-voice once when one girl pushed another into the pool. And sissy gave a lecture on not being down on themselves for being "fat" (two girls were spinning around saying "fat fat fat fat" which "wasn't directed at anyone" but one girl--the tallest and hence biggest--was blushing, and taking it personally). Ironic since sissy refused to put on a bathing suit to chaperon because she "was feeling fat." I'm pretty sure if you're a size 6 you're not allowed to feel fat. No, you've got to be in double digits for that.

**Did I mention my parents sold their house? They put it on the market shortly before Christmas and sold it three weeks later, after the first open house! If you need a stager, call my mother.