Never Enough

Fabric variety when making a scrap quilt. I can see now that I need more choices and after digging through piles in the workroom, I found the remains of the French chicken quilt and will be cutting that fabric into 5.5 inch squares and 4 inch circles. More varieties of blue and yellow and some greens and browns. And I think I will remove the lime green.

Each time I go to visit K, I come back wanting my house and activities to match hers. We have the same coffee maker, sitting next to a small tray with cream and sugar. My cups are on a metal stand and hers hang under the kitchen cabinets from cup hooks. I have 6 mugs and she has more than a dozen. I have a little container full of small spoons next to the two Polish Pottery sugar bowls (one cream and one sugar).

When we burn brush, we have lawn chairs nearby and big cups full of ice and the "beverage". K's own mix of lemonade and green tea. I have all the ingredients but it just doesn't taste right here in Maine. K suggests I use the same jug to prepare the "beverage". I have it on my shopping list. When G and I did the big burn pile here in Maine last fall, there were no lawn chairs and no beverages. What a bummer!!!

On this visit, K had salads with "all the fixings" in little screw top containers. Ready to use. I already have the generous salad bowls K uses (bought those three or four visits ago) and we enjoy salad as an easy lunch and supper. K had diced red pepper, sliced almonds, green onion, shredded cheddar cheese, croutons, chinese noodles and a whole shelf of salad dressings. I added julienned carrots (cut with the chef's knife I made her buy last year, to match mine at home). We also had leftover chicken from Zaxby's. I think she had dried cranberries but we didn't use them. We had salads for lunch and each day we thought we had made the best one ever. I brought home little screw top containers for my own salad "fixings".

Another good idea Kay has is a sewing tray. Just a small, wooden, tea tray. K has glued a magnet (one of those things businesses mail you) in one corner to hold needles and pins, a painted card stock box with a lid holds more pins, another small flat box holds thread, thread clippers, masking tape etc. The remainder of the tray is open and in my usage of it, while there, it held my freezer paper circles and the embroidery floss I use to applique the circles to the squares. Everything close at hand and easily picked up and moved. And no need to stick pins and needle into the arms of the couch or chair. Or into the knee of your pants. Well, I don't "stick" them into my knee, but I do "pin" them into the fabric over my knee. I'm at that point in life where I lose the needles and pins constantly. And with a dog, I have to be more careful.

I don't think K has ever taken any ideas home from my house. She has taken home fabric. And she has asked for and used recipes for food I cook when visiting.

What brings all this to mind today, is the fact that I prefer the spare, clean home that K maintains and not the cluttered, messy place I call home. Here I sit at the computer desk and I am surrounded by little piles of "junk" that no one uses but is still here. The top of a pen, a clip, some Christmas evergreen made of paper, a film canister, paper clips, a coaster, 2 phone cards, scissors, post its, bills, articles clipped from the newspaper, business cards, magazine labels (used to get refunds), menus. I don't toss it all because I was raised by parents and grandparents who saved things "just in case we need it and there isn't any more". In fact, I filled a 40 cubic yard dumpster with 86 years of my Dad's "saved junk". I need to do the same with my own junk. Not a dumpster, but several boxes and bags each week. The boxes to Goodwill and the bags to the dump.

That's what I brought back from K's this year. And the need to paint my rooms the same tan color with bright white trim. I had spent a great deal of time (years) trying to buy the same dishes K has (no longer made) but in beige or tan and have now settled on using my Polish Pottery daily and no longer treating it like a decor item.

So today: fill a garbage bag with debris, fill a box with Goodwill, walk the dog, cut out more squares, serve leftovers for dinner. G got promoted to manager this weekend and is at his new restaurant today instead of having a day off. Never a dull moment around here!