My apologies

For a long stretch without posting. 

I have been working very hard on my home, particularly in our library/sewing/music room.  I dealt with a heap of boxes and bins that were blocking access to the closet, where some of our bulk foods are stored in buckets and popcorn tins.

Then I did something really counter-intuitive:  I brought a large piece of furniture into this already full room.  The reason is that a child had picked up a free curbside two-drawer filing cabinet in good condition from a neighbor, and thus was finished with the free curbside two-drawer filing cabinet that had done garage service from a different neighbor.  

This retired filing cabinet spent a couple days parked smack in the middle of the library, waiting for its next assignment, and it immediately became a frequently-used work surface...because the room had no other empty horizontal surface, besides the floor.

Not long after I moved the filing cabinet, unclaimed, out to the garage, yet another neighbor downsizing for a move along the property ladder set out a lightweight modern desk that was originally from Target.

I would normally have disdained it, but I had a stubborn sense of deserving to haul it home nevertheless, and it was light enough to carry by myself.

I made a place for it between the two main chairs in the library, sticking out into the middle of the room, and it immediately became a magnet for reading, drawing, and crafting activities such as beadwork and embroidering with yarn on dropcloth canvas and felt.  I've been keeping the desk mostly clear, except for a stack of books and the cat's new favorite sleeping basket, so there is always room to work.

As a side effect, I've been "hushing" the shelves and other surfaces.  And I was able to get several sewing and mending projects finished and out of the room entirely.

"Hushing" is not my term.  Myquillyn Smith's House Hushing book just came out this week, and I've been looking forward to it.  Yesterday I went out into afternoon early rush hour traffic and obtained a copy.  Her method of pulling an entire room at a time back to the bare basics is going to be very challenging to implement in my house, and realistically I am going to have to put off major upheavals until fall.

I also have her House Rules book.  Despite having a very different style than hers, I've found that every time I sit down and leaf through it for a few minutes, I get inspired with an idea for something that I can do to improve my home, and I'm off and running again.