It Has Begun!

Well, I said about a month ago that I need to purge my stash and today was a good start. Both Brian and Sherrie are up at NAU now and Dave had to work, so I decided to take back my craft room. Sherrie had moved into it for the summer as her refuge so this was the first chance I've had to get in there and work. Dave and I went to Ikea last weekend because I still want to get an organizer wardrobe from there to organize all my stash. Dave said we needed to see how much storage I'd need before we went and bought anything (now why didn't I think of that ;-p). So today I started purging. I got about 1 drawer of 1 file cabinet done. Now that may not seem like alot but, remember, I had already started on the magazines earlier this year. I was ruthless. I know I'll never stitch everything I have so most of it is going to go. What I can, I'll try to auction off on Quin's cross stitch auction. I used to use ebay but their fees have become prohibitive for the small amount I price things at. That which I don't suceed in selling is going to go to Goodwill. I also went through folders and found articles I had printed off from Prodigy (that tells you how old they were) that I had forgotten I had. I recycled all those plus lots of free patterns I had printed off the Web. The recycling bin was full by the time I quit for the day. I also have quite a pile to sell. Once this drawer is finished, I'll only have 1 more partial drawer in that file cabinet, then it will be purged. The 2nd one is the one I'm dreading. The first drawer has things that have already been purged, so no problem there. The other 3 drawers have all my patterns and charts and books that I've collected over the years. Almost 30 years to be exact. It's gonna kill me to get rid of some of them but I need to commit to doing this. I have decided certain things will not leave the house. All my Shepherd's Bush kits and patterns, all my Drawn Thread kits and patterns are staying if I have to be buried with them. Everything else is fair game.

I mentioned earlier in this post that both Brian and Sherrie have gone to school. Yep, I now have an empty nest. It was okay today but last night was kinda weird. Now most of the time Dave and I would watch TV by ourselves anyway but we always knew someone else was in the house. Last night just felt... different. Not better, not worst, just different. I'm praying this time Brian takes full advantage of this opportunity cause I'm afraid if he blows this one, there may not be another one for him. Only time will tell.