So the ultimate “I don’t want to do anything” phrase is, or was, I have to re-organize my sock drawer. This is something I actually did today, along with my underwear drawer. And my knitted sock drawer. And my other knitted sock drawer.

Life has been pretty hectic and crazy since mid-April when Mr. Tang got sick. (Miss you still ever so much MrTanggy:(. ). Then came the end of the school year, that’s always hectic. Then I had decided to sell the house in Show Low, so we had been going up there since Spring break almost every other weekend packing, sorting, etc. Prepping. Takes lots of prepping and fixing things to sell a house. All of this looming on my leaving on a cruise that I had booked a year and a half ago as a retirement trip. But then I didn’t retire, but I had already ….more about that later….

So the house officially listed at 6:30PM on Monday, June 18. Carpet cleaners were coming the next day so it couldn’t be shown then. There were already two appointment requests by noon on Tuesday. Fast forward not quite 6 full days to Sunday, June24. Had a great offer come in. The only non-negotiable was closing on July 26, the day I got back off my cruise and went to work. My response to my agent was uhhhhhhh….

I countered, they accepted before the close of the 7th day, and a back up offer had come in for the the full asking price in cash. Pretty sure it was a done deal at that point, one way or the other.

So Sunday night it looked pretty obvious I needed to make some serious plans. Everything was pretty well cleaned out, extra furniture stored, etc. But there was still a bunch of stuff there. I packed Monday from about 5:30 AM till Tuesday around 1AM. Had a Dr appt in Phx for cortisone shots in my wrist, so that’s 3 hrs down, shot, lunch, 3hrs back. More packing/storing. Had to rent a refrigerated space for heat sensitive artwork, kachinas, Indian rugs, animal skins, whisky, knitted things, you know, important stuff. My original schedule that week had me leaving for Yuma Wednesday so I could pack for my cruise Thurs/Fri, drive to LA and stay with Carson on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and fly out on Tuesday evening. Somehow I managed to stick to that schedule. Movers were confirmed, papers signed, contact information spread all over, dear friends Bertha and Pedro agreed to pack up the kitchen, towels, left over stuff during their stay in July, Curt scheduled to come back and oversee the movers, etc. Took pictures of rooms, cabinets, drawers, labeled them as to what goes where, etc. Brought a carload of boxes of stuff home with me.

Managed to get packed up and drove myself to LA. Had cruise bags that I didn’t need to repack(but did). Stuff to use at Carson’s, it was like leaving for college and forgetting stuff.

Left on the trip Tuesday night, Carson and Adler drove me to the airport. Biggest, longest trip I have ever taken in my life! It was the trip of a lifetime. I still have photos to post from Reykjavík, the Faroes, Shetland, and London, so watch for those.

The house closed 2 days earlier than anticipated, on July 24. The people love it. I hear they have two beautiful young children and two beautiful black labs. That house needs a family to live in it and love it all the time. The movers never showed. Thankfully Pedro went back up with Curt and they moved everything, these two guys who probably shouldn’t have been lifting stuff, I am so thankful they just handled everything!

So the cruise was a knitting cruise on Holland America, through a company called Craft Cruises. I highly recommend them! It was all I hoped it would be and more. We started in Denmark, visited Norway, Iceland, the Faroes, the Shetlands, returned to Copenhagen, and I spent a couple days in London. Unbelievable trip of a lifetime! Scored some major yarn.

Flew back to LA on Tuesday, July 24. Asthma kicked in on Wednesday and I reached straight for the prednisone. With all the excitement, jet lag, etc I was a sitting duck for it. Drove back to Yuma on the 25th and went to work on the 26th. Got sicker over the weekend, but it’s better now, after a call to Teledoc they told me to go the ER for IV steroids and a chest X-ray. I opted for Urgent Care instead. Still tapering from that. See my pulmonary guy tomorrow, but I am much better after lugging around my nebulizer all week.

So after arriving home, there were more Show Low boxes, and I had all 3 suitcases kind of explode in the bedroom. Fortunately the kinds of clothes I wear to work aren’t cruise clothes, so I wasn’t in a laundry crisis…….for the moment.

Sometime this past week, I sat on the floor and played with my yarn, organizing in according to ports. I found out that lots of us did it this way. It was nice to reorganize it and relive it’s curation into my collection. Yes, curation. BTW, collecting or curating yarn does not necessitate the action of knitting it. Sometimes it is nice when knitting happens after a particular yarn curation, but it is NOT NECESSARY. As Deb pointed out, yarn makes great insulation when wedged into small spaces in your RV for instance. (Linda-make sure Danny sees this?lolol). Of course you always keep the shopping bags these new acquisitions came in just to impress yourself. So they are living in my chair right now in the bedroom. Because there is uh, no room anywhere else, yet.

Which brings me full circle back to the laundry situation. Which is becoming quickly a crisis. For my trip I had purchased new undergarments because I was going to use the unlimited laundry option. You don’t want someone else washing the undergarments that most of us have in our drawers right now. That’s just embarrassing even though you will never see that person who washed them. They return them to your room folded so nicely like they came from Nordstrom’s and they are presented with tissue and sticker on the tissue around them sitting in a little wicker basket. Really. So I bought 8 new pair. I only took officially 5 complete changes of clothing for a 14 day cruise, with 3 extra long sleeved blouses and 3 short sleeved. So I didn’t need any of those washed or their pants, but I was in crisis mode for undergarments.

I pre-sorted then sorted laundry today. Because of the ShowLow situation, I had no place to hang any of the short sleeved shirts I was going to wash. I don’t wear work clothes all the time, so I needed to be able to wash and hang some of that stuff. That cause a little flurry of focused activity to clear up some space. Then I washed my nice new foundation garments. I had purchased these handy little things about 8 months ago I guess. I don’t know for sure, I do know that when I tugged on the laundry basket and the pulled it out of the closet the giant Container Store bag fell over and there they were.

I have 3 organized columns in my drawer now, everything is all nice and neat and things won’t migrate over to the other side of the drawer. My drawer is super organized now–those are Sockwells in the middle, graduated compression stockings I wear every day because I’m on my feet so much. 8 pair collected over the last year. All other sections nice and tidy and should be easy to keep that way.

The regular sock drawer doesn’t have to compete with the Sockwells now. It already had it’s little dividers but needed a good sorting.

And the hand knitted sock drawer—it had the beginnings of organization, just needed a nudge. Here it is…

Then I have the “tired” sock drawer–those awaiting transformation into a life possibly as wrist warmers–or needing mending. There are a few of them and they live in the quiet space with jammies….

They are secreted under the fingerless mitts at the top of the photo because after reinventing themselves they may show up in someone’s gift bag.

So this was a long post. Hope you enjoyed it. Hope to post more often. Hope to go to the gym. Hope to lose some weight after I get completely off the prednisone in a week or so. Subscribe if you want to see if any of that actually happens, besides the prednisone, I will be getting off of that, for sure. Hope your Sunday was as fulfilling as mine!