Monday, August 23, 2021

Productive Sunday

It was another relatively cool day, today.  It started out cloudy and overcast, but, the afternoon was sunny.

In the morning, daughter went to feed her friend's cat one more time.  Her friend will be home in time to give the cat his dinner.

I spent the day doing a bit of this and a bit of that.  First, I took over some of the zucchini bread that daughter had made last night to neighbor S.  It was my turn to share something with her! 

Then, I altered daughter's dress and sewed up the area above the zipper that had been gaping open.  As I suspected, I had to undo the binding on the armhole and take up some of the extra fabric and resew the binding, again.   

Later, I tidied two shelves in the linen closet - the shelf with the bed sheets and the shelf with the towels.  As I organized them, I wondered if anything needed to be decluttered.  And, I returned to the question of how much is enough?  How much is too much?   How many bed sheets do I need/should I have?  How many towels?  The conventional wisdom seems to be two to three sets of sheets per bed and two to three sets of towels per person.  Which is what I have.  So, then, why do I feel I have too much?

Sheets:  I have three beds in my house, one queen sized and two twin sized; but, daughter's bed can be pulled out to make two twin beds, so four mattresses.  Which means that, at a minimum, I need four sets of sheets (each set consisting of one fitted sheet and one flat sheet) plus as many pillowcases as the number of pillows per bed; each set would be washed and put back on the bed.  I am not that much of a minimalist, though!  The next level up would be two sets of sheets per bed - one on the bed and one either in the wash or in the linen cupboard.  That would mean eight sets of sheets.

Currently, I have seven sets of sheets.  I have three sets of sheets (one flannel set for the winter and two cotton blend sets for the summer) for my bed, three sets (again, one flannel and two cotton blend) for daughter's bed(s), and one set of sheets for the guest bed.  One of my fitted sheets, however, is very worn and threadbare; I will need to replace it in the near future (or have only one set of summer sheets). I do have an assortment of pillowcases!  The guest bed has two pillows, but, both my daughter and I have more than two pillows on our beds.  I also use pillowcases to protect quilts that are not in use, so, I have several extra pillowcases.

In addition to the sheet sets, I have several extra flat sheets (usually, the fitted sheets wear out before the flat sheets do), the majority of which are stored on the bottom shelf of the linen closet.  I use them as dust covers on the family room sofas.  In any case, I didn't tidy the bottom shelf, yet, so sorting through them is for another day.  

Towels: I have two sets of towels for myself and two sets for my daughter, plus, one set of holiday towels and one set of guest towels.  What I do have extra are wash cloths!  I seem to have a stack of about ten wash cloths!  Not quite sure how that happened!

Then, there are some old towels that I use as sofa arm covers to try to keep cat fur off the sofas, but, those are not stored on the same shelf as my regular towels.  Occasionally, those towels are pressed into service when needed to mop up spills, etc.

After I tidied those two shelves, I dusted and tidied my bedside table/night stand.  I figured that was enough housework for the day!  Later in the evening, I played the piano for a little bit, put in an order for groceries to be picked up, tomorrow, and then, cooked a chicken curry and rice for dinner.  I also ran the dishwasher and washed a few other dishes by hand.  

I also chatted with neighbor T (she said she was tempted to walk over to my party neighbors in her nightdress, last night, and ask them to turn down the music, which finally ended at 12:50 a.m.).  I also chatted with friend R who was very concerned because a fully vaccinated family member in Sri Lanka has been diagnosed with Covid.

Today, I am grateful for:

- Daughter had a safe drive to and from feeding A's cat
- Two tidy shelves in the linen closet
- Sewing skills
- The cooler weather and sunny afternoon
- What I was able to accomplish

Today's joyful activity was sharing some zucchini bread with S and family.

Monday's To Do List:

- Call the doctor's office to confirm Tuesday's appointment
- Put gas to the car
- Pick up groceries
- Take the trash cans to the curb
- Water the garden

How was your Sunday?  What are your plans for Monday?


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August Decluttering Challenge: 

8/1 - 1 pair gardening gloves

8/2 - non-working heating pad

8/3 - old purse/handbag

8/4 - 1 computer CD containing a report

8/5 - 1 plastic lid that cracked and broke in two

8/6 - 1 hooded sweatshirt (received a new one to replace it)

8/7 - old make-up I no longer use

8/8 - 6 plastic laundry detergent scoops (I use powdered laundry detergent; each new box comes with its own scoop; I don't need to keep the old ones, but, it seems such a waste to toss them in the recycling bin)

8/9 - 1 sponge paint brush (unused, but, so old, the sponge is no longer spongey!)
         1 plastic food container

8/10 - 1 blouse (given to daughter); will be donated as she decided it didn't fit her properly

8/11 - 1 broken clothes hanger
          3 bras

8/12 - 2 Zucchini!  LOL!  Eileen informed me that the zucchini don't count!

8/13 - Daughter's old artwork: A poster 

8/14 - Daughter's old artwork: A painting

8/15 - 1 long dress (given to daughter) - she had urged me to buy it for myself one year for all of $1, but, I didn't wear it.  She, on the other hand, loves it!  It looks much better on her than on me! 

8/16 - 1 coffee mug 

8/17 - A book on cake decorating

8/18 - 1 bottle of perfume spray (an "our version of a famous perfume" that someone gave which doesn't smell good to me)

8/19  - 1 blouse (to be donated)

8/20 - 1 pair of slippers/flip flops (unworn; to be donated)

8/21 - an old digital camera that I could never figure out how to use!

8/22 - 1 small plastic bucket

14 comments:

  1. I say you should have as many sheets as you want and have room to store. We have a couple of sets of sheets for our bed, but I don't like their texture. Some day I hope to replace them when I have time to shop.

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    1. You are very kind, June. :) Yes, I have room in the linen closet to store the sheets. I hope you will find some time soon to shop for the replacement sheets you want. Are you planning to shop in person or will you order online?

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  2. My Gran said that for linens, 1 set on, 1 set in the wash, 1 set in the cupboard ... it's the one piece of wisdom from her that I disagree with. I like matching sheets & towels, these spark joy in me & yes I have more than 3 sets. You do sound like you are making headway with the de-cluttering.

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    1. Having three sets makes a lot of sense, I think - there is always a spare set if needed. Matching sheets and towels - when I was a child, bed sheets were always white (although, some had an embroidered border) and most towels came in one color - white! :D I suppose it was easy to bleach and clean them when they were all white! Thank you; yes, I'm trying to declutter. :)

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  3. Linen closets seem to have an ability to fill up. I need to go through the pillowcases. I have pillow protectors, too. I think my pillowcase supplies are secretly multiplying! I just bought two new towels but I have two perfect fluffy bath sheets which are just too big to use. DH and DS are over 6 ft yet neither wants to use them! I had hoped to offload them to DS.

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    1. Linen closets are lovely and I was so excited to have one when I bought this house! The apartments we stayed in prior to that didn't have linen closets (although my mother had a linen cupboard when we lived in Sri Lanka). Could you cut the bath sheets to make smaller towels? Make two standard sized bath towels and use whatever is leftover for hand towels or kitchen towels, maybe?

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    2. I thought of that but they are just too beautiful to cut up! Maybe I should just frame them. 😋

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    3. Maybe just use them for yourself? :)

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  4. I have four sets of linen so that's two sets for each bed. I don't have sets of towels anymore as I just tend to use bath sheets - I have 5 of them, all the same colour and design - and a couple of hand towels for the downstairs cloakroom and one in the kitchen.

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    1. It sounds like you have a good handle on the linen and towels, Eileen. I like how you've simplified things. :)

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  5. You're on a roll, Bless, I just hope you're not overdoing things.
    How much is too much? I'm really not sure. I need to have a good sort out of my bed linen. I could do with replacing some of the fitted sheets and towels. X

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    1. Thank you, Jules; I'm trying not to overdo things. There's more that I want to do than I have the energy to do, right now, so I have to make some choices. :)

      I hope you find that you have enough sheets and towels to see you through until you get around to replacing them. :)

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  6. The linen closet - ohhh the linen closet. How does it get so out of hand? lol
    And in my case I have two! One on either side of the bathroom entrance.
    How much is enough is a personal choice when it comes to everything I guess.
    Basically I do the one on, one off thing so I have 2 sets for each bed.
    I used to have more but I've cut back and not replaced the sets that have frayed, been repaired and kept developing holes. So tossing them depleted my count.
    As far as towels I'm not sure. Let me see - My husband likes white towels so we probably have 5 or 6 of those. For myself, I rotate between two other towels that I like to use.
    Then I have 2 more towels in the closet. So that's around 10 I guess. We do have out of town guests regularly (although not since Covid) and the towels seem to hold out so I guess I'm good.

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    1. Oh, lucky you with two linen closets! LOL. I could do with a separate linen closet for just the quilts! :D

      Yes, you are right - how much is enough is a personal choice! I must remember that! And not feel guilty that I have enough quilts for at least a couple of quilts per bed! :D

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