Not Exactly a Flying Start

Right, we need to talk about my wool stash. And about how I wasn't going to be buying any more.

Obviously, I wasn't counting the wool I had already won on eBay, what with that being a legally binding contract (and soooo cheap! Only £4.00 for 9 balls - 3 of them bamboo, which is my favourite)
.

Isn't it lovely? So stroke-able. And, a small enough package to be able to
 sneak into the house, without it being spotted!

 
And then I got ran out of Minion Yellow (aka Stylecraft Special DK in Citron) for the two hats a colleague at work has ordered. And I'm almost out of Fox Brown (aka Stylecraft Special DK in Cinnamon) for another order, so, as I'm on holiday this week Miss CarrotCruncher and I had a trip to Liss Wools. Wow. It was like the Mother Ship calling the Pod home.

 

So, the yellow and the brown can be excused. Miss CC fell in love with the variegated stuff. And the other two sort of fell into my bag.

 

What can I say? This is not going as well as I had hoped.

 

On the plus side, a fairly unpleasant table cloth, two tea strainers (we have three; I have no idea why, we don't drink leaf tea) a pair of jeans and some of Miss CC's clothes have gone on the Charity Shop pile or into the recycling bin.

 

The Shelf of Doom remains untouched, but I did finish off a bag of Gummy Bears, which I think we can all agree is progress.

 

 

Too Much Stuff

I haven't blogged for a while. We have been living, as the Chinese curse says "in interesting times" here at CarrotCruncher Towers.

I am hoping for some dull and boring times next year, with less fires, less floods, less people trying to get out of legally binding contracts & rip me off.

'Nuff said about all that, I think.

Soooo, STUFF.

From time to time, I get a bit overwhelmed by the shear amount of stuff in our home. And now is one of those time. Before we went abroad, I sold/ dumped/ donated/ freecycled what felt like an immense amount of stuff and actually got our loft to an almost empty space. And now we've been back a year and a bit and the house and loft feel very, very full again.

Part of this, in my humble opinion, is Mr CarrotCruncher. Now, the man isn't a hoarder, but I think that's probably his ambition. For example, I was wearing a jacket this morning I hadn't worn since last winter. I put my hands in my pocket and found an inch long piece of plastic tube. I had my hand (and the tube) over the rubbish bin when in he walks.

Like the idiot I am, I said "Do you know what this is?" He takes it from me, examines it and declares that no, he doesn't know what it is, but will hang on to it "just in case".

Aggghhh!

Obviously, all my stuff is treasured possessions, whereas his stuff is junk. Obviously.

I have therefore decided that 2015 (and this last bit of 2014) will be the Year of Using Stuff Up (he doesn't object to this) and Getting Rid of Stuff (I may have mumbled that bit so he didn't hear me). It's a snappy title, I'm sure you will agree.

Crafting stuff is featuring highly on this list of Stuff. I have a lot of wool. And material. And cotton. And lace making stuff. And felt. And buttons. And other stuff too. I do sell on  Etsy, which uses up a certain amount of wool but I cannot resist a "Mixed Lot of Wool, Must De-Stash" on ebay, so my spare bedroom/craft room looks like a wool shop.

And this is only part of my wool hoard. Quite a small part of it.
Yes, the box at the back is big. And full

And aren't all my threads lovely? Yes, they do go all the way to the back of the shelf

That said, it all gives me a great deal of pleasure, as I find crochet and crafting very stress-reducing. But I do have enough to keep me going for a very, very long time. Except for green wool. I have very little of that.

Food is also on the list. The stuff at the back of the cupboard which was bought with enthusiasm and now sits upon the Shelf of Doom. Yes, packet-of-tapioca, bought to make Bubble Tea (made once), I am looking at you and your friends.

Selected items from the Shelf of Doom - Wild Berry Coulis, Hibiscus Flowers in Syrup, Shrimp Paste, a miniature bottle of Icelandic spirit, packet of tapioca & a Christmas pudding that I think might have moved with us when we bought this house in 2006.

I don't want to waste the food on the Shelf of Doom, so will be googling for interesting recipes and will share the results.

Initial googling for "tapioca recipes" is not proving inspiring. However, Mini-CarrotCruncher is still at a very guilable age, so I might be able to feed it to her.

Anyone else get the feeling of "too much stuff"? Will I make any progress? Watch this space!