A Box of Paper

I am not shy about taking useful objects out of other people’s trash. I am most likely to rescue such unfortunates if I can use them myself, but I have also been known to snatch items from the trash and take them to local charities. 

Once, when our communal trash spot was an alley, we saved an end table, which we painted bright blue and put in the corner of our living room. Other times we have taken lumber or other raw materials to be used in household projects. 

I lamented an inability to save a large dog house that was being pitched. I don’t have a dog or need a dog house, but it seemed a shame for such a large thing with so much more good use in it to end up in a landfill. Too late it occurred to me that I could have called one of the many charities with trucks to come haul it away.

Trash-rescue is a family trait. One relative saved a lovely sheet set and comforter from a dumpster near her house, laundering the soft jersey back into life. She gave us the mismatched comforter that was in the bag. We dyed the comforter purple and still use it in the summertime, some ten years after the fact. 

About five years ago, a neighbor put out a box with her trash bags. 

I must have walked by it twice before I realized that it was a box of paper. Thankfully there had been no rain that day. I didn’t have the sort of printer that accepted continuous-feed paper (you know, the kind with the strips of holes down both sides?), but I did have three scribbly Sonars. The first time I went to salvage the box, I had the smallest Sonar on my hip, but couldn’t manage him and the box at the same time. I returned a little bit later, surprised to find that the box was more than three-fourths full of crisp, white, unblemished paper. 

In the past five years that paper has been torn off in single sheets, or long strips. It has been folded into countless airplanes, cranes, frogs, boxes, and other origami-joy, as well as wadded into balls of frustration. It has been colored on, penciled on, painted on, cut out, torn up, and traced into dabbles of Sonar imagination. I have written lists, planned stories, and folded envelopes for bits of mail that didn’t seem to fit into anything else suitable for the U.S. Postal Service. The thin, hole-y edge strips have been rolled and twisted into whimsical scrolls, and taped together into tails and ribbons. I frequently find them, forgotten after some frenzy of creation, under the couch. 

I went to get a few sheets of paper the other day, surprised to find that after five years of weekly, if not daily use, the box is still more than one-fourth full. What dreams will yet unfold from those leaves? 

BELL NECKLACE

When Sonar X10 was in kindergarten, I was a first time Room Parent. As we organized the class party, I searched around for some little gift the Sonar could share with his classmates. Something that wasn’t cheap plastic. Something very inexpensive and/or easy to make. I found a jar of jingle bells at the craft store and decided to make each kid a necklace. I just threaded a bell on a length of yarn (something I have in abundance around here) and tied a knot. Took me ten or fifteen minutes to make them. 

The Sonar thought they were great. He happily wore his bell to school and jingled around all day.  All of the kids have had a similar reaction as they pulled the bells out of their goody bags. Smiles as they put them on and jingled around the classroom. (Side note: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, all elementary school teachers who survive children’s Christmas parties deserve a fifth of bourbon.)

This is my sixth year making bell necklaces for school party favors. I’ve made them for each kid, each year. I’ve switched to a smaller, quieter bell for the sake of the teachers. But these little gifts still hold up to the cheap and easy requirements, and the kids really love them. Sonar X10 has several squirreled away in his treasure boxes.

The very best reaction, though, came from a kid in that first class, who was so excited, so thrilled with his BELL NECKLACE. “A BELL NECKLACE! I have ALWAYS wanted one of these!” he said to me and his mom and anyone else who would listen. 

His mom and I have laughed about that story more than once since then. I saw that awesomely enthusiastic guy this morning while I was volunteering at the library, and I’m happy to say that he is just as earnest and enthusiastic at eleven as he was at six. 

Jingle Jingle.

Random Monday in NaNoLand

1. Yes, on November 20, I crossed the 50k mark on my NaNoWriMo novel for this year. And I changed the name to an equally horrible, but personally amusing Love (or a Time Machine) Conquers All: A Novel that is not about Love (or Time Machines). I didn’t validate until the 27th because I was busy eating pie.

2. We have decided to make it a family tradition to get stuck in traffic somewhere in Texas during the Thanksgiving holiday. Last year we crawled from Austin to Waco to Dallas at about fifteen miles per hour. This year, we crawled at twenty miles per hour on a forty mile detour through Tivoli, Texas. The orange sign at the side of the road said “Incident Ahead.” We have since learned that there was some sort of “traffic accident,” but during the “Incident” we suspected zombie apocalypse. We were happy to have our suspicions quashed.

3. I did a lot of knitting over the holiday weekend. I finished a pair of socks that have been lingering for nearly a year. I finished a hat that has been lingering for a few months. I made a pair of newborn socks. I finished one kid sock and started another. I loved to have the yarn running through my hands again. I’ll post pictures—um, sometime. Soon. Yeah.  

4. I have been reading four different books during the month of November.  I am ashamed to say that I have not finished a single one of them.  I’m running out of time to finish any before the month is over.

5. I am. Phew. Out of things to say for today. But I will clean the used tissues off the desk, and maybe I will find some words under there.  December promises knitting, sewing, baking, and more traveling. 

Evidence of Craft

Two grocery bags, one Zipper Organizer from My Spare Time, one Buttercup Bag designed by Made by Rae.  Love that little bag pattern.  These are all end-of-year teacher gifts for the kindergartener’s teacher and her daughter. The fabric came from a neighbor’s stash-clearing and has also provided for a wrap skirt.  The furry animal prints came from Goodwill.  

The inside of the growly Buttercup Bag. Tame on the inside.  I actually made two of these, so that the teacher and her daughter could share. 

A light-weight denim Buttercup Bag for me, and a plain vanilla grey sock for Sonar X8. Denim from the stash. Patons Kroy 4-ply from a Christmas gift.

Some dollar-a-yard fabric that will be perhaps a bag or book cover, and the in-progress Checkerboard Lace Scarf from The Purl Bee in KnitPicks Gloss lace in Celery. Love these colors.  

Mother’s Day plaster of Paris handprints of the family, with two for Dad so he can send one to his mom.

 Lego Love for Mother’s Day, courtesy of Sonar X8.

I have wanted a rolling desk chair for a while.  Here is what we came up with.  I saved the green metal desk chair from a neighbor’s trash. The wood for the platform was scrap from the garage. Partner purchased only the casters from the local hardware store. Now I can roll from the desk to the sewing machine and back again.  When we have extra dinner company, the chair lifts off the platform to visit the table. The platform can also be used to roll down the hallway pushed rapidly by siblings.  

More grocery bags from neighbor’s de-stashed fabric (the pale green).  A pair of them take less than an hour to make and make great hostess or teacher or thank you gifts.  The hint of orange is an old pillowcase that I use for my sewing machine cover.  The red is the couch with a woven wool Mexican blanket draped over the back. 

Coming soon: Wrap skirt, more zipper bags, and an idea for a book cover/travel log kit.

Day 20 Nano Count and other stuff I've been doing in November

I had 43,336, according to Pages.  Then I used the NaNo word count validator, which tells me that I have 43,118.  Sigh.  Computers are fickle things.  

Anyway, the writing is going well, except for the sore wrists.  I expect to top 45,000 before the end of today.  

Highlights of this November:

—For the first time in memory, I have written at least one-thousand words every day for nineteen days straight.  

—I had a personal best 6,000 word day on Saturday, beating a previous best of something around 5,000.

—I had a personal best weekday of 4,000 words on Tuesday in response to a challenge from my NaNoWriMo Municipal Liason, beating a previous weekday best of something less than 3,000. 

 —I baked a bazillion (48) rolls for a teacher appreciation luncheon, and resisted the temptation to eat a bunch of them by making the self-promise that I would make more for us.  Which I did today.  Yummmmmmy.  Light as a Dream Hot Rolls from Shirley Corriher’s Cookwise.  Fussy but completely awesome.  

—I started cleaning out stuff.  I gave away all of my homemade cloth diapers (I know that no one around here has used them for a great long while, but I invested a lot of my life in the creation and cleaning of those things and what they wrapped around.  Not easy letting them go.).  Yesterday, I challenged the kids to choose ten things to set free this year.  So far they have come up with four, but they are biggies, including furniture.  Yay for less stuff!  As an added bonus, we have freecycled all of these items and and made a couple of new friends.  Good stuff. 

—We are headed to spend Thanksgiving with family next week.  It’ll be about twice as many people as normal, and I’m expecting both a greater degree of joy and a greater degree of tension.  I’m hoping that this increase in all things will be accompanied by an increase in adult beverages.  

—Our grapefruit tree is blessing us with a bazillion grapefruits.  Which we will carry with us like modern-day Johnny Grapefruit-seeds to give to anyone who will take them.  We hope, when juiced, that they will be able to commingle with some of the aforementioned spirits.  

—There has also been singing by my beautiful children (We’ve moved from patriotic Veteran’s Day songs to festive Christmas songs), as well as a surprising amount of reading from unexpected quarters (i.e. Sonar X3), flu shots, fabric dying, an altogether pathetic amount of knitting considering how close Christmas is,  and a little bit of coloring within the lines (by me).   

I’m having a blast.  I hope you are too.