Sooki is the main character in The Saggy Baggy Elephant, he’s happy with himself and life in general until a parrot starts making fun of him.

Parrots can be such dicks.

Sooki then tries ways to make his skin fit better, mostly by asking predators for advice and putting himself in harms way. Each time he tries and fails the parrot is there to make sure that Sooki feels the sting of public humiliation.

Really depressed, Sooki hides in a cave (an obvious metaphor for eating a gallon of Cherry Garcia and wearing dirty sweatpants) and a hungry lion finds him there. Sooki cries out as loud as he can when the lion goes after him and his terror is rewarded– he is saved by a herd of elephants that not only chase off the lion but affirm that there’s nothing wrong with Sooki, he’s a fine looking little elephant sags and wrinkles and all. Then they go stampede through the jungle in a rage (okay, the book says they all dance through the jungle, but I’ve watched a lot of National Geographic specials on elephants and dancing was not even mentioned in passing.)

It’s probably too sad to recount that the elephants’  joy stampede destroyed several small villages and took many innocent lives so it ends with them “dancing” in the jungle. Not to mention that graphic depictions of death and destruction could have been problematic for the illustrator of a children’s book. I can respect editorial discretion and I still love this story even though the intended moral of the story is “You’re okay as you.” and I’m pretty sure the real moral of the story is “Yell loud enough and an angry mob of adults will eventually come and save you.”

Also: “Parrots are dicks.”

The truth is no angry mob is going to save anyone from deeply seated self loathing caused by the taunting of parrots with borderline personality disorder or lions that may or may not be suffering from a serious eating disorder.

Still, it’s a lovely story and I couldn’t pass by the little handmade elephant in Keeper’s Corner without thinking of the book, so I bought the elephant and Matt gave me the book.

My re-organizing of the craft room is going well. I took a little time out to deal with a pressing case of yarn vomit. Yarn vomit is when a skein of yarn expels the loose inner core of yarn in a one or several large clumps which will then tangle if left to their own devices. Yarn vomit is the bane of knitters and a single skein of yarn suffering from yarn vomit is capable of infecting the whole herd.

Somehow winding new neat and tidy balls of yarn just isn’t giving me my crafty fix for the day. I think I’m going to make a push to finish painting my Queen Anne doll later and start working on hearts for Valentine’s day.

Instead, I thought I’d be productive and sleep in late, contemplate my utter ignorance of British history and start reorganizing my sewing/craft room into something that makes sense.

It did make sense before; I’m a very organized person. I’m a very organized person because I have the attention span of a hamster and if things aren’t organized I get lost, then I get distracted, and then: “Oooh something shiny.” It was extremely organized and tidy, to the point where I was accused of having the craft room of a serious killer. It certainly looks that way when I’m working on dolls, all those little dismembered bodies and loose limbs.

The problem is that the room in question is terribly small and in the smallness I lose things, and when I lose something I look for it with a terrible ferocity and the result is that I leave behind a glorious trail of chaos. The smaller the space; the more glorious the chaos.

There was a point in time where I would actually give up, put things back in order, shrug it off and buy a new whatever-it-was-that-I-lost; but then I started finding things I’d lost and wondering why I owned so many duplicate tools and thinking that all these duplicates were putting me dangerously close to being a hoarder.

Obviously, I haven’t found a balance between extremes. I know (from watching A&E) that there’s the possibility that hoarding has a genetic link. In that light my fear of one day being a hoarder isn’t completely unreasonable.

Today I’m sorting things out by utility. Since I really hate chasing down all the packing and shipping stuff, I’ve made myself a sweet little station for all of it. The labels are upstairs with the printer, everything else like the boxes, packing material, tissue, tape, and scale are down in the craft room where I keep my inventory so it won’t get messed with before I put it in my booth or mail it out to a customer. I even have a little dedicated counter space– very exciting.

The rest of the cabinet still contains brushes, paints, sculpting material, paper maché supplies and stamps that I’ll have to revisit later.

Then I cleared off my shelf and started stacking my uncut fabric flat folded. Because I really do have OCD I unfolded the fabric, shook it out, ironed it and refolded it so all folds are all nine inches wide. Nine inches are good because those make for easy counting of actual yardage from the ends. I’m planning on getting some large bull-clips for the ends to keep the silkier materials from shifting.

Now I’m working on figuring out the best place to set up a photography area that I won’t have to move out of the way for other things. Once I figure that out I’ll make another lightbox and get my lights figured out for product shots. I made a backdrop curtain that I’ll also have to hang near over a table surface, which complicates things a little, but shouldn’t be too much of a concern.

After that, it’s a draw between making some kind of system for yarn and yarn related pursuits or figuring out a better storage system for my patterns.

We’re still waiting for the roof to dry out enough so that we can repair the leak above the bathroom, and get to work remodeling the bathroom. This weather needs to start cooperating with my plans– I find it totally unacceptable that it insists on drizzling right over our house.

One bright side is that this gives Matt and I more time to argue over materials, colors and fixtures. I am trying to convince him to let me clean up the old tub (which is quite good and usable) and shower doors and sell them, so that I can put the money towards a nice old clawfoot tub and hardware.

He doesn’t think that cleaning it up would be worth the effort because it’s so old and ordinary, and that in order to sell it we’d have to refinish it. I looked it over (yesterday, when I was taking a bath) and I can’t see any wear or scratches so I’m not quite sure what he means. I think he thinks that I am not going to have the patience to sell it.

Admittedly we have wildly different tastes when it comes to materials and colors.

We’re like that song; he’s a little bit country and I’m a little bit rock n’ roll punk rock.

So there’s just a bit of water damage in the bathroom. Just a little. I mean, it’s not like we have to tear out all the dry wall and replace studs.

Right?

Okay, so– I’m guessing this isn’t just going to be a roof repair and bathroom remodel. It kinda looks like we’re going to have to replace dry wall in both of the bedrooms and then buy me a brand new bucket of sanity.

• Dizziness
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Loss of Bladder control
• Uncontrollable urge to clean and decorate

Okay, maybe we can skip loss of bladder control. I did dig out some of my vintage aprons and hang them on the wall, after cleaning the closet.

Tacking the aprons to the wall looked off. A little clothes-line and some old fashioned clothes pins fit the bill.

This is from a slightly different angle. So cheesy or cute? Or cheesy cute?

I think it needs something. I must have actually said “I think it needs something”out loud because the husband made this face and rolled his eyes. It does need something else though, doesn’t it?

I’m thinking more hats, or maybe a pair of garden gloves and a trowel.

I think like most people I get a little overwhelmed with the stuff that might need to be saved for future reference and just make little piles. In the dark of the night the little piles romance each other in mysterious ways and reproduce. Like tribbles, the little piles of squalor reproduce quickly because they are born pregnant.

My little piles of squalor weren’t as cute as tribbles, nor did they react in any manner to the presence of Klingons disguised as humans, and they didn’t make soothing noises. So the little piles of squalor were disassembled and order has been restored to my desk once more.

I seem to have a space worthiness issue that I need to address. I have three drawers, one shelf (not the whole shelf unit, just one shelf of the unit), the typing table, and my laptop (aka Hal.) You can see the arm of the scroll saw right behind the screen.

This is where I work. See my goofy glasses? The pair on the desk I took off so that I could look through the viewfinder of the camera, they are what I wear most of the time. The retro looking glasses in the coffee beaker are just my sunglasses. And the black frames next to them are uber-magnification, the prescription is designed for doing miniature and fine repair work. I have one more pair (not pictured) which are bi-focal and really too heavy for wearing as much as I should (for some reason they are glass and not plastic lens.) I broke my prescription safety glasses a few months ago and I’ve yet to replace them, so I wear the bi-focals under my face shield for turning.

The rubber ducky tin holds index cards and address labels and sometimes an extra calculator. The ceramic blue and white thing used to hold a jade plant, the plant out grew it so I use it for holding a ball of yarn as I knit. Eileens tacky glue (totally essential), pens, pencils, game-boy, games, timer, binder clamps, and a rotating stock of books also share the shelf space.

So that’s the Great Desk Purge and the grand tour of what really qualifies as my office space.

Earlier in the week I went up with the kids to stay with my mom, for as overwhelming as funerals are, imagine Thanksgiving Thursday, Memorial Service Friday, and Open House Saturday. My sister also flew in from Florida to help and to be here for the my Grandmother’s service. This meant that my husband was at home without proper spousal supervision for nearly 3 days. Evidence suggests that he spent the time working, eating things that require little or no preparation while going online, and just generally being a guy– letting food wrappers and laundry fall where they may. It’s quite festive actually.

It’s a dorm room sort of festive.

I bought the kids a gingerbread people kit, complete with candy and decorators frosting. There are four gingerbread people in the box so that should buy me at least half an hour of unadulterated knitting time after the housekeeping. In a move of sheer genius Matt bought me one of those chocolate oranges and took care of the garbage before I was even awake. I also took advantage of the grocery store’s StarBucks kiosk, it was a close call between the gingerbread mocha and the eggnog latte– eggnog latte was the lucky contestant.

I really just want to crawl back into bed right now. But I know I’ll feel better when things are clean and orderly (or what passes for orderly around here) again.

Please, I just need a moment to cry.

Poor knitting needles.