I killed the strap on my beloved and treasured Fossil watch. I should have whined earlier and had them replace it when it first started decaying, but I'm lazy and paid the price for it. I would have been a bit vexed about it, except when I went to the store and picked out a new strap they said it came with a NEW FOSSIL TIN CAN WHICH I LOVE and . . . well that made everything okay.

How cute are these tins?

I'm a sucker, I know.

Tin can #1: $115
Tin can #2: $38

Simplification Sunday: Week Nine

 I learned to Photoshop!

This picture is of a new grocery store that opened inside an old NHL hockey rink in Toronto. No joke. A huge hockey rink is now a grocery store. I went to look at it on the weekend and just felt so sad and grossed out. It's like the worst of Canadian-style excess. You can't even begin to understand how monstrous this place is. This photo would only cover about 5-10% of the area. Part of my project of simplifying came from me being so unhappy with how much stuff and excess I had in life and how complicated it made everything. I don't think I'll ever get the hang of transcendent renunciation, but . . . man, I hope I never live the life where I think grocery stores in hockey rinks is any kind of ethically acceptable.

Ugh. Anyway. This was a week of half a step forward, three steps back in the Land of Simplifying. I had to catch up on a sick day at work, I had at least 6 social commitments (which were totally joyous and with some of my favourite out of town peoples), and I signed up for a very cool Adobe day-long workshop (my Photoshopping efforts are above . . . ) on Saturday. It was the kind of week that saw me break a wine glass into the sink on Thursday night and wake up on Sunday to still find it staring at me. So all of a sudden it was Sunday, I was pooped, my apartment looked like it was on the verge of being condemned and I felt awful. But today, like any good Sunday, there was a bit of redemption to be had.

- I totally scoured and cleaned one of my linen closets that was used for a catch-all. I threw away everything in my tool box I couldn't identify, dealt with a few unfinished projects, and added some stuff to (yet another freaking growing mountain) of Stuff for Goodwill
- I totally scoured and cleaned out the front closet (which is more like a scary crawlspace to unknown scary dimensions). It was so gross and awful. It was just used for the cat's litter box, but also housed 5 year old cardboard boxes, I found a rubbermaid bin of missing fabric!, and stuff like broken coat hangers and rubber gloves, posters from undergrad, and drywall paste. Good Lord, Erin, you will thank yourself for tackling this when you move in the next year or two. Whoa.
- I tossed a few unfinished projects that I just will never have the heart or interest to finish
- and added some more stuff from my wardrobe to the Goodwill heap.

For this upcoming week I'm only going to work on bigger projects that need attention, like my unfinished knitted blanket (my kitten is going to take issue with my renewed interest in this project) and my unfinished quilt.

I found Marimekko tins at Goodwill. If I write any thing else it'll end up being 30,000 words of fawning over Marimekko. So I'll stop here.

Tins: $1.99 and $.99 at Goodwill

DID I MENTION I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE MARIMEKKO!?

A professor // swimming buddy gave me this. Very apt gift for someone who is almost 30 and has never left school. Ever.

I might get around to figuring this out sometime before I'm 40, but I really do think I'm making progress.

Book: $0, gift from Marilyn
Yellow box: $2.02 at Goodwill
Scrapbook paper: $.17 at DeSerres
The Meaning of Life: ______________________

Simplification Sunday: Week Eight

Whoa! So it happen. I am a knitter! Srsly. I did it. I think the greyhound sweater was the tipping point, where it all gelled and the art of knitting just clicked. I was waiting for this. And wondering if it would ever happen. Now that it has I feel invincible. Lookit the super cute booties and hat I made for a new baby friend that is coming in June. Last night I even got halfway through a mitten just by mimicking the pattern of my favourite pair that my grandma made. Next? Socks! Slippers! Ponchos! Baby sweaters! Cat sweaters! Bike sweaters!!!

So for this week in simplifying?
- deactivated my Facebook account. How about that? It just wasn't working for me anymore. So gonzo. I feel like an albatross has been lifted from around my neck. It's terribly satisfying. Best decision I've made in a while.
- took a huge bag of stuff to Goodwill. I really should implement a zero sum policy for my life . . . but I'm not brave enough yet. But wouldn't it be wonderful? To only get something new if it was replacing something old? To only start a new project when one is finished? Now that I'm officially a Knitter, I don't think this will work because I'm too excited to knit. And I just scored another huge load of yarn at Goodwill. :S
- that envelope going into the mail? Yup. That's a cheque to pay off in full a student loan. How crazy awesome is that? I just decided to go for it. So not only does it simplify my life now, but it also means I will graduate will less debt and never pay these guys one cent in interest on that loan. This is years of simplifying right here.

Tchotchkes are my downfall. I love the knicknacks. I really do. How can I resist when there are things like this bird in the world? She is so pretty.

Something to dust and eventually destash when I move to Iceland/New Zealand: $.75 at Goodwill

Here is my friend Innis wearing the sweater I knit for him. I think he looks pretty handsome, don't you?

This was one of my handful of finished projects. I had so much fun working on this one because it really took my knitting skills up a notch. It's full of mistakes, but I'm thinking a shivering Greyhound won't mind too much. So long as his bum is warm in the cold, cold East Coast winters.

There are serious perks to having friends and family living abroad. If you can't do it yourself, the next best thing is to convince your parents, siblings, and closest friends to live in places you want to visit. My sister and a friend who is like a sister to me have been living in Japan over the last few years. I've visited twice. It is a remarkable, lovely, beautiful, fascinating, glorious place.

And when I'm not visiting, they send me presents a lot, which is nice.

This might be my favourite fabric, yet. The weirdness of it all is so great. It's like some kind of messed up scrapbook.

Present from Lannie: $0, thanks!
Next stops . . . Singapore, South Korea, Boston, British Columbia, Hawai'i . . .

Simplification Sunday: Week Seven

Whoa. This blog has gotten boring. Sorry kids! I killed my internet at home and have been relishing in a very disconnected, Luddite life the last little while. I get so sick of screen time from work and school that I don't really miss it at all. I'll try to perk things up a bit though. I took a heap of photos of my fun treasures and will schedule some brightly coloured posts to get us all through some grey winter days (unless you're in Australia, then, well, you're very lucky I think).

So this week wasn't Earth shattering in terms of simpifying, but I'm still going and reaping the benefits. I love having all my lunches and outfits ready to go for a new week. It makes everything so great!

This week I . . .
- Cleaned up all the notes and scraps in my research carrel and started work on my next three academic projects. It was starting to look like the crazy guy's shed in A Beautiful Mind, so that was probably a good thing to do
- And, very very good of me, I finished my last three outstanding knitting projects (I'll post a photo once Innis receives his sweater and can model it for us), and will pop those in the mail tomorrow morning. That only leaves ONE crafting IOU (beads for a friend), then I'm free . . . please, Erin, don't say yes to anything for at least one or two weeks . . . please!
- Then I just sorted through my yarn stash and tossed a few ugly bits and scraps that have no business even existing . . . except maybe as cat toys and mine's a lazy sucker . . .

I'm even thinking of making a schedule for myself or something . . . this is getting scary!
xo
Erin

Simplification Sunday: Week Six

(image source, thanks!)

This week's simplifying is a bit truncated because I'm off on a one-woman road trip to Sudbury, Ontario to hang out with my Dad. I'm so excited. I've not seen much of Ontario and am super stoked to see the giant nickel and check out local thrift stores. 

This week I . . . 

- was totally inspired by this post from Laura and decided to tackle my ultra unwieldy huge bins full of fabric. I hauled everything out, tossed so many tiny scraps that were good for nothing, pressed anything that needed a quick press, and folded everything up and condensed to two Rubbermaid bins. It felt remarkable! Not only is all my fabric neat and tidy, but I gained a really good sense of what I own. It was so much fun to go shopping in my own supplies! I have some wonderful material. 

- cleaned out mitten/hat/scarf drawer and kept only what I wear, added the rest to the next trip to Goodwill

- cleaned out scrapbook paper drawer and recycled the ugly stuff

- finished a knitted hat I promised a friend and sent that off . . . my "To Craft!" list is getting much shorter, which feels great. 

An interesting insight from my simplifying this week: A call went out for donations for a book sale at school. At first I thought this would be a great fit for my New Year's resolution, but then as I got into it, I realized I'd have to sort through my books, dust my shelves, rearrange everything, drag the books to school, and have something else on my mind. Not to mention when I started looking at my books, I felt sad and unwilling to part with most of them. So there you have it. Hoarding in this instance was the simplest thing to do. So that's what I did. I put my books back on my shelf and crossed another thing off the to-do list.