This past week went by in a blur – apparently I’m still blinking when I shouldn’t be. My apologies to my random peeps and Coffee Chatterers in my absence last week, I’ll be attempting to catch up this week by doing some double dipping.
It would probably be more fun if it were skinny dipping. Or not.
So why was last week a blur of busy, you ask? Well, we finally got a shed. I know, I know, that’s not a big deal to some, but considering we will have been in our new house for a full year as of November 7th, and our garage was still overrun (and by ‘overrun’ I really mean packed to the gills) with stacks upon stacks of boxes.
Many of those boxes are the moronic movers mystery boxes – I’m still missing quite a few important kitchen items as well as some china and crystal. Hopefully now I’ll find everything.
I do tend to be a packrat, though when we moved cross country from PA to WA, I did have to do a huge purging of ‘stuff’. When you’re a packrat like me, it’s easy to overlook your magical packrat skills when you’ve moved every couple of years ever since flying the coop from your parents’ house.
I was able to keep my packrat ways to a minimum – until we bought a house. And lived in that same house for 11 years.
Then all bets were off.
Because it wasn’t ‘just’ a house – it was a cool old farmhouse (built in 1817) – a 3-story plus basement plus Summer House plus barn farmhouse. Lots of room for my packrat wings to spread freely. Ahem.
So when we were faced with the challenge of moving said household the 3000 miles to return to my home state, the task of purging the eleven glorious years of me acquiring stuff or keeping stuff “because I might need it some day…” and “I’ll sell that on eBay” stuff. You know, pretty much a large chunk of crap I simply didn’t need. And certainly didn’t need to pay to move it across country.
Of course when we arrived here all our stuff went into a storage unit while we took up residence in my parents’ basement so we could save money while the hubby looked for a new job and we looked for a new house while our house was on the market out East.
When we finally found a house we both liked, we didn’t take into consideration there was no outbuilding, no basement and no attic to speak of – everything looked much bigger after being sequestered in a basement for five months.
Which means we’ve had to try to cram the stuff we did keep into a smaller footprint. But a very cool house that feels much bigger than it is:
Especially with the two-story vaulted ceiling in the living room:
It’s been quite the challenge, and we’ve had to deal with the bane of my existence of clutter and stacks of boxes taking up residence in practically every room. Especially the garage. But now? We have a nice big shed.
The hubby spent several days spreading out a load of gravel to level a spot for the shed on the side of the house in the backyard so it went from this:
To this:
To this:
We’ll be painting it in the coming days (weather permitting) to match the colors of the house. Over the weekend we finally got all the stacks’o’boxes relocated from the garage to some semblance of order stacked in the shed with the work looming ahead to eliminate about 30% of those in the upcoming weeks. Or months. Whatever works.
At least now the garage is emptied out so the hubby can set up his music studio stuff on one side, and I can set up my winemaking on the other. Oh yeah, winemaking will commence once again very very soon!
OK, enough of the not quite random – I’m hopping on the bandwagon again this week with Rory Bore’s Tuesday Chat – I have some catching up to do from last week, too!

This week’s prompt or question is:
Would you feel ill at ease going to a movie alone? Or to eat at a restaurant? A concert?
Yes. Yes I would. Feel ill at ease, that is – besides, going to a movie or eating at a restaurant or going to a concert is so much more fun if you can share it with a friend or group of friends or even your spouse or significant other. Like my birthday dinner – it was great having the family plus my brother and his wife and two girls along for the fun:
The more the merrier, I say! Well, except for going to the movies, since my hubby isn’t too keen on having to sit still for any length of time and tends to get more fidgety than a 5 year old. Princess Nagger and I go to the movies together, but of course that limits the type of movie to be seen.
I might have to recruit a friend or two to see an adult movie – well, you know, a non-kid movie. Not the other kind you were probably thinking just now. Ahem.
That’s a wrap for this week – you know the drill, link up and join in the fun, everyone is welcome, random or not. And that means even if you don’t have a specific Random Tuesday Thoughts Rebel post posted, you can still link up, I’m not picky. You don’t even have to add the badge, just link up so I can come harass you on your blog. I promise to play nice.
.
Link up your Random (or not) here:
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
If this widget does not appear, click here to display it.
I’ve also decided to adopt Xmas Dolly’s idea of adding an additional linky just to encourage more followers where you need it most. We can all use more followers, right? So feel free to link up any post on the first linky, and a follower linky on the second one. Let’s see if we can party like rock stars!
Link up where you need to gain more followers here:
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
If this widget does not appear, click here to display it.
Keeping the random alive (barely) – feel free to snag a badge and play along – one for my wino friends:

And one for my non-wino friends:

.
Nice new shed!! I always say I wish we could move to a house that will fit us a bit better…. but yeah, then I think of All The Stuff. there isn’t enough boxes…… 🙂
Wine making – hooray!! and why aren’t we neighbours? LOL
I agree with the more the merry sentiment in most situations. I went to a movie alone thinking, well heck – you can’t talk during it anyway… but then ultimately I felt like it was something that should be a shared experience; even if in silence. But, I still would do it again just because I love movies!
And I am a big fan of alone time at my local tea shop/cafe.
Rorybore would like you to read ..Tuesday Coffee Chat: All By Myself
You cracked me up with your last comment about adult movies. I’m glad you clarified for those of who had our minds in the gutter. lol Hey, if I had a 3-story farmhouse including basement and extra outdoor storage buildings then I would be like you and so would DH, but as it is we are horrible packrats in our little wrinky dinky house that we have. Things are really uncomfortably tight, I might add. We’ve been here for nearly 35 years. You thought you had junk, I think I trump you on this one, girlfriend. Oh, geez! I’m trying to get rid of stuff, but it’s a slow and unending process I feel. I really want to move into a bigger place someday, but one fear I have is we will be forced to move when I’m not quite ready. You know, when I have to make the decision to unload what we have in a hurry to not have to pack up and move, say across country like someone else I know, especially with DH’s job ending this Friday. I am keeping my fingers crossed and saying prayers that his employer gets work this week to him and the others employed a little longer…like until DH retires. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? But, if not then I pray another door in town opens when this one closes. It’s kinda scary, but am leaning heavily on God to see us through this like He has done so many times before. I hope He’s not getting tired of being used for a leaning post. 😀 Thanks for hosting the random fun, Stacy!
Cathy Kennedy would like you to read ..#CatChat What do #Juno & #taxes have in common?
Nick is anti pack rat and keeps us from collecting too much stuff. I’m a bit (OK, a lot) more of a save it for posterity or that eventual amorphous necessity. Or even just to have it. I am better about letting go of clothes. After this winter I do need to purge the closet again. Just means I get to go shopping again, right?!
We (Nick) built a small shed that the kids use as a fort in the summer. In the winter it houses the hoses and garden tools. So nice to have a handy hubby!
If I had a book or magazine or something to read, eating out wouldn’t be that hard. I’m not much of a movies person and I would go to a concert alone at all. I’m just not that social. Get me with a group of people I know, pour a couple drinks in me and I’m totally comfortable.
VandyJ would like you to read ..Random for Tuesday
hello? HELLO? ANYBODY HOME? I totally love your shed… you can build me one next if you want too! ~hehehehe! And what a neat family/friend picture. Thanks for sharing. Whoa I think I got up to early this morning. I feel like I’m typing in my sleep. I may go back to bed this morning,,,,
XmasDolly would like you to read ..Show Off Tuesday! Give-Aways & Reviews!
My random was so lame last week I didn’t even look for the link! LOL! Happy Shed Warming to you!!!!
Noooo, do not let the clutter creep back in though!!!
andrea would like you to read ..Brrrrrrrrrrr-random
Happy RTT! I really like that shed. We could use one here for our stuff, because you know a garage isn’t for the car it’s for the stuff!
Mary would like you to read ..Chairlene and Chairold Winter 2014/2015
Beautiful! Both your old, old house and the new house – I love vaulted, two story ceiling – guess that’s why we have one, too 🙂 The shed sounds like a great idea, although I would try and aim for getting rid of 50 % of the boxes (to make it to the 30 %) 🙂 Can you believe we still have boxes unpacked? Hubbys boxes (he’s the packrat!) that he had in storage for 8,9 years while he (and later I) were in GErmany and then we got them back here 4 years ago, so a total of 12 years!!! Unfortunately it is his stuff, so I cannot rummage through it, but have to live with the boxes in our garage. Thankfully we still fit 2 cars plus other stuff in there 🙂
p.s. maybe you’d like to join me for my brand new link up on Saturday i.e. anything art(sy) hmm, mabe wine? 🙂
Claudia would like you to read ..A photoshop composite for s~A(R)T~urday