Don Quixotic Ambitions

As promised last week, I have spent the passing days weeding out rooms throughout my house.  I vacillate between zealotry and apathy.  I assure myself that with ample intent and velocity I can thoroughly eradicate all clutter and unnecessary flimflam, then I cave to the mounting sense of hopelessness.

The process of decluttering my son’s room  left us with an 8” square of clear space on the carpet in which to work.  Two hours, 137 t-shirts, and a dozen pair of pants later, we still had one square foot of neutral land.  The rest was consumed in disarray comparable only to a war-ravaged shopping mall.  Hangers, the cheap flat plastic kind that come with your Wal-mart purchases lay scattered and snapped like so many broken skeletons.  An entire arsenal of wooden swords, cap pistols, light sabers, and even one disintegration ray gun threatened all hope of future peace.  A silver ooze of silly putty had begun to seep out from between two bed pillows.  But the truly horrific revelation was that the clutter abounds because it self-propagates.

Just when I thought I had yanked all the t-shirts from the closet a dozen more appeared from under the desk, behind the bed, and from within backpacks.  For each professional ball team I rescued from the impending dust storm and thrust into my son’s hands with a firm remonstrance to file them in their boxes (“What WOULD your father say?), another team appeared in a sloppy stack elsewhere.  And the LEGOS!  Tiny little hats, miniscule hands, and microbial transparent doo-dads that probably support life in another galaxy.  If you watch carefully through nearly closed eyes, you will see tiny Lego legs hurrying across the war-torn field of tan construction-grade carpet to squirrel away tiny Lego particles.

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But now, I sit outside listening to the wind chimes, trying to ignore the unseasonable chill in the evening air, and I can only smile at the Don Quixotic nature of my quest.  The wild that was my son’s room remains untamed and there is a windmill at the top of the hill beckoning me.  The windmill is hurling paint, rubber stamps,  and a forest of paper across the landscape, and only I can save the countryside!  And tomorrow, I might.

One of my goals this week was to paricipate in the TOFF (The Octopode Factory) challenge.  This is my entry.  The theme is Friendship and I thought "how cute would it be to use the punk giraffe as something other than a punk giraffe!"  Isn't he cute.  His friends are lifting him up, fulfilling his dreams, or however you would like to interpret it.  The background sparkles, thanks to Tattered Angels glimmer spray in Marshmallow, but you can't tell in the photo. 

I also worked on a set of greeting cards to give to my Grandma.  She turned 85 this week.  This card was one of my favorites. (Sorry for the less than lovely photos.  But you know my efforts have been elsewhere, alas.)  And check out those oh-so cute envies to go with the cards.  I am still messing with windows on my cards- when I am not working on one of my Christy Tomlinson workshops, that is.  This coming week promises to be a productive one, so be sure to stop by next week.