Carpet installation fiasco

Posted on July 23, 2010 by viviankirkfield

At 9am this morning, there was a knock on the door. It was our carpet installers, here to install new carpeting for our downstairs floors. For the past week, I had been working like a mad-man (or mad-woman) to clear off tables, empty bookcases and clean out cabinets so that the installers would be able to move the furniture in preparation to laying the carpeting. Of course, it doesn’t help that our furniture is HUGE, a carryover from our days in a 14 room house. Even though we sold, gave away, threw away LOTS of STUFF when we downsized to a small 6 room townhome, everything we have is BIG.

After the carpet installers came in, they spent an hour moving much of the furniture to other places (outside patio, garage) and they began measuring the floor so they could determine how the carpet should be laid. When they went out to their truck to call the carpet store and were gone for quite a while, we began to worry. And, as it turns out, we had good reason to worry. When they returned, it was to tell us that the man who had done the measuring (from the carpet store) had under-measured the length of the living room by 2 feet!!!!!! So, they had to move back all of the furniture and the carpet store is ordering a new length of carpet to be laid next Tuesday. How frustrating! Will I put back all of the books, knickknacks, and other STUFF that I had boxed up and put in the garage? You bet I won’t!

I’ll wait at least until the carpet is down on the floor. And maybe, if we haven’t needed the STUFF by then, we actually don’t need it at all.

That’s one way to get rid of clutter!

I’d love to hear other carpet installation horror stories…perhaps it will make me feel better.

Andy Rooney: Life is like a gadget drawer

Posted on July 19, 2010 by viviankirkfield

This morning I wrote a post about yesterday’s 60 Minutes segment with Andy Rooney. As the day went on, I began to think about how a kitchen gadget drawer is a lot like life and parenting. We accumulate “stuff” during our life…material things like cars, homes, appliances, clothing, lamps, and books…sometimes doubles and triples of items we don’t even use. We store up memories, both good and bad (the bad ones sometimes haunting us as we try to move forward with our lives). We hold on to feelings, even the negative ones (sometimes especially the negative ones). And, when it comes to parenting, we often repeat behaviors of our own parents we swore we would never do. Have you ever said something to your child and looked around to see if your mother was standing there, because what came out of your mouth was something you had often heard her say.

I think this happens to most of us. Maybe I can take Andy Rooney’s advice and dump out everything in the drawer (of my behavior, reactions to others, feelings, memories), look it over, and make sure I want to keep it before I put it back.

But I doubt it will be as easy as cleaning the kitchen gadget drawer.

Andy Rooney’s in my kitchen

Posted on July 19, 2010 by viviankirkfield

Last night, on 60 Minutes, Andy Rooney did a segment on gadgets one finds in the kitchen drawer. He said that most of the items he found in his kitchen drawer had not been used for 20 or 30 years.

It made me think about my kitchen gadget drawer (don’t we all have one?). So, this morning, I decided to empty it and check out what was in there.

Here is a list of what I found:

Rubber gripper for opening bottles (I use this ALL the time)
Graham Kerr sheet metal thing with ruler marking on one side (maybe for pastry making…have never used it)
Orange cylindrical plastic thing (lemon juice extractor?)..I actually have 2 of these
Wooden honey dipper (not sure what you call it…when I need honey, I use a spoon)
Green plastic grapefruit sectioner (we don’t eat grapefruit)
Orange Tupperware spreader/spatula (never used…will take it out of gadget drawer so I will have it when I need it)
Yellow plastic cylindrical thing labeled Sunkist (maybe for extracting juice from an orange)
Old-fashioned metal garlic press (I usually hit the garlic clove with the flat blade of a big knife)
Wooden double mini rolling-pin (didn’t know I had this…could have used it several times in the past)
3 top-notch wine bottle openers (my husband has a small glass of wine with dinner and I don’t drink)
Old-fashioned metal can opener (just in case the electric can opener doesn’t work, I guess)
Lobster/crab leg cracker and set of picks
Red plastic flour scooper (why isn’t it in the container with the flour)
A dozen assorted wine bottle corks (I keep throwing them away and my husband keeps putting them in the drawer)
Broken tea strainer
Metal melon ball scooper (I can’t remember the last time I scooped melon balls)
Vacuum pump and rubber corks for sealing open wine bottles
Wooden roller thing (not sure what it is for)
My oldest son’s original baby spoon (he turns 38 this month)
Set of cheese spreaders/cutters (use them at Christmas)
Set of 4 multi-colored mini rubber prep bowls (so small I don’t know what I could prep in them)