Not Working At Hollywood But At Least My House Is Clean

Today I drove my psychic friend to a meeting she had to attend. As a native New Yorker, she's never learned how to drive, even though she's lived in LA for 20 years. She calls me from time to time to ask me if I can drive her to various events, like the county fair, that she can't get to via the city bus. The drive was a long one, and I went through a half tank of gas getting her to the meeting and back to her apartment.

But the commute was really fun and weirdly productive. We agreed that we'd sign up for cheesemaking class together, that she'd show me how to can preserves in exchange for giving her figs from my tree, and she bought two frying pans from me that were cluttering up my kitchen.

When I got back home I was hard pressed to decide who had done whom the real favor.

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July 13, 2008

Today Rose called me to tell me that she has to reschedule her dog's charity garage sale. She's going out of town for her anniversary. This change of plans was not surprising to me. Most of my friends are that special evil blend of busy and flakey. You can't really ever get super mad at them for their lack of follow through because they are soooo busy. But this news forced me to make a decision:

Will I be nice and agree to help her on the new date or will I tell her that I am too busy? (And really, I am too busy).

I made the decision to not be that nice. I told her I couldn't promise to help her on the day of the garage sale...whenever that may be. The soonest it will be is August--when it's 100 degrees outside.

But I still feel bad for her dog. I will continue to donate stuff for her to sell at the garage sale.

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Bastille Day, 2008

Today I wrote several long posts to The Compact list about my insanity. I've written about my OCD nuttiness before, so it's not like that's anything new, or a secret revealed. It began with me announcing my plan on downsizing my belongings by 90% by the end of the year (as compared to what they were a this time last year). People of course wanted to know how I planned on doing this and if it was a painful process. I explained my Get Rid of 10 Things a Day resolution of 2001 and how that has kept the tide of clutter at bay. I also talked about how weird and liberating getting rid of my stuff has been so far, even the stuff I was forced to sell to pay my mortgage. I just don't miss it. My second post was to a fellow compactor who is struggling to get her hoarding tendencies under control, about all the stupid things I do to keep my house from becoming Crazytown. The response to my posting has been huge. A group of compactors have started their own Get Rid of 10 Things a Day habit and I've gotten phone calls and emails thanking me for my concise and simple advice! Tweakers unite! Although I'm not sure that being the expert on being obsessive compulsive is necessarily a good thing...


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July 15, 2008

I had like the nastiest fun fur style yarn in "rainbow sherbert" and a bunch of partial skeins of pink and magenta "fashion" yarns that I'd gotten for free at a swap party taking up precious real estate in my crafty crap bureau (formerly the much larger crafty crap closet). I hated the yarn. It was so cheesey. But being Miss O'frugal McHoarder Knittypants, naturally I couldn't just get rid of it. What! Get rid of yarn? Ever? Never!

So to make a long story short, I just finished knitting the cheesey yarn bits into a stripey hat for Foxyniece's birthday present while at a friend's BBQ. Everyone told me that the hat is super cute without any prompting. Which is good. Because even though I think it knit up pretty well, it's like My Pretty Pony barf...or something. Luckily, Foxyniece is turning 5 next week and is the girliest girl ever. So it's that perfect, horrible little girl combination of fluffy, pastels, and sparkles. She will love it since her clothes are just one scary step away from beauty pageant apparel.

I used up ALL the cheesey yarn. And by all I mean I had to walk a mile (trying to drive less) to my nearest knitting friend to get some of her leftover hot pink yarn to finish the hat. No buying new! Downsizing! No waste! A custom-made birthday gift!

I may be failing at Hollywood this week, but I'm kicking butt on emptying my house. I wonder which of those two activities will actually generate more money for me by the year's end?