The thin end of the wedge.

On Thursday, while cleaning off the table, I noticed that one of the heavy-duty shelving units, in the basement studio, appeared to be leaning a bit.  I mentioned it, and yesterday we went down to see what was going on.  A level showed a fair bit of lean and some of the screws holding it together were loose.  These units carry quite a bit of weight, so this couldn't be ignored.  The unit was emptied, and all the bins put on the table that had just been cleaned, and David went to  work.  It was a hideous job, took two hours, and tested the strength of our marriage, ( we only had one pair of glasses between the two of us), and pretty well destroyed the studio, as so many other things had to be moved to facilitate the job at hand. Finally we were down to the part where we had to start shimming the wretched thing to bring it back to level.  While this meant several trips out to the garage, it also brought our eyes down to floor level, where a bit of mold was spotted in the corner between the shelving unit and the bookcase.  So the bookcase had to be emptied and moved, as well, and every single surface in the basement was covered in crap.  We also discovered that the bottom shelf of the bookcase is falling off.  This is the one where all of my periodicals are stored, and the "master" file of handouts and teaching notes for every course I have ever taught was kept.

The wall, floor, and bookcase side and back were sprayed with a special mold removal chemical, and had to be left for 24 hours, before anything could be put back.  I was left to deal with the residue.

The day before, while cleaning of the table, I had started a bag of donation fabric to go to the thrift store. Well, here was my chance to get a little more excess "stuff" out of the room.  Ho ho ho! Oh yeah!
I had a little chat with myself, and decided to get rid of things I knew in my heart I would never use again, using the sorting system of "keep, donate, and garbage".  And the donate pile must not contain anything with a name or address on it!  I worked like a dog.  Up and down those f---ing stairs.  Special needlework projects not yet finished?  I know they will never be done, unless I can get hand transplants.  Everything, fabric, thread needles and instructions into a Zip Loc bag and in the donate pile. ( heart breaking but--realistic)  Magazines that I paid almost $20 years ago and will never see again--but haven't read in years and had forgotten they were there--donate.  Wooden frames that have been coveted and protected since I left work ( I had the carpenter at work make them for me)--donate. Most of the hand made dimensional fabric boxes I've made over the years are gone--but not the reliquaries. The class notes and handout--which have always been available on a flash drive--well, if I haven't taught it in five years, and probably won't in the near future--gone to recycling.  That job meant going through almost a dozen big loose leaf binders, page by page.  All of the interesting articles  and patterns I have taken off the internet and out of magazines over the year--gone and more binders in the pile. (I found my owl pattern!)

It took most of the day and evening. All of my other chores such as laundry, a bit of grocery shopping, and changing the bedding over to the duvet were also taken care of.  I was exhausted and into bed early.  Of course that meant I was awake at 4:00 this morning and planning the rest of the job to be done today.

Pictures in the next post.