Say what?

The other day, our oldest daughter dropped off a basket full of things she no longer wanted. I took what the younger girls could use and got rid of the rest. It was a painless thing and I didn't feel bad about it, because we'll use the things she brought over. The only thing I wondered about was the basket itself.

It's a wire basket with one of those canvas liners that Velcros in place and doesn't slide around. But the edge of it was bent, and the canvas itself had what appeared to be a coffee stain that was on it when it was given to our daughter. I was able to bend the wire back into shape fairly well, so I took the liner off, cleaned the dog hair off it with one of those lint rollers, and then I washed the liner. It shrunk a tiny bit, in spite of it being hung to dry, but there wasn't enough shrinkage to concern me. I needed to replace the blue basket that we'd given our youngest for her things a few weeks ago. We needed a basket for our scarves, gloves and mittens.

So tonight, I stitched the corners to the wire basket, so it wouldn't flop around too much, and stuck some of the gloves from the closet in it. I also cleaned off the shelf in the coat closet for the first time in a few years. The coat closet never gets too dirty, but the shelf hadn't been touched in quite awhile, and I had to clean it in order to put the basket up. If I put it under the coats, our youngest would forever be getting in it to get scarves out to play with. She's a bit obsessive about scarves and plays with them year round. I'll no sooner get them washed and put away when I notice that she's gotten them out again. So the basket is going on the top shelf of the closet, and she won't be able to see that the scarves are in there. Now I just need to wash the scarves, so I can get them put away until next Fall!

I got rid of most of what was on the shelf, which was a nice surprise. I did keep the big foam #1 fingers for the local baseball team, just in case we get to catch a game or two this summer. I still have to clean the bottom of the closet out and wash the winter coats before all is said and done. However, I also have to put some shelves back in under the coats. We had made a couple of shelves when we bought the house, but they're sort of rickety. We need to cut some more and get them in there, so we have a permanent place to store the phone book again.

I was thinking we might be able to get to that this weekend, when I realized that in actuality, we probably won't, so I'm not going to put a firm time limit on it. I'm just putting it toward the top of the to-do list. And actually, I could probably do it on my own, if I only had a piece of plywood to cut. I may have to run to the hardware store in the next few days.

Our oldest took me off guard tonight, when she mentioned that they'll be getting married next week. I knew it was coming up. I've known the date for quite awhile. But for some reason, it shocked me that it's already next week! It will just be a simple ceremony at the courthouse with her family and some close friends.

Still. I don't know that my mind will really be into making shelves for the coat closet. I guess we'll see!