While the story’s been told before, it bears repeating: yarn destined to become a pair of socks for me is collected while the two of us are out exploring our world. After entering a yarn store, I head directly to the fingering weight section and begin looking for appealing colors made with a natural fiber such as wool and at least some synthetic material, else they are too fragile. Then, once home when Caroline is looking for her next knitting project, she’ll pick a random skein of the many I’ve selected over the years and her loving hands transforms it into socks. This particular yarn is called Blazing Fibers. The colorway is Pineapple Express. The yarn was dyed in the same state we bought it: Oregon. This past November, as we entered Brookings in Southern Oregon, the first yarn store we stopped in was By My Hand Fabric and Yarn Store which is also where I chose this to be one of my new pairs in the future. Well, that future is happening pretty quickly as Caroline will finish them this evening. If you think the heel is a different color, that wouldn’t be exactly right, as Caroline has knitted in reinforcement yarn in order to make it more durable but the main yarn is the same as the rest of the sock. So why am I posting these before they’re done? I find it interesting that my finished socks look like they were made in a factory because they are so perfect but this is proof of them on their way to completion. My intention is to wear them on my next flight, the first since before the pandemic. When that is isn’t exactly certain yet but it could be sooner rather than later. Details to follow as certainty becomes a thing.

This is about as mundane a blog entry as it gets: a report on our usage of dish soap during the pandemic. Last night I opened our 19th bottle of J.R. Watkins Dish Soap since the pandemic began. No, this isn’t an ad for J.R. Watkins although we are in love with their grapefruit-scented soap, this is a reminder to ourselves about the year when we used 18 bottles of dish soap. In all likelihood, we didn’t use that many bottles of soap during the previous 20 years. In part because we weren’t doing the dishes all that often because we ate out a lot, and then there were those years we’d use our dishwasher, but as time has gone by we never really got along with that infernal machine running for an hour and then having dishes come out not absolutely spotless. So, we wash all of our dishes by hand and have done so for years now. Still, it’s been more common for a bottle of soap to last so long that as we approach the bottom of a bottle that it’s a thickened goo from all of the moisture that evaporated. For all I know, a bottle of dish soap previously might have lasted for years. I mean, who tracks this type of consumption?

Well that’s a contradiction, John, as you are reporting here the opening of the 19th bottle, so you obviously are tracking it. Not really, it’s about the convenience of Amazon, their order history, and my realization that we appear to use a lot of this stuff.

Have I ever shared with my readers that I recently calculated how much toothpaste I’ve used in my lifetime? I think I missed that, so here it is. Over the previous 21,170 days using 0.5 grams of toothpaste per day, I estimate that I’ve used more than 23 pounds or 10 kilos of the minty stuff.

What is it about springtime that kicks in the need to deep clean our nest? So it was once more as Caroline and I dug into the deepest recesses of our place and went to work in the closet. Consolidation and donation were this year’s theme as we organized Caroline’s extensive yarn and fiber stash and brought about 25 pounds of clothing and a bunch of other things to Goodwill. As for the loom above, it will be offered to the lady who taught us the techniques of Navajo weaving for her to sell or donate to someone who might benefit from it. The rug that still sits on the loom was one of my efforts from maybe ten years ago. Since I abandoned it, it has gathered dust.

The imperative to reorganize from time to time is essential as we are in a relatively small space. We have an outdoor storage space that is a small 40″ x 40″ in size, while our closet is probably about 6′ x 7′. So, within those confines are the things that might need to be accessed only a few times a year, such as empty suitcases, camping gear, and Caroline’s yarn supply, along with some dumb things like VHS tapes, cassettes, and CDs we are not ready to part with. Some of the yarn and fiber are stashed in our bookshelves that were bought with the intention of them acting exactly in that capacity, hence why some sections have doors for yarn storage while others don’t, allowing direct and immediate access to our on-paper artifacts.

We do not have a rented storage space or a garage; I’m pointing this out because we know people who have all of the above and a couple who are renting two garages. For the life of us, we cannot fathom what might be stored in a garage that’s worth $1200 a year in rental fees, while nearby storage units seem to cost about the same or more. Then, on our morning walks, we always pass garages stuffed to the rafters with a narrow path cut through the hoarded junk. The funny thing is that Caroline and I feel like we’ve fallen victim to excess consumption, and yet we are in a small apartment of a mere 874 square feet or 81 square meters. Should we ever move back to Europe, there’s a good chance we’ll be in something closer to 650 square feet, which means we’ll have to shrink our footprint even more.

Maybe spring cleaning should be a twice-yearly event in which “consolidate and donate” is always the theme.