Posse! The frost is kinda on the pumpkin and the hay is mostly in the barn…. it’s full-on Autumn here, with 30 degree drops in temp, rain… then a 20degree spike in temp – and that warm weather window is frantic, indeed. This is the time of year I do the Reverse Squirrel…while at the same time losing mah damb mind, trying to get 100 white daffodils in my already daffodiled-out garden. I mean, really? 100 bulbs. Sigh. Here’s the thing – if you already have 200 bulbs in your borders you have to be reeeeallly careful how and where you dig; daffodils drop their foliage around July and ain’t nobody gonna remember to spray with marking paint. Tags …eh. They move – and they lie. So there is this absurd ‘referencing the phone’, trying to figure out where stuff is.
um..Mom? whereyagonnaput alladem daffs?
you mean this GIANT bag of bulbs?
I’m finally! down to 3 daff bulbs and two of the 10 lilies I also bought – the Circle Border is gorgeous but way too many colors and different plants, so I ripped out anything not lily/daff and not white/cream/yellow. I’m hoping a monochrome palette will keep my psyche soothed – I’ve spent way too much time envisioning this color scheme (and dreaming of being able to move the non-mono colors) instead of enjoying the flowers. Fingers crossed!
Perfume (ish) – I moved Rue. A lot of rue. Ruta graveolens I love that scent, it’s so blue-green fresh and clean. I am surprised – but not really – that it isn’t used much in perfume (and it’s almost impossible to Goog ‘rue in perfume’ because… you know… the French have pretty much cornered the market on that word. I used to go to my Santera for cleansing and she used rue (and she also used a live pigeon which, luckily, stayed live). This time of year I put in on my front door, also in my office and in my bathroom. It is a protection herb – and it just smells good!
So… it’s kiiiinda Reverse Squirrel. Kind of.
Inside, I went hog-wild. There is this terrifying storage room, made even more terrifying by the crumbling plaster and lathe. You know how you move into a place and shove All the Things into a room like that, convinced that you’ll get to it very soon…and a decade later…
And this is why Girlfriends are GOLD! My friend Sherry is a Cleaning FREAK!!! I’ve not seen anything like it – and I’m surrounded by Clean Freaks (and am CF-adjacent). Reminiscent of the Cattle Dog who herded my 3 Rottweilers across a Chicago park (omg. The Cattle Dog guy and I nearly fell over laughing! ), she views dirt and disorder as a personal challenge. Lemmetellya, SHE! is who you want on Team Clean. She stepped into that storage room and everything in there got real quiet, hoping not to be noticed. No dice, stuff. She. Saw. She. Conquered.
But it was funny, watching her and our friend Mary, pulling out all these boxes (I was relegated to Looking At Stuff and Making Lunch, due to this stupid shoulder)… the first box of exquisite vintage glassware… ooohs and ahhs..
The fourth box? ‘Um… Anita… umm… how. much. glass STUFF !!! do you have?
(and Let’s Not Even with the china.)
But we/they got it all out and I got it all sorted and… do not compliment a bish on sumpin’ – it’s going home with you!
I was ruthless! 2 full carloads to Salvation Army and another load to a refugee support group.
Got rid of my ’06 car – it was old and manky and I have one butt and I just need one car to set it in, y’know? Great Wavy Gravy, Floyd! It feels GREAT to have that thing out of my driveway.
Reverse Squirrelin’ like a lima bean.
Perfume News:
I took advantage of the cooler weather to try out two new BDK parfumes: Vanilla Leather (swooon) and Creme de Cuir (even swooonier). I don’t think either of these has the heft to stand up to a Midwestern Winter..but a Midwestern Autumn? Perfect! Both give a nod to those light leathers like Daim Blond and Cuir de Lancome. I love both of those and …. omg! if you have the opportunity to sleep alone, marinate yourself in either one! They’re narcotic, in a fluffy way. I spritzed TEN spritzes of CdL because I am a savage and I could (insert shrug). I dunno… it just felt so.. luxurious …and I’m thinking the narcotic aspect is largely due to the massive amount of scent. But I loved it. Do NOT try this with Others. This is a solo excursion down River Lethe, though the experience is one you are unlikely to forget.
Btw – a Big Fat NO! on the Kinesiology tape. It was working just great… until it wasn’t. I got an ugly little lesion from one of the edges. It’s healed up but NEWP! That hurt! and I need another scar like I need to fight a velociraptor with a toothpick – and I can’t fight him right now anyway, since my shoulder is in tatters. Sigh.
But! I’ve got GOOD NEWS! KATHLEEN is the winner of the original (and aborted) Reverse Squirrel post. AND! M. Jacques thinks he should pull another winner to compensate for this shambles of a post. So! What are your thoughts on those lightweight, soft leathers? Love ’em? Hate ’em? He’ll poke a pawnail and I’ll get the BDKs out to the winner!
I’m so glad you cleaned out that spooky storage, it’s good for your soul! And hey you found your boots! I’m filling up yet another bag over here to go to the thrift. Like a couple of commenters, I’m in a small enough space now that I’m very aware of its limitations.
you have done an amazing job of editing to suit your teeny casita, while preserving your style. I think it’s gorgeous!
Anita,
I’ve also been doing a reverse squirrelization over here. We’re having some overnight house guests for an evening as they pass through town, so the house needed to be spiffed up. I was dancing a jig when I read about your decluttering of the storage room. What an amazing success that was! Love it! Our temps have dropped enough for me to wear Sycomore today, but they’ll need to get a bit colder before I can handle full-on leathers. Wore some Jolie Madame last week. The ones you tested sound really nice. Planting bulbs is hard work. The squirrels and chipmunks like to eat tulips, so I’ve learned not to bother with them. Daffs and hyacinths do better. I fertilized my front yard though. A small victory.
Dina – I don’t plant tulips anymore because of those pesky critters but I have found that ringing my lilies with daffodils has a twofold bonus of gorgeous early blooms and a guard against the pests. They can’t get past the toxic daffs, so the lilies are largely safe.
Soft leather master great for this time of year. Carmen’s Cuir is not too loud.
Get to look at the bright side about living in a one bedroom apartment which is “one on one out” is a way of life. I’d like to come across four boxes of beautiful glassware but not happening.
I dunno… this is a LOT of glassware.
Soft leathers this time of year is just lovely! Like that sweater that is too bulky for Winter because you can’t fit it under a coat. Wait… that sounds insane…but you know what I mean.
Wish I could borrow your cleaning freak friends! Downsizing is a reality here.
As for soft leathers, yeah baby! CdL, DB, BV, CdR & BB Velours are all on the rota.
Why did BV decide to murder their designer line? Many were sooo good
Wish I could as well, but I’d need to clean first.
Not with Sherry, you wouldn’t. And when she finished you could eat off the floors!
if either of us knew why…
It’s really done by committee these days – and probably not by those who give a damb about perfume.
Just my 2 cents.
Yeah you’re right. I’ve been hunting last bottles of BV & found one. BV Velours is either available for a kidney & two lungs or potentially dodgy.
Oh, lord. This is the reverse of ‘you don’t know what you got till it’s gone’. It’s the ‘I’m gonna wash that man right outa my hair’ thing (whether or not it has anything to do with anyone but you). The first is sadness, the second saneness. Vanilla and leather. Hmmmm… I think someone furry who lives underground or in the overgrown garden next to mine has moved around a lot of my bulbs. I now plant in pots or containers.
we’re too cold to plant in containers, alas – I tried for the Claus Dalby look a few years back – and even in my garden shed, covered with blankets, etc… all the bulbs just dissolved. I like growing daffodils because nobody tends to mess with them, since they’re toxic. The only thing moving them around is me – and that’s because I buy too many and don”t always remember where the existing 432 bulbs are, come Autumn.
Well I love Daim Blond and love drenching myself for singleton sleeping in something narcotic. But DB is one of those “one spritz too many and..” ones for me. One too many and it goes from divine suede to jammy.
I need to do a major unsquirreling. And stop buying stuff.
I feeel yer paiiin, Tom, on overspritzing DB. That jammy note is strong in that one, innit? Perfect, when perfectly applied. Too much…
That is a LOT of daffodils Musette. WOW!
Love that you got the old garbage room (full of treasures) cleaned out. Is it now having a new lease of life as something else?
Portia xx
P – I’m an idiot, plain and simple. That I got all but a few planted (in a place that is already full of daffs) is nothing short of miraculous.
And yes – it is amazing how happy I am, sans El O. It’s like I’ve been given my life back!
I love M. Jacques photo, contemplating where Mom will put the daffs. My gardening is limited to tomato and pepper plants in a garden box and a few pots. I envy all of your energy and flowers! Great job cleaning out the catch all storage! I also love your concept of marinating in perfume 🙂
M. Jacques thinks Mom is a lunatic!
Sometime I’ll write about how this garden came to be – but right now I’m too tired to even think about it!
Ooh, I have and love Crème de Cuir, need to try Vanilla Leather. I do love a good clean out, but I have to psych myself up to start. My winter house (which belongs to my husband and his son, who are both packrats) is an indescribable mess, but I did manage to tidy the mudroom and part of the pantry this morning. Every year when I go north for the summer, stuff migrates and fills in, then every winter I have to dig out again and reorganize, so I am definitely a reverse squirreler. My place up north is neat and tidy because I am a CF.
Um… my brain stopped working at ‘Winter House’ (which is know is in SDiego, right? Perfection!
I’m thrilled to be de-squirreling. 10 years in a closed-off room is 9.5 years too many, if you ask me.