As I prepare to have a sausage patty on a slimwich bun for breakfast, I deeply regret not figuring out how to strap a big ol' juicy tomato to my piled-up panniers when I passed Sweet Corn Charlie the day before yesterday.
Yesterday, I was alarmed when I realized that an afternoon appointment precluded my afternoon nap. I get on fine with having tea with lunch instead of a nap once, but it usually takes a week to recover from doing it two days in a row. I'm more inclined to sit and write than to get on with my sewing this morning, but I think that I've mostly gotten away with it.
I didn't see the afterimage this morning; that's what comes of complaining to Dr. Hickman about it. He said that as long as it goes away as soon as I get up, it's nothing to worry about.
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Someone in Salt Lake City who couldn't be bothered to stay on the line until I put on my glasses and picked up the phone called about ten minutes before the end of nap time.
I felt too stupid to sew, so I re-filled the cat box that I cleaned and left out to air this morning, emptied the Roomba and cleaned its brushes, and cleaned the multiplier onions and put them away for the winter. Now I have an envelope of reserve onions to plant.
At planting time, I hold back just enough bulbs to save the clone in case of total disaster — and that's happened at least twice. Of late, I've been fall-planting those. They don't do as well as spring-planted bulbs, but it gets them out of the house.
Weather Underground says tomorrow will be a good day to wash towels and cleaning rags. I hope I remember to put them in to soak tonight.
I'd intended to put my do-rag in the next time I did a bleach wash, but the chocolate-milk washing appears to have gotten out the sweat stains. I rubbed both the milk stains and the do-rag with detergent. And my raggy old jersey isn't as dingy as it was. But all the remaining stains are front and center.
Well that takes the cake! My washing machine brags that it mixes in cold water when you ask for hot, because heating water and then cooling it down somehow "saves energy" — but this morning I set it for hot and it isn't running in *any* hot water at all! It would have been hotter if I'd set it for "warm".
Ye cats.
So I went in to read "Whirlpool" to be sure I was shaming the right company after saying "ye cats" — and discovered that even though it was set for "wash", the "rinse" light was on.
So I reset it, but I shouldn't have. Now I'll have to catch it before it rinses, and reset again.
And I just realized that I made a fundamental mistake in the design of the trapezoid skirt. But it won't show much, and this *is* a beta.
Ta Dah! This morning I called up the designed-for-paper-but-at-least-it-responds-to-search "manual" for the browserphone, and figured out how to delete pictures. Appears not to apply to the dorky wallpapers that came with the phone, which is why I couldn't find it before.
So now I can use the camera, which might conceivably be useful.
I'm definitely not going to use the built-in FM radio that I found while looking for information about images.
Hah! Went searching for "camera", to find out which is the shutter button, and found a claim that pictures can be transferred by data cable to my computer. It has no data cable, and no port for a data cable.
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Dave figured out that if I plug his phone's cable into the power port of my phone, I can transfer pictures to my computer the same way I get them off the camera.
But the phone takes *lousy* pictures. I tried to shoot some green grass to use for wallpaper and got something pale grey and out of focus. I took the phone outside and looked around — apparently you get color only when what you are shooting is far away.
But if I can upload pictures, I can download pictures. I can take a wallpaper shot with the camera, edit it, and copy it to the browserphone. ("no wallpaper" doesn't appear to be an option.)
But pictures taken with the phone will be useful only if I'm a witness to a crime.
Only two partial loads of wash today. I forgot to change the pillowcases yesterday, and Dave was still in bed when I put the white clothes in, but that wouldn't have made much difference.
XP must have updated when I wasn't looking. It now wants to run a program when I try to move an icon, and it also de-enlarges Hexavirus when I try to move it down to where I can see it. Since re-enlarging it moves it back to the top left corner, this is very annoying.
Not annoying enough to make me stop playing the stupid game, though. Anybody know of any computer games that teach you something? If I'm hooked, I might as well get something out of it.
Radio Code would be easy to write into a computer game.
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Well, it *is* possible to buy new old pants.
I went to Carson's today. Most of the pants I looked at were fly-fronts, which even for gardening pants are too disgusting, but there were a few of the Breckinridge pull-ons left. I had come to think, while wearing my XLs, that perhaps I should have gotten size L instead, but I couldn't check that because there were no Ls or Ms left in any brand. The Breckinridge had one navy S, a few white XLs, and an XL "atlantic wash", which appears to be what you call stonewash when you do it to muslin. It looks even sillier on muslin than it does on denim, but hey, old and worn out is the perfect look for garden pants.
I saw, after trying them on, that they had a fake fly, but closer inspection showed that a few minutes with a seam ripper would take care of that. And it did, but I'm going to have to zig-zag the seam allowance before I cut the fly off.
Checking, my brown Breckinridge pants also have a fake fly. But in matching thread, it doesn't show, so I won't bother to remove it.
On the way home, I bought bacon for supper at Aldi, but I didn't feel like cooking, so we shared a TV dinner. With a little potato salad and a bite of guacamole.
I think I'll make the rest of the avocado into guacamole. I sliced some of it into a nut cup, crushed it with a fork, and stirred in a dash of sour cream and about five minced kow choi flower-bud stems. Since I was crushing in a nut cup, it's rather lumpy.
The kow choi is, at last, slowing up on flower production. Since it's a noxious weed, it's very important that all of the flowers be eaten, and I've been having trouble keeping ahead of it, even by making kow choi the major vegetable in my jambalaya. I don't eat *that* much jambalaya, and Dave doesn't like it. (And he shouldn't eat rice-based dishes anyway.)
I bought another avocado when I was at Aldi. Couldn't find the sandwich skinnies, but I noticed that hamburger buns were marked "seasonal", and sandwich skinnies are hamburger buns, so I suppose they were seasonal too. Pity, because I like them very much.
I stopped and measured the shoulder on 30. Twenty-four inches. When I was balancing along between the lethal rumble strip and the steep rip-rap, I'd have sworn that it was nine inches.
Well, not really *lethal* — one *can* touch the rumble strip and survive. But it's definitely not something one can ride on and remain in control of the bike.
The rumble strip on the stretch of 30 between Larwill and Spring Creek doesn't do anything but make a loud noise when you touch it. Quite safe for bikes. Also invisible when you aren't looking really close, which may or may not have something to do with why they don't use that kind everywhere.
It's been at least a year since I've been to Spring Creek; I hope they haven't re-made the rumble strip.
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So I did crush the rest of the avocado. There wasn't much, so I stirred in more than a dash of sour cream. I could find only three kow-choi buds (Yay!), but two of them had long stems.
I hope I didn't dilute the guacamole too much. I have to wait until morning to taste it, so the kow choi can infuse.
When I wanted to dress up some potato salad for lunch, I had to settle for kow choi leaves.
Time to start digging up whole plants when I want some leaves.
A few years ago I bought some hooks and eyes from a theatrical-supply house, and also bought a dozen plastic circles such as stores used to put on clothing racks to separate the sizes — but these were blank instead of numbered. If I'd known how useful they are, I'd have gotten two dozen, but it isn't worth the shipping charges to get more.
Today I put the first garment behind the circle marked "summer". It's a jersey I'm sure I won't wear any more this season.
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I didn't let the dangerous temperatures of August slow me down, but the muggy weather of September is keeping me inside.
And today's gloomy overcast is downright dispiriting. And the sun sets at eight, despite double daylight still being in effect.
Dr. Hollar's office just called: I get my permanent bridge next Tuesday. Weather Underground says that Tuesday will the last of a string of clear days — so I hope today's gloom goes away a little *later* than predicted! If Tuesday evening's rainstorm comes a little early, I'm going to get soaked.
When I was last in Kroger, I noticed that Milnot has reverted to the original Mil-Nut recipe. This tickled me so much that I bought a can.
This morning I noticed that we are nearly out of milk, and I don't want to go shopping until tomorrow, so I opened the Milnot to take my pills. Filled milk tastes exactly like evaporated milk.
I'd like to see them bring out a MilNut made with coconut oil, or almond oil infused with pecans. Could probably sell it as coffee creamer.
Black walnut oil would be really, really expensive. On the other hand, one could use it to season English-walnut oil.
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I decided that I'd shop today instead of tomorrow — I'm not getting anything done here, and in a supermarket, you don't know *what* the weather is. Decided to have sushi for supper, later remembered that I won't touch it because seaweed tastes like dead fish, so I guess I'll have baloney on a sandwich thin while Dave eats sushi.
When I punched the receipt into Quicken, I puzzled the *longest* time over "SNOW THINS". Finally realized that the "O" was meant to be "D" — sandwich thins.
Now I want some snow-thin crackers. Perhaps made by flattening and frying snow peas.
Saved by bad Web design: I have learned about a Webcomic called "Widershins" and was all set to archive binge — but I have just learned that there isn't a way in the world to find the place where I left off yesterday. I suppose I could go to the beginning and page, page until I saw one I haven't seen, but it isn't *that* good a webcomic.
And the Web "designer" used the size attribute to shrink the pictures down to postage stamps, so clicking "no style" is the only way one can read the comic at all.
I usually go downtown on Saturday, it isn't raining, and there is an event in Center Lake Park I wanted to see . . .
And hey! Weather Underground just updated and dropped the probability of rain to 53%. But I'm not as cheerful about getting rained on at 73F as I was at 93F, and the prediction still says thirteen-mile-per-hour wind.
Not to mention that even when it's hot, taking a shower with your clothes on isn't any fun.
Oddly, I didn't have to pull my knickers up above my knees when I got drenched, but they did rub on my knees Tuesday, when I wasn't sweating very much. Just enough to be sticky, I guess.
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I had jambalaya for brunch. I cut the kow choi leaves about an inch long, and stirred them in just before serving, which provided a pleasant wilted-lettuce effect, and kept the smell from driving Dave out of the house.
I used only half of the clump I dug. I'll cut an inch off the remainder when I make tossed salad tonight. I think that if I make it in one of my half-gallon semi-disposable containers, it will be about enough to fill the salad bowl in the freezer.
After searching all over the house for a bowl that would hold a tossed salad, I realized that the oval containers I bought for serving potato salad would do. So I put water in one and put them into the freezer, with a can of orange juice in the inner bowl to keep the ice flat. Tossed salad doesn't need to be kept cold, but if you've got it, use it. I also froze a block of ice in a yogurt container that I'd washed for this purpose. I like whole-milk yogurt on my salads, so I'm serving yogurt on the side instead of dressing the salad. There will be scads of bottled dressings on the table that folks who don't like it can use.
Tuesday's rainstorm has been postponed until sunset. Yay!
The probability at sunset has dropped to 15%, the sharp rise in chance of rain is well after midnight, and the probability will be dropping to zero exactly during the time I need to be outside for my appointment at eleven forty-five. There will be a crosswind, but the peak is eight miles per hour.
And today will be a good day for drying clothes.
I'm washing my second-newest old pants separately today — I don't think they will bleed, but one of my Sunday dresses is in the colored load.
The lettuce salad went over like a lead balloon. Could be in part because I put two spoons into it instead of hunting around for another pair of salad tongs. And it was right next to a taco salad. I'm planning to add meat and cheese to the leftovers for a bedtime snack today. I may add more kow choi; I couldn't taste anything but lettuce when I ate some yesterday evening, except when I get a ring of mini-sweet pepper.
Storing the potatoes in the garden seemed like less of a good idea yesterday night, when I wanted to zap one for a bedtime snack. I settled for crackers.
Today I went out for one to have with the leftover stew beef for lunch. I dug up three marble-size potatoes, one big enough for both of us, and one single-serving size. I think that empties the white hill, but I stopped pawing at the dirt when I found the potato that's in the microwave. I've no clue as to how the yellow and red potatoes fared — since they still have leaves, I'm leaving them until the white potatoes are gone — but piling the dirt way up instead of just enough to kill the weeds seems to have been the key for the white ones, and I did the same for the red and yellow.
On the other hand, I'm not sure this hill isn't the yellow. A bit pale for yellow potatoes, a bit golden for white.
I took some pictures with my phone while Dave and I were walking around the island, and they came out fairly decent. If the camera is set for "infinity", that could explain my failure to photograph grass — but why is it a gray blur instead of a green blur?
A dark-green blur would be just right for wallpaper — I'm looking for something without a lot of detail to make it hard to read my watch.
I *think* I'm ready to roll at 10:45. I put two books in, because I'm close to the end of _The Daleth Effect_. Also added my sheer linen scarf to the load; I think that after this trip, I'll wash my do rag and put it away for the winter.
I'm really looking forward to *teeth*, though the current temporary is so sturdy that I haven't noticed it much. But I'll probably have a milkshake for lunch. I ate a hearty breakfast, because it will be lunchtime when I leave the office with a numb mouth.
The whole job was done without anesthetic (yay!), but I left with glue that wasn't quite set. I had a cup of chili at Marsh.
I'm finishing off the last of the lemons left over from the Fourth. I never expected them to keep so long. One didn't, but it rotted early on, so I suspect that it was bruised.
Dave and I went for an old-fashioned Point Seven yesterday. I don't think he measured to make sure it was seven tenths of a mile. When we came back, I realized that I've been out and about so little this summer that I missed the blooming of the tiger lilies entirely. Either that, or my chronic amnesia wiped them out.
There's a kow choi in full bloom in the lily bed. It's beautiful, but I'm going to have to dig it out. I'm tempted to say "where can it spread to, completely surrounded by lawn and pavement?", but it got *there* somehow.
There's an antique-machinery show in Nappanee tomorrow, and Saturday's ride is scheduled to be rained out, but that isn't enough time to work up enthusiasm for a major expedition. Especially a "drive to the start point" expedition. Perhaps I'll take a Sprawlmart tour; we are running low on bread.
I wonder what I have to put into a packed lunch? There's a committee meeting at 5:30 at the church this evening. If I don't think of something good, I can make a bologna sandwich.
I should have left the sandwich home and brought my *keys*!
Bill eventually let me in and we had a brief meeting. We'll serve sloppy Joe and corn and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches to the homeless, and put it together next Tuesday at 2:00.
I meant to go to Sprawlmart by way of Pierceton today, but chickened out and went by way of 275 E instead. I did look around in Indiana Restaurant Supply, but forgot that there was a motorsports place in the same parking lot and didn't look east. Also took a lap around Indiana Antique Mall. I was the only customer; I wonder how they stay in business.
I saw a rather nice antique cast-iron chicken fryer — with a modern Lodge lid. Leastways it looked exactly like the lid to my Lodge cooking pot.
I wonder how — and why — Lodge makes their ironware rough on the inside. I literally did grate a nutmeg on my pot when it was new. Much scouring has blunted the points, but I still need a rag to dry it because it grates paper towels.
The radar and the graph say that this rain will let up in about the time it would take me to change clothes, but I think I'll give the farmers' markets a miss this week.
Not too many weeks left. I *think* their last day is October the first, but it could be the last Saturday in September, one week from today.
It was raining harder than ever when I was dressed, and a deep puddle had formed on our parking apron. It's really, really, hard to get into the driver's seat from the passenger side!
But when I came out of Owen's, the sun was shining brightly. And the puddle was gone when I got back.
I read a review of a coffee-table book on the sewing mailing list, and reflected that our coffee table is piled high with books — not one of which is a coffee-table book.
I was poking around on the Web and discovered that McKenna Farms' farm stand is only five miles from here, about as far south as The Farm is north. I can make a farm-stand tour of exactly twenty-five miles!
That's an "interesting once", though.
Before shopping on Saturday, I inventoried the frozen vegetables. The bag of vegetables had filled up with frost when Dave pounded off frost that had been keeping the freezer door from closing properly, so I inventoried it by lifting each bag of vegetables into a fresh grocery bag. Then I shook the frost out of the old grocery bag and threw it away. The bag of dry beans I keep under the bag of vegetables was in a similar state, so I put them into a fresh bag too. While doing so, I picked up a bag of adzuki beans by the bottom and dumped most of them into the frost. The only way to separate them was to dump the frost into a strainer and let it melt — which got the beans wet. So I put a half cup of beans into a jar, where they are now sprouting nicely, and put the rest to soak overnight in a saucepan and simmered them all day Sunday.
To my surprise, the beans flavored the broth adequately — though there isn't a lot of broth because I wasn't making soup. But it needed salt, so I put in a good bait of tamari sauce.
I'm having a sort of adzuki-bean hash for lunch today. Celery and sausage and onion and beans and bacon grease. I forgot that we have mini-sweet peppers.
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I did wash my do-rag today, but instead of putting it away for the winter when it was dry, I put it on and went to Owen's to pick up my pills; it was too warm to wear a scarf.
I stopped at Jimmy John on the way back and picked up a "Gutbuster" submarine to share for supper. Dave saved some of his for lunch tomorrow.
This afternoon, I helped to make sloppy joe and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, which we put into cardboard boxes lined with plastic wrap and cut-open bread bags because the sloppy joe was in the roaster pans we used last time.
I forgot myself while we were cleaning up and started my back hurting, so I think I'll postpone the quarter century to Thursday; I'm pretty sure that I touched off the Easter Incident by getting exhausted on Monday and not resting on Tuesday. My back doesn't hurt much, and riding drop-bars does a sore back good (if you get my kind of sore back), but I *do* plan to get exhausted on that ride. One grand feature of the route, besides being slightly new and being exactly twenty-five miles, is that it consists almost entirely of bail-out points where I can cut it short and go straight home.
This morning I went to the Winona Lake website for the first time in ages, having heard that the banner picture was shot from our back yard. It's an excellent job of photography, and an even-better job of photoshop.
When I carried the garbage out this morning, I noticed that two of the volunteers on the compost heap have red peppers on them. They are the size and shape of jalapeños, but since I haven't bought any raw hot peppers this year, and have *never* bought a fresh jalapeño, I'm pretty sure they are mini-sweets. I thought mini-sweets were hybrids and would produce something entirely else if you planted the seed.
I'll wait a day or two before I pick one.
Planning to sew and garden today. So far, I've cut a square inch of duck to back a bar tack with. And carried out the garbage.
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I completed the repair I'd cut the duck for, then patched a leak in a back pocket of my linen jersey. Tomorrow might be the last day I'll want a linen jersey this year, but I'll wear the cotton jersey I sewed the duck to a lot in the next few weeks.
I noticed that I had patched the first bar tack that tore out much more carefully than the second. But this patch should hold for the life of the jersey, and who admires teeny-tiny stitches inside a pocket?
Inspected the garden, found volunteer mustard all over it, and decided not to cultivate until spring, when I can harvest greens before plowing up the plants.
Just at sunset, I planted three heads of garlic bulbils; I think that closes off the garden for the year, except for digging the potatoes. No fall-planted multipliers this year. Might be some overlooked bulbs, but I did plow up every onion row with the five-tine cultivator after harvesting it.
Lost by a hair! I was all ready to walk out the door when I realized that I'd forgotten to comb my hair, and while I was doing that, Roomba finished in the bedroom, so I had to put the cat box back where it belongs myself instead of delegating Dave to do it.
It's 10:48 — I don't think I'll be back in time to cook supper. But the last leg passes by Jimmy-Johns and Penguin Point . . .
When I got to Owen's, I sat down on the smoker's bench and called Dave, then picked up four thighs at Penguin Point. Service was unexpectedly fast, so we had supper a little early. Just meat and some bite-size tomatoes I bought at The Farm. We had two thighs left over.
I couldn't find McKenna Farms, and suppose that they have closed for the season. But they plan to be at the courthouse farmers' market on Saturday. Perhaps I'll ask what the season is for the farm stand.
I wasn't sure that I could do twenty-five miles, but I wasn't even very tired. I did notice a slight soreness in the legs after I'd rested a while. My back was less sore this morning than when I woke up yesterday.
So as soon as it's cool enough that I don't have to pack ice for buying cheese, I can ride to Spring Creek! Assuming that I stay in condition in the meantime, of course. And I think that I'd better come back the way I went, instead of tackling the hills north of 30.
This morning, Dave came back from his annual physical with a prescription for a handicap card to keep in our glove box. I really, really could have used one the Thursday before Easter!
I was pleasantly surprised, when I put my jersey into the closet this morning, to see that all the black on the pocket hems and the drawstring casing had rinsed off. I'd been horrified, when brushing the lint out of the pockets, to see that I'd put on something so badly in need of washing without noticing; it takes more putting in of hands than I can do in one day to get a pocket *that* dirty. After seeing that it had all come out, I reflected on the pattern of the dirt, and realized that I'd picked it up from the floor of the gazebo at Everything Outdoors, where I'd stopped to have a lie-down and a cookie.
I was less pleasantly surprised to see that I shouldn't have left my roll of black broadcloth on the card table with a couple of feet unrolled after I tore off a strip to make a sash for my trapezoid skirt. I *knew* that that was Al's favorite napping spot!
I've no enthusiasm for today's farmers' markets tour, perhaps because we have tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes, and corn is done for the year. But it's probably the last time. I hope I remember to swing by Center Lake to see whether anything is going on in the park. [There was an art festival. My embroidery gig would fit right in, if there's an outlet for the iron, but might take too long for the parents' patience. And I'd need at least two assistant teachers.]
If I don't put on my sunscreen and get out, the markets will close before I get there.
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I bought three cookies.
I stopped at Owen's on the way back, to drop off a grocery bag I'd picked up in Tamarack Street. Saw two lawn sales; one had some antique children's books, which I resisted. The one I opened looked worth re-printing.
Today's top headline — on page 3-A — "One million of your hard-earned Federal tax dollars to be spent on price support for drug dealers and the encouragement of violence".
Weather Underground says that tomorrow will be the only dry day this week. I was wondering whether I could work up enthusiasm for the Spring Creek ride that fast when Dave made an appointment to take Al to the vet tomorrow. Dave is perfectly capable of taking a cat to a vet by himself, but tomorrow is supposed to be even colder and windier than today.
I chickened out of hanging the laundry out, partly because I was freezing out there, and partly because I could barely set pins with the wind jerking the sheet. I did hang up three towels and two washrags along with the sheet; I thought them too small to whip to pieces.
When I took the sheet down, I had to dump it into the basket crumpled and bring it in to fold it, because the wind kept snatching it out of my hands.
But it did dry fast. The stuff I put on racks hasn't even started.
Adzuki-bean sprouts in scrambled eggs are delicious! I'm going to do it again tomorrow. A cut-up breakfast sausage, one very small onion, and a handful of sprouts fried in olive oil, add one egg. The beans take on the texture of roasted peanuts when fried. (Nothing of peanut *flavor*, fortunately.)
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The vet said Al is doing fine. Al says he needs a good long rest.
Dave has been having a lot of fun learning how to use his two Raspberry Pi computers, and two big black towers are cluttering up the hallway because we can't figure out where to put them. Dave doesn't want to get rid of them, but they aren't in current use.
One Pi is running the back-yard camera.
Woke from my nap to find that the gloomy morning had become a glorious afternoon, so Dave and I walked to Studebaker Spring, then continued to the fountain with blue water and two concentric circular walks in Spring Fountain Park. (There's a name for a walkway like that, but I can't think of it.) I hadn't noticed before that the ends of the cross walks are labeled North and South. (And, I presume, East and West.) Dave said that the directions are magnetic, and therefore no longer accurate.
Then we climbed the hill to Sunday Lane. Shortly after we passed The Doric, Martha's dog alerted her and she came out to invite us to take a tour of the house and her new printshop. They still have lot of work to do, but it's already glorious.
Then home just in time for left-over Chinese for supper. We killed the pork, but neither of us ate much of the sizzling rice with three delicates.
Yesterday evening, I dithered over what to serve until Dave suggested the Great Wall.
Tonight, Dave killed the chinese, except for a little rice, and I had fried bean sprouts, which he doesn't like. This used up the bean sprouts.
I've been trying to gain a little order in the sewing room by organizing my yarns. DMC Medici is essential to mending wool garments, so when they stopped making it, I stocked up at various clearance sales. I had no idea how *well* I'd stocked up until I tried to put it all into one box. I may have to file Medici and darning wool separately.
It appears that I bought four-ounce skeins of black and four-ounce skeins of white more than once.
I puzzled for a while over where to put the Appleton crewel, which is finer than most crewel, but not so fine as Medici. But I can substitute it for Medici when I need that particular color.
I have not yet begun to unpack the suitcase I've been hauling back and forth from the sewing room to the bedroom for weeks or months. It contains a pair of stranded stockings-in-progress in colors I don't like. And, most likely, stuff I've forgotten existed.
At least with the yarns all piled on the two card tables, it's easier to clear the sewing room for Roomba. Most of them will go onto shelves in the walk-in closet once they are sorted into shoe boxes. And a frozen-chicken box for the crewels and persians, and a turntable box for mysterious works in progress.