A Time for Healing?

After my poor mental health post I took a step in the process of healing from bed bugs which I dealt with for a long, really long, too long, ridiculously long, time.

A result of the multiple spraying, inspections, and packing of everything in my apartment is that my clothing, and basically all of my textiles lived in plastic bags for (oh my gosh) the past year except clothes/coats/towels/sheets/etc I use regularly. I think my loathing for all Ikea furniture was made perfectly clear when I threw away the piece of crap dresser I bought from there. But I love some of there other little things (hello $3.00 rugs) including their dresser and closet containers. (New rule of thumb: Ikea furniture - bad; Ikea textiles - generally good).

Sunday I took all my clothes, sheets, and towels out of the plastic bags (I'm referring here to the Mondo-size zip locks) that had been their home for the past year. I sorted everything out. Then I cleaned my linen closet which was ridiculously cluttered for how little is actually in there, and stored the sheets and towels.

Having taken stock of my clothing I went to Ikea in search of organization (in addition to a Christmas present specifically requested by Mom). I bought one of those cubbie/drawer things that hangs over the clothes bar. My choices of color were a red/orange (just no) white, or black. I chose black because the white can look dingy. I forgot that it's really hard to see in the black drawers. (It's an unusual complaint and I won't take the thing back for it. I just want you to know.)

The now-sorted clothes went into the hanging organizer well. And presto my room is clean. The laundry hamper now fits back in the closet since the floor is no longer cluttered with over-large ziplock bags. It just made me feel so much better to have two clean closets and every thing back.

I also cooked actual food yesterday, peanut butter curry. My parents were interested to hear I can get fresh-ground peanut butter at my co-op. Seriously. The little machine just makes it right there for me. On the curry, yum!. I needed a better curry to rice ratio but the recipe I found (truly African) didn't have measurements so much as an ingredient list and loose information about proportions. It's really a miracle I got as close as I did. Ingredients in the curry include raisins and cashews. All my favorite meals involve fruit. Well, many of my favorite meals and almost all of my favorite deserts involve fruit. Yum, nonetheless.

I also sorted out my tupperware drawer. How does that get so out of control? and today I sorted out the last drawer to have textiles in plastic bags: the drawer full of my kitchen towels. It just feels so much nicer, I feel better about myself, and less loathing for living here now that stuff is back where it belongs. I actually didn't realize how much loathing I had for having my place that way until it wasn't.

My progress in the apartment has left me with a couple dilemmas. My questions to the readers:

• I have a crap ton of the really good take out containers that the Chinese restaurants use for soup. What can I do with them? Is it dumb to give those to Good Will? Anyone want them. They're really good. Problem is they're all the "large" (read: two servings) size and I don't want them. I think they're partly responsible for the chaos in my tupperware drawer.


• I have, also, a ton of magazines, mostly Eating Well, that I'm not using anymore. What do you do with old magazines? I think there's like an art form now of folding up pages from magazines and making them into coasters. How do I find a local artist who will use them? Is there anyone else that will use them? I think I could recycle them too.