Tag: home decor

Posted in Crochet

The Great Yarn Reorganization of 2025

Posted on by Vikki Lynn Sorensen

I’ve never bought yarn without a purpose in mind. My creative flow is get an idea (or buy a pattern), buy the yarn and complete the project. Every skein had a purpose.

Then Joann Fabrics announced it was closing its doors.

Like so many, I was devastated. If I’m being honest, I didn’t go into the stores that often. When we lived up in Grayslake, my girls and I would go to the location in the area. But since moving to Orland Park, I only went into the store here once and it was so dirty, I left really upset. But I did shop a lot online! Boxes upon boxes, each for a specific purpose, were delivered.

It was my daughter, a baker and creative person herself, who told me she’d visited the store by her home and the deals were unreal. Still, I decided not to as I had patterns waiting to be worked up and didn’t think I could house anymore.

I was wrong. She convinced me to go and “just buy the yarn. Buy all the yarn.” So I did. I filled two shopping carts and collectively came home with more than 10 bags full of yarn. No patterns. No Pinterest ideas. No Instagram ideas. Just me, my own creativity and my pocketbook (which did sputter on each trip).

All this yarn was so beautiful! So many ideas! But I needed a place to put them all. I already had laundry baskets, two bins under my bed and 4 bins in the storage room full of yarn. I also had all this.

Add the Joann hauls and you get something close to this….(and that wasn’t even all of it)

So, I spoke with others who live with me about this situation and came up with a solution. We have a loft. While it’s furnished, there was a whole wall that was empty. We filled that empty space first with shelves I bought from Walmart. They’re the Furinno Turn-N-Tube shelves. I love these shelves. They’re a quality product at a decent price and they were perfect for what we needed.

So first we filled the space with shelves. Then we filled the shelves with yarn. All my yarn and all in one space. I couldn’t be more happy with the end result! And having it all organized helps my creativity even more. I can see all my colors at the same time, choose what I want for what project and plan, plan, plan for the rest. I also loved how cozy it made our loft.

The moral to the story is when in doubt, just buy the yarn!

Posted in Moments and Musings

Move With Me: 3 Weeks to Go

Posted on by Vikki Lynn Sorensen

I’m in that place where I’m so excited to move and yet, all I want is for it all to be over. All the work. All the changes. All the stress. All the anxiety. I’m just so ready to be done!

Haha! There’s some whining for you on this rainy Tuesday!

Honestly, what I’m experiencing is a temporary loss of peace. There’s not one room in my apartment that’s not in an upheaval. There’s boxes everywhere. Every room is half or mostly packed and it’s hard to clean to my satisfaction.

When my home is in disarray, I don’t have peace.

However, my new home is also in some disarray. The new carpeting is going in this week. And the contractor has started work on the bedrooms in the lower level of the house where Shelby and I will be. Here’s a sneak peak!

If I were there right now, I’d write 1 Samuel 25:6 on that wood.

Peace and prosperity to you, your family and everything you own.”

We bought ceiling fans over the weekend. It’s been at least 26 years since I had a ceiling fan in my bedroom and it’s been on my wish list for ages. And now, I’ll have it so yay me!

We also chose paint colors. Not gonna lie – I went back and forth on that. I really love the shabby chic look. All pink and pretty and girly. In my last house, I had a beach theme, which I love but since I’ve done it before, I wanted something different.

So after much Pinterest searching, I narrowed by colors down to light sky blue, a mild sage green, a whisper of pink and a buttery yellow. I also considered white however, I’ve had white walls in one form or another these last several years of apartment living. Either off-white (the kind all apartments have) or a grey – a dark, dingy, muted, overused grey. I wanted color! Something light, bright and cheerful. It is, for all intents and purposes, a basement bedroom.

I settled for a delicate yellow. It’s a lovely pop of color, just this side of bold, that instantly brought a smile to my face and joy to my heart. (Color can do that.)

It also reminded me of my mother and her bright, cheerful yellow room.

I have a small egress window that doesn’t open. Again, I went to Pinterest for inspiration and found something lovely and unique. I won’t talk about it here but I will definitely post pictures once it’s all done.

Other things have also fallen into place. We’ve hired our movers, submitted address changes as well as our second notice to the apartment management. Shelby will be ordering a new bed for herself this Saturday.

I’m also ready for a different view and some privacy. I’m over this current view.

Twenty-five days to go and counting!

Posted in Moments and Musings

Move With Me: 7 Weeks to Go

Posted on by Vikki Lynn Sorensen

While my closing date is 3/22, my moving date will be slightly delayed. My two sisters will move into the house immediately after closing but we need extra bedrooms for Shelby and myself to be constructed in the lower level of the house. Plus, we need to live out our lease here in our current apartment.

Nevertheless, the packing has begun!

We’re seven weeks out from our tentative moving date of 4/27. This date is special because on 4/27/18, I lost my mother unexpectedly. This year will be the 6th anniversary. Typically, my sister, Kathleen, and I would go to her grave with some water and paper towels. We’d clean off her gravestone and then pull any weeds surrounding it. Just make it nice and pretty.

I wanted to remember this day with joy instead of only sadness and grief so we’re going to have a new beginning of a different kind – a joyful kind.

At this point, the purging is almost complete. That’s step one in this long process that will most likely go by much quicker that it will feel. I really do not want to pack stuff that I will then unpack only to donate.

If it doesn’t bring me joy now, out it goes!

I did most of the kitchen last week. I have no clue why we ever owned so many coffee mugs! Shelby doesn’t drink hot drinks at all and Emilie only drank tea on occasion. Yet, we gave away about 20 coffee mugs! I also gave away two stacks of small dessert dishes and a set of pudding bowls.

I also did a purge of my books. What I didn’t want went to Half Price Books. I made $39 dollars, which I used to treat Shelby and I to some dinner and Dairy Queen. But my books are packed along with my Build-A-Bears.

Yes, I collect them. They’re adorable and it’s the of the few things I can share with Shelby.

So once the purging is complete, the goal is go through each room and pack what I don’t need to see or use for the next 7 weeks. And that’s the challenge. There’s something inside of us that feels a little panic-y when we put something in a box and seal it all up. I have to remind myself that I WILL see it again.

Weird!

Purging is hard, however, even for someone as non-sentimental as me! After so many moves in my life, I’ve learned the value of letting go of stuff while holding onto the memory or the feeling it gave me.

My mother also helped. By the time she passed, we had a whole basement full of stuff she wanted to keep “just in case” up to and including information from houses sold long ago. Boxes of paperwork from a business she hadn’t had in years and years….so much stuff! In the midst of loss, it’s overwhelming to have to go through that much stuff. So I’ve learned to make memories. And crochet a blanket or two to wrap those memories up in.

I did pack 90% of my yarn!! We’ll see how that goes. The real test will be not buying more yarn these next 7 weeks.

Decisions, decisions!

Posted in Moments and Musings

Moving to a New House

Posted on by Vikki Lynn Sorensen

I BOUGHT A HOUSE!!!!

On March 22nd, my sister and I will be closing on a lovely end-unit townhome we bought together. I haven’t been a homeowner since 2004 so this is very exciting for me! Finally, a home where I can put paint on the walls!

Two kitchens! A fireplace located in a lovely loft. Oak wood finishes that are in perfect condition and best of all, only 2.5 miles away from my dad and stepmom.

So exciting!

But also, a lot of work! My sister and I will be merging households which also puts a new spin on this. While she’s mostly packed, I’m still in the purging phase. I text her a lot of pictures that usually have the caption of “do we need this?” or “do we need two of these?”.

This house will only be the second I’ve ever owned. (I don’t count the one I bought with my now ex-husband because my name was no where on it.) And it will be my 20th move overall! Hopefully, this will also be my very last move.

So, let me invite you on this journey with me!

Photo by Brandable Box on Unsplash

Posted in Moments and Musings

This New Season

Posted on by Vikki Lynn Sorensen

A few short years ago, both my girls were planning to get a place of their own. I sat looking through apartment listings (just for fun), looking at one-bedroom places and dreaming of how I would decorate it without any input from anyone else. I pinned meals “for the single gal” to my Pinterest page and thought about how grand it would be to have the whole TV all to myself.

I could do what I wanted when I wanted. The ultimate single life.

We moved in here and shortly after, Emilie got married. And then there were two.

Emilie has always been my “big idea” girl. Big dreams. Bigger plans. So full of sparkling conversation. She outwardly expresses everything and this lead to hours upon hours of endless chatter. She filled my days with talking. I honestly can’t remember a time in her life when she wasn’t talking. So many late night talks, some full of fear but most filled with faith and a lot of tears.

But Shelby isn’t like that. She doesn’t have huge dreams.

Shelby works an overnight job and sleeps during the day. She has her own set of nerdy friends she prefers to spend time with, which is very normal for a girl like her. I want to give her that
space. I don’t want her to feel like she’s her mother’s entertainment committee. The few times she’s decided to spend her day with me has been a gift and I’ve made the most of it. Her big ambition right now is to work, make some money, and play video games with her friends. Even when she is with me, she’s quiet. There’s never been a ton of conversation that’s
happened between us.

So, my home when from being loud to being very quiet.

In the beginning, I took advantage of it. But it wasn’t long before conversations with Jesus
turned into mindless chatter with either myself or with the dog. (He doesn’t ever engage. He usually just licks himself and finds a new comfortable space on my chair.)

Now, that season is ending. I just bought a house with my sister. And my other sister (there’s four of us girls in my family) will be moving in with us along with Shelby. My very quiet, boring existence is about to be replaced with conversation and activity once more.

I can’t wait!

Moving to my current home was a huge blessing. We moved right in the middle of 2020 from a super small apartment to this one. My old apartment was only a mile away from the home we shared with my mom for 12 years. It was the home that healed us from a painful divorce. It was my mother’s house and for 12 years, we were secure and stable.

Then we lost her and everything changed.

The two years we spent in that first apartment after she died were so full of grief and pain and adjustment and just emptiness. We had no family nearby. My girls and I clung to each other and together, we held onto Jesus. But that grief – it was so hard to heal. I remember when we moved into this place, it almost felt like I was leaving my grief behind. So much closer to my sister, this place gave me breathing room, and not just literally.

It changed everything.

Being close to people who I loved and who loved me was the healing balm I needed. We healed together, in a way. God blessed us so much in this place and in this current season.

God gave me this season and I have not squandered it.

But now it’s time for the next step in my life. To go back to living in a space where I can put color on my walls and have my own laundry (it’s the little things). I won’t just be close to family; I’ll be living with family and closest I’ve been to my dad and stepmom in decades.

The challenge now is to stay in an attitude of gratitude. I’ve got just under 2 months until we move into our house – hopefully, our forever home.

Seasonal transitions are hard because the closer you get to the new season, the less tolerant you are of the season you’re in. It’s easy to get edgy and start to dislike what once was a blessing.

I’m determined not to let that happen to me. I love my home. I love every minute here. And before I leave, I want to pray over it, touch each wall and walk its floors one more time. I want to leave a bit of Jesus here. I want the next family to feel peace, love, comfort, and healing when they want through the door – just as I did.

When I get to my new home, I’ll do the same. Touch the walls. Walk the floors. Speak Jesus to it all. This home was a home of healing but the next home…that will be a home full of joy!

Photo by Tierra Mallorca on Unsplash