Just The Tiniest Bit Nuts

I'm officially Ready for This To Be Done. Below you can see what's making me nuts, along with having someone in the house with me every day so that I'm never alone except for the mornings when I'm waiting for them to arrive. It's not conducive to working or getting ideas or being inspired. It doesn't matter that I really like this guy or that he's doing excellent work. He's a joy to have around, quiet and always cheerful and just generally a really nice guy. And it's not his fault at all that it's taken longer; he did a lot of extra stuff for me. So I'm not complaining about him--not at all. In fact, I would recommend him to anyone over ANY of the people I've ever had here doing any kind of work, oh, goodness, yes. He is quite fabulous and not at *all* like The Bad Boyfriend. Remember him? The one who was EXACTLY like a Bad Boyfriend: doesn't call, doesn't show up when he says he will, leaves you to go see someone else, disappears for weeks at a time? Remember that? So it's not that at all.

What it is is: I need my regular life back. The sad, sad truth is that I need to work. I like to work, I need to work, I'm happy when I'm working. I'm good at working. Yeah, I know that's sad. Being good at being productive isn't exactly the kind of thing they're going to mention in your obituary in happy, glowing terms. It's not the kind of thing your family says about you or that your friends claim is one of your sterling virtues. Because "being good at working" doesn't necessarily translate into "being good at making tons of money" or "being good at solving the world's problems" or "being good at starting a world-changing business." It just means you're good at getting a job done. My brain likes being productive. I'm good at that.

"Hanging around waiting for stuff" is not one of the things I'm good at. It's kind of down there with "cooking," right above "changing diapers" (which I have never, ever, ever done, not once, thankyoujesus. That's how not-good-at-it I am).

This is the office studio. Where, you know, I *work.* Snort. Now, of course, it's the holding room for half the stuff from the sewing studio next door. Parts of the cats' daybed with all its coverings and pillows, jeans my walking partner left on the front porch for me to cut up and use for something, Alex all forlorn with no project to wear~~when I sit in my desk chair, I'm surrounded by Stuff. I feel like I'm suffocating. Like right now--can you hear me wheezing? No, you can't--because the sound is muffled by ALL THIS STUFF. I could scream at the top of my lungs out here and no one would hear me. They'd go, "Did you hear a mouse? Huh. Those cats aren't doing a very good job." I could get lost out here for days and no one would find me.

~~the table in the background

 holding stuff from the sewing tables

 and the shelves that no longer exist.

 Just thinking of this is terrifying.

Where will it all go? My best answer?

 Away. It needs to Go Away.

And this, below, is the living room and the first thing I see when I come in the front door. It has the other half of the sewing studio's contents. Remember: there were three tables with three sewing machines, a day bed, a cutting table, ten shelves on the walls (full of bins of drawers), several spare folding tables and an ironing board stored against the refrigerator (that space no longer exists). It's going to take another week, once the room is finished, for me to figure out the new arrangement. That would be way fun *if I had that kind of extra time.* I arranged all my deadlines and podcasts and blog posts for CMM so that I'd have time to do this, but that's all over after today--the regular schedule starts back up, and the days I had set aside to put the room back together--from last Friday night until tonight--those are gone.

 In the foreground is the table for the Janome, currently obscured by bins of drawers that were on the shelves, most of which were removed and won't go back up, which means I have to figure out where I'm going to PUT THAT STUFF. If you look closely, you can see two red boards kind of in the background. Those are kitchen shelves, attached to the wall with brackets. They have to be painted, but I'm not sure what color--whether there'll be extra paint left over from the trim. If so, I'll sand those and paint them orange-ish. If not, I think I may paint them with acrylic paint--I don't want to buy a quart of paint just for these. On the other hand, I may need to create another shelf like them for the other end of the room, in which case I *would* need a quart of paint. Something I have to figure out once I can get everything in there and see what can be ditched and what I have to find a place for (for which. . . .).

Here, in the middle, you can see the second sewing table/desk with the Kenmore, my all-metal workhorse go-to machine. On the right: the mattress and box springs for the cats' daybed.

Almost two weeks now since I took that room apart. Ergh. The good news is that I think it's going to be finished today. He was here working until 9 pm last night, and all that's left is finishing the last bit of the siding and the trim. It's going to be fabulous once I can get in there and get it set up in a new configuration, figuring out where things go and how to use the space most efficiently while not blocking ANY of the light from those windows.

Keeping my fingers crossed~~