The Backside of Company

Company has come and gone. A few days of hectic high energy plopped into my mostly placid life.

My niece and two nephews are 17, 15, and 12. They like to play games, and play we did -- some of the classics like Sorry and Yahtzee (and Battleship with my niece), and hours of a card game called Golf. It’s funny how much we love board games and cards, but I’m sure they play as often as Kat and I do, which is never, when we’re not all visiting each other.

I was proud of myself for achieving peace in chaos. There was a time when my siblings’ visits would jangle my nerves to the point that I couldn’t fully enjoy them. I’m not used to the energy that children bring, and I would spend some visits counting down the minutes to departure time.

Several years ago, I decided that I had to change my attitude and become more tolerant of disruption and noise and messiness, or I would miss out on the fun of being with my nieces and nephews (I have ten total). They were growing up, and I was growing old.

So I did.

Through prayer and journaling, and a lot through psyching myself up before a visit and choosing to let go and enjoy the craziness, I’ve found the visits to be more and more fun. Some of it may have to do with their age; most of them are teenagers now or close to it, but I can tell that some of the inner work is paying off.

So the visit was great, but now Kat and I are struggling a bit to get back into routines. I’ve had meetings that were postponed until after the visit and smushed all together at the end of the week. The house is messy, my grocery situation is out of whack, and I’m flying without meal plans. I have another long meeting tomorrow morning, and an event I’ve organized Sunday afternoon that, along with church in the morning, will take the day.

It’s push-through time, and Monday I’ll take stock and organize myself. Until then, I’ll just have to float along with the disorder and not let it get to me.

House Project "Reveal"

Since my latest house transformation project is done, I thought I'd tinker with the look of this blog. My tinkering is not over, but I feel I'm getting closer to what I want.

But now, on to the sewing / guest room transformation and the reveal!

My "before" pictures are of the room in sewing mode:

Drab and cluttered, right?  Normally I have my sewing machine out on the sewing table (where the gray kitty sits in the first picture), and to my right (I'm standing in a small closet) along the wall is my cutting table. I took this after we moved the piano, which used to sit where the small chest is. No wonder I felt claustrophobic when I tried to quilt.

And here are the "after" pictures, two of the sewing room and one in guest room mode:

Thanks to Molly for all her help. I couldn't have done this without her.

Thanks to Neville for adding the perfect touch to the bed.

In guest room mode, the sewing table folds up into a nice-looking cabinet and rolls to the right of the closet in place of the cutting table, which rolls back to our bedroom for the duration of the visit. The pretty green chair sits against the wall to the left, so that the sewing cabinet and chair provide places for guests to set their luggage.

I can't express how pleased I am with our results! I've never considered myself especially creative in  interior design, and neither does Kat. Believe me, our projects don't always turn out this nice.

One of the unexpected bonuses is that the shelves on either side of the Murphy bed provide enough space that we were able to get rid of one of the book cases in our office, opening up that space a little more. And I love, love, love having my beloved books in my creative work space.

There are some additional finishes we could do. It would be nice to have a smaller, more decorative lamp, and maybe an accent rug, a different ceiling fan, but we splurged on the chair ($80 at Kirkland's for the perfect green chair), and on good quality wood and paint. The others are things we can pick up as it fits in the budget.

So, we broke our pledge again of no house projects in January and February, and we used tax return money we were going to put toward the kitchen re-do scheduled for later this year, but I have no regrets. I feel that ultimately we bought light and space. Money well spent.

DIY Project - From Despair to Good Times

How is it that once a project is begun, the world comes crashing in?  Kat and I know to allot more time than we think is needed for any house project. We started the minor renovation of my sewing / guest room with a hard deadline of March 10, the date of the arrival of my sister and nieces for Spring Break. We had two mostly empty weekends to work with, and figured the project would take only one of those weekends with the cracks filled in during the week.

I’m sure you can guess the rest of the story.

On Saturday the ninth, we were frantically finishing up the room while trying to clean, shop for groceries, prep for meals, and all the other things that go with getting ready for guests. We made it, barely.

The unexpected problems that cropped up were, first, my getting a nasty cold and passing it on to Kat. We worked through it, but fatigue was definitely a factor. Then Kat was assigned a trainee at work, which meant much longer hours, and this on top of battling a cold virus. Then I had some issues pop up with volunteer work that needed attention. I fell into that middle-of-project funk when I despair that we’re improving anything and wonder why we made so much seemingly unnecessary work for ourselves.

But in the end we finished just in time for guests to enjoy (very satisfying!!) Today guests have gone home, and I need to clean before I take “after” pictures. I’ll be back soon to show off the project. I am VERY pleased with how it turned out.

Despair is gone, and now time to enjoy, and try hard to ward off the itch to tackle some other project anytime soon.

How Many Hours Do You Need Part II

Phew, so glad October is in the rearview. What a busy month! Kat's dad came in for a week and helped with house projects. We did make time for a little fun, including taking in the mummy exhibit at the Witte Museum and partying in the driveway with our neighbors Halloween night. Although fun, Halloween seemed subdued on our street this year. Still plenty of trick-or-treaters, but not as many as in years past. Seems that fewer of our neighbors are turning on their porch lights. Too early to tell if this is a blip or the start of a trend.

I did manage to work on the tracking hours exercise. For a week I tracked how I spent my hours, then plugged those hours into categories to see how my time is spend. A few insights:

• I had compared this exercise to tracking where your pennies go with the idea of planning a reasonable budget; however, it was really more like tracking calories with a goal of losing weight. It's a disciplinary technique. I found that I maintained focus and kept on track better with writing and project goals because I knew I would be jotting down how the time was spent. Keeping track of time will not be a daily task, but on shapeless days that require lots of self-motivation and organization, it's not a bad tool for staying focused.

• The hours of my week (a "normal" week) are fairly well balanced among the major areas of work, family, church, and community. While that seems good, my frustration is that I do not spend enough time on my job, which is writing. Some balance is good, but that's not what I need to improve. I need more intensity with my work.

• I don't have very many "normal" weeks. Some weeks or stretches of days are given over to guests or big events that come up. Yes I need more intensity with work, but sometimes I can simply accept what life is offering and not get frustrated.

• One area that is very much not in balance is Personal Growth. While I do read books that would fall in this category, things like exercise, taking classes, and working on Spanish are earning big goose eggs.

One last thing. I've been a little obsessed with time lately. I'm closer to fifty than to forty, and there's so much I want to do. My perception of time and attempts to manage it are related to this particular season of my life, a season that is busy -- fevered almost -- full of meetings and family and hopeful projects. I am determined to enjoy it for what it is while I have it. If I live long enough, the day could come when time moves slowly again and I have acres of it.

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven." (Ecclesiastes)

How to Spend a Thousand Dollars

Monday I finally closed on the deal I thought was falling apart a month ago. Yesterday I picked up my check from the office. Finally, something substantial! The money is going into savings for taxes, into business checking for upcoming expenses, and on the credit card.

Next week, if all goes well, I close on a small deal which will net me a little over $1,000. I should put it on the card and toward business, but I talked to Kat and we're going to pick something from our long list of deferred household projects. Here's where things get tricky. We have a pretty long list, and with money (almost) in hand, it's more difficult to prioritize than I thought it would be.

Right now -- after much discussion -- the top two contenders are a sleeper sofa for the office or a new washer and dryer. We have a futon now in the office for company, and we have a LOT of overnight company. Our bed and breakfast lifestyle is due to living in the lovely city of San Antonio with our families nearby -- Austin, College Station, and near Houston. In fact a a sister and two nieces will be staying with us over Memorial Day weekend. How wonderful to simply pull out the bed and provide a nice mattress for them to sleep on.

BUT, we guesstimate our washer and dryer to be between 30 and 35 years old. They were old when my aunt and uncle got rid of them for spiffier models, and we've had them over 14 years. I'm sure we're committing crimes against the environment by using them, and in the last couple of months they've added a variety of noises to the cacophony they already produce.

Even as I write this, I see the better use of the money is in the washer and dryer. It seems more a need than the sleeper sofa, is something we use more often, and could actually save us money on our utility bill. But we both want the sleeper sofa more, and I know us well enough to know that we don't provide a good brake for the other when we're wanting the same thing. Hmmm. Perhaps we can find some bargains and make this a both/and instead of an either/or.

I have to say, this is the kind of dilemma I like to have.