How I spent my summer vacation

“But Summer vacation just started!” you say. Pish posh! Not for me! Mine’s done. I had a total of 4 glorious days this month without my kids around (with copious amounts of thanks to my parents for taking them) and that was my summer vacation because now they are home. Did I go somewhere fun? Did I lay around sleeping and reading and watching tv while eating bon-bons? Nope. I did enjoy the quiet (that I promptly filled with my music and singing), though.

What I did was tackle my home office project (among some other smaller projects). I converted the under-the-stairs closet into my own little cubby of vocational joy. I patched, painted, built, drilled, hung, and decorated until I made a space that Harry Potter would be happy to live in (if, in fact, he could fit under my workspace)! Come Fall, both kids will be at school full time and it’s time for me to get back to work. Or to work, I guess, since I haven’t been able to accomplish too much business of late with K gone. But I’m ready now, and by the time he gets home for good, I’m hoping to be well-acquainted with my office and what I can do in it.

If you’d like to see the progress of the job, you can see it all here start to finish (with more detailed description), but here’s the finished product:

When the last picture was hung and everything was in its place and I could sit down in a space that was all mine, I felt like a new person with a purpose and direction and less like a gypsy roaming around the house looking for the perfect place to work for the day. Working in the kitchen made me hungry, my bedroom made me sleepy, and in the living room, I could go either way…or both. But here in the closet, I can concentrate. Even with the door open and the view of my lovely back yard plainly in view, I can focus and not want to eat or sleep. It’s refreshing, and if I had known that going into the closet and staying there were the answer, I would have done it from the get-go. I am fortunate that I don’t really have a problem with small spaces, because even though I did my best to minimize the square footage I used for work top area, it’s still on the tight side. But like I said, it’s not a problem for me…or the dogs:

The kids, of course, find my tiny office fascinating (much in the same way they find their little food-shaped Japanese erasers fascinating), but I’m pretty adamant about not all of us fitting, so their trips in for visits are very short-lived. I put the heavy wooden coat hanger rod back up and added a sheer curtain that divides the closet in half should I need a second line of defense. R likes to call the space on the doorway side of the curtain my “waiting area.” I have a hanging magazine rack in that part along with some artwork hanging on the wall, so it is a bit waiting room-esque. The dogs pay no attention to the curtain divider and manage to sometimes lay down in the slim space behind my chair and the wall, or one of them spills out of the doorway a little into the dining room. It is a testament to their unswerving loyalty that they would hang with me in this space when they have the whole rest of the house to lounge about in. I like my dogs…now if only they would fix the rug they bunched up on the way out…

When I was thinking about the decor for my office, it was a no-brainer that the walls and whatever other color I used would have to be light, so I went with two colors I will no doubt cringe over when I think of their names come Winter: “snowbound” and “Icelandic blue.” I’ve been snowbound a time or two and I can’t say it was pleasant after the first 24 hours. As for Iceland, I don’t remember seeing a blue this light or pretty while sitting in Keflavik Airport when I was there eons ago. It looked more like the surface of the moon with a slight coating of dead grass. Not a color I’d want on my walls, that’s for sure. Anyway, the closet is as bright as I could make it within the context of my own taste limits. I added Christmas lights around the office at mid-wall for some light. The usual fluorescent light is actually too bright for me (I have always preferred low-light to work in), so I took it out and just use the natural light from the large glass doors at the back of the house along with the twinkly little Christmas lights and that’s fine for day-to-day stuff. I have a clip-on reading light that I use when doing art projects that require more attention to detail. I kept all the fixtures (rugs, shelves, bulletin board, magazine rack, baskets) on the cream-colored side just to maintain that open feeling. I think it works. I don’t feel like it’s too close in here. One of the unexpected upsides of the shape and size of this office is that the room makes a great speaker. When I play music on my laptop, I can actually hear it clearly and the volume amplifies so nicely. Normally, the rooms in our house are too big for my little crappy laptop speakers, so even at full volume, it just seems to fade away. But playing at full volume from my office allows me to hear it perfectly in the kitchen and living room. Take that Bose!

I wanted to put some inspirational pieces of art on my walls, and I have a rather informal guideline I use in my house regarding what gets shown off on the walls. I try to only put up pieces of art done by people I know. I am fortunate enough to have many talented artists on both sides of my family as well as K’s, so it’s not as hard a guideline to stick to as you might imagine. I decided to dedicate my office to my Aunt Mary who was quite an accomplished artist and one of the more jovial people I’ve ever known. She loved to give big hugs and had a generous laugh and I do miss her. When I was a little girl, she would babysit me sometimes and I have very fond memories of playing in her attic as well as loving the fact that I knew the people in her paintings. I even made the cut into one of them and I have it hanging on the door into my new office. A couple of years ago, Mary’s daughter—my cousin, C—let us all come over and pick out some of her pieces of art. Talk about feeling like a kid in a candy store! I already have some of her still life paintings on various walls around the house, but for my office I picked and framed some of the unfinished sketches to remind myself that practice is key to anything. I’ve got four figure studies, a matador done in pencil and ink, and the sketch for an icon of St. George killing the dragon. Having all those drawings in here gives a bit more meaning to my own efforts and makes it feel like home. Even if it is a closet.

So now I have my own office and it’s time to put it to good use. In fact, I just did. I could get used to this closet dwelling.

Read Full Post »

Divisible by 13

I like birthday math. I’m sure it makes me somewhat strange, but it’s true (I’m strange). I like to take my age and do the math. This year, upon turning 39, I am now divisible by 13 and 3 (as well as 1 and 39, naturally) and they are both prime numbers which means I am still unique, mathematically speaking. I loved 37 which was prime in and of itself. Last year I was also divisible by two prime numbers (2 x 19) but 38 is not as masthetically (Look! I just made up a new word!) pleasing. Three and 8 don’t have much in common, unlike 3 and 9 which have all kinds of things in common—3 being the square root of 9 and all. So not only do I have primes this year, I have square roots (which don’t need dye jobs) to boot. Who ever said that math and getting older wasn’t fun and interesting never really took a good look at 39. Dare I say, I’m looking forward to 41, too?

As far as birthdays go, this one was just lovely. I can’t say it was extraordinary, but I sure did like it. I took the day off from cleaning and doing work, and thanks to my excellent friends, H & B, I had tasty Thai food for dinner and my most favorite Key Lime pie for dessert. And H even cleaned up from dinner! Talk about being pampered! Lots of birthday wishes were thrown my way (thank you!), and K sent me a fantastic Black Lab t-shirt that upon wearing it the next day, I managed to get strawberry juice (from the most amazing strawberry ever, I have to say) on it almost immediately (curse the stain attraction of white shirts!). I cannot be trusted (although I did get the stain out). The kids even behaved themselves and I had quite the dog pile when I stretched out to do some reading while the kids were at school. The day progressed as if someone wrapped up contentment with a bow and hand delivered it.

But that’s not even the best part! My parents agreed to take the kids this weekend so I could have a couple of days to myself (well, almost—the dogs are staying). Ah, sweet, silent, bliss! What will I be doing with my “time off” you ask? Well, anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not necessarily adept at relaxing. So fooling myself into thinking that will happen the whole time is just silly. There are so many projects I’d like to work on and books I’d like to read, I’ve been considering writing all my options on little pieces of paper, putting them in a bowl, and pulling them out one-at-a-time to see how many I can get through in a weekend. However, I do have one project that needs to get started now and that is converting some space into an office for me.

The space of choice is the large closet under our staircase (a la Harry Potter). It truly is big enough to furnish as long as those furnishings aren’t wider than 3 feet or 8 feet long. I am obviously not claustrophobic. I actually like small spaces (less for me to get distracted by) and this particular space has a door that can be closed (and locked from the inside once I install it). We had been using it for random storage as well as the location of all our cleaning tools, but they can be moved elsewhere without disturbing the peace. So here is a picture of the empty closet (with the work areas taped):

This office is most likely not a permanent solution, so I want to make sure that I don’t spend a fortune on getting it outfitted, but I have to be able to store supplies as well as work. Plus, I decided I really wanted to be as eco-friendly as I can be since I don’t currently have a piece of furniture that will fit the space or the need. I had been shopping around for storage and some shelving that would fit and I finally came up with an inexpensive and “green” solution. Enter Way Basics and their cube storage made up of 99% consumer waste paper. Plus, you can configure the larger pieces in all kinds of ways with a couple extra dividers. The pieces are lighter than particle board and sturdy (when you follow the directions for putting them together, of course). I am planning on having two areas in my office: one storage area with a work surface on top for art projects I might want to do, and another shelf for my laptop so I can stand and write (or use a folding bar stool if I choose to sit). The one large shelving unit I purchased will serve to cover both needs. The two bottom shelves of the unit will take care of storage (with an additional real wooden plank I found around the house to put on top) along with the 3 extra vertical boards to use as dividers in some way. And the extra top board will be used separately as a shelf with brackets underneath along the long wall to hold my laptop and possibly my flat screen second monitor if I decide not to mount it to the wall. All for under $100 (including shipping via Amazon).

I do need to figure out (rechargeable battery powered) lighting for in there (aside from the one bare bulb it’s got near the door), and I need to find a power strip that’s not so bulky that I can run from the outlet outside the door into the closet until I can figure out if putting an outlet in the closet is feasible. Tonight I’ll patch the cracks in the walls so they dry overnight, and tomorrow I’ll paint the walls (white with a light blue on the slanted overhead wall). The unit will be delivered on Saturday and I’ll put it together not long after it arrives to let it settle and cement and then I’ll figure out what I need for storage containers for all my stuff and start putting the finishing touches on it Sunday. Then, voila! New office. I can’t wait. Obviously I’ll take pictures along the way and post the finished project in all its confined glory.

I know my plans hardly sound relaxing, but to be able to get through the bulk of a project uninterrupted is as close to heaven as I get these days. I’ll putter around and I’ll tinker with some other things, and I will squeeze in catching up on some of the new Doctor Who, reading a little, writing a bit, and sleep in (as much as the dogs ever allow). I’ll listen to my music, and I might even eat ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner. Mostly I’m going to be happy by myself for a bit and by Sunday afternoon I’ll probably miss the kids a little and be ready to show off what I’ve done. R will humor me like the good girl she is and tell me it’s “awesome,” and Monkey will try to stuff himself into one of the cubbies and life will be back to normal(ish).

And lastly, a K update: He’s still in Afghanistan dealing with suspicious locals and faulty latrines. His unit has done some great work catching bad guys and their weapons. When this is all over, I’ll be happy to share the press that’s been out there, but for now it’s going to have to wait. But K is fine and getting by and counting the days until he gets to come home on leave at the end of summer.

Read Full Post »

Battle of Midway

Well this is just embarrassing. I wish I could chalk this long lapse in writing up to simply falling off the wagon, but really what happened was that the wagon was nuked. Obliterated. Vaporized. Went supernova. Michael Bay was knocking down my door trying to get the secret to the power behind the explosive destruction of my wagon for use in Transformers 3, it was so spectacular. So, not only did the writing here stop (I was writing elsewhere when I could though), but the weight loss momentum came to an abrupt halt, the exercising habit vanished, and much of the freelance work I had on my plate was piling up at an alarming rate. Amazingly, the only habit I was able to maintain was not biting my nails, which considering I’ve been a nail-biter my whole life is a minor miracle. I like to refer to this time as “The Battle of Midway” and if I had really learned my lesson last time, I should have seen it coming, but I broke my own prime directive: pay attention. I just didn’t realize what time it was.

April & May were roughly the mid-point of this deployment. Last deployment, I had a pretty good meltdown about six months into it which lead to a turn around in short order (I hired a friend to help me out once a week). I can’t claim that I had a breakdown this time because generally I have things in hand and ask for help when I need it, but I definitely hit a wall. Repeatedly and with vigor. There just comes a point when you get mentally burned out from doing the smallest of repetitive tasks like loading and unloading the dishwasher, rotating laundry, making lunches, food shopping. You think, “If I have to do this one more effin’ time, I’m going to toss out my Acme portable hole, jump down, and pull it in after me.” I remember last time being so sick of hearing “Mommy!” a million times a day that I required 4-year-old R to call me by my first name for a week just so I could hear something different. It hasn’t come to that (yet), thankfully, but we have definitely hit our speed bumps along the way. I just wasn’t in the frame of mind to be positive here and resorted to the “if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all” adage.  Plus, I thought sleep might be an important experience to have.

Probably the biggest monkey wrench in my well-oiled machine was the death of my laptop not once, not twice, but three times in 6 weeks until it finally required a logic board replacement (thankfully all covered under a warranty!! Let’s hear it for Apple Care!). And for some inexplicable reason, two of the breakdowns happened while watching my favorite new show, Justified and trying to get some work done. Seriously. The third time happened the night before Justified. Maybe my poor laptop was just jealous of the time I was spending admiring Timothy Olyphant (perhaps I’ll put that re-watch of Deadwood on hold…), or maybe it was protesting the idea of working late at night. Who knows? All I do know is that the only original part of my laptop left is the (slightly dented and dog-hairy) case. I don’t know how many of you have ever had to rebuild a computer the way you like it after a near-catastrophic data loss (luckily, I only lost 6 weeks of files), but it can take a while—especially if you are trying to make it organized in all the ways you couldn’t be bothered to do with your last set up. The first time the hard drive bit it, I approached the situation with the optimism a clean slate can bring, but the two times after? Not an ounce of optimism to be had. Needless to say, all my work fell behind and I’ve been playing catch up while still taking on new work. Doesn’t leave much time for anything else, frankly.

Throughout all the computer shenanigans, I was continuing to deal with the daily grind of kid and dog stuff, keep the house clean during shedding season (why Casey and Zoe can’t coordinate their shedding schedules is beyond me—their tandem shedding is hardly efficient), plan and slog through an acre’s worth of yard work (that I’m wholly unqualified to attempt) and garden planning, maintain all my other relationships both long and short distance (with varying degrees of success), and I realized the time had come to start working toward my long-term career goals now that Monkey will be in school full time come Fall. Needless to say, my to do lists had to do lists. I’m not sure “tired” really describes what I have been feeling the last several weeks. Daunted, overwhelmed, weary, all of the above? Mental doggie paddling is now my particular super hero ability, and I would gladly trade in for invisibility or telekinesis.

I can’t say that I’m caught up or remotely ahead, but I’ve made some headway, and now it’s definitely time to shake off the funk of the last couple of months, readjust my thinking, and rebuild all those habits that went up in smoke, which include writing here more often. Tomorrow is the start of a new year for me. For my 39th birthday I’m giving myself a shiny new (hopefully bomb-resistant) wagon with enough space to allow myself some slack now and again when things don’t go as planned. If I’m lucky enough to be several years short of my mid-life, I think now would be the perfect time to put to use what I’ve learned over the last 39 years before the next 39 years go by in another blink.

To quote Betty Friedan:
“Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.”

Read Full Post »