I haven’t blogged in nearly a month! Shoot!
When you work from home, or in my case, when you used to work from home and now you are disabled from home, you lose all concept of time.
I never write checks anymore, when I do have to buy something on my own I always use the debit card and then balance in my online banking account.
I don’t go to school where I’m forced to write the date on top of every assignment. And unlike my Bear, I’m not constantly filling in medical charts that require everything to be dated for legal reasons.
In short, I am never aware of where the time goes. I live in the now. The now that consists of making sure that my pain is managed so I can breath, I’m not overlapping my pills so I don’t vomit all over the place when I have company over for dinner (more on that later), I keep my Bear in clean socks and underwear, and I take meat out for dinner. Those are my responsibilities right now. That’s it. And that’s more than enough for me.
I’ve taken to creating enormous and complicated To Do lists. I’ve always been a list maker, it helps to keep me feeling in control. And since I’m normally the most productive person on earth, at least when I’m healthy, they’re usually quite necessary. Now my To Do lists list every single activity I might spend time on in a day. “Eat Lunch” is usually on the top of the list. “Return emails” is another favorite. When I was healthy, those were two things that I wouldn’t have even considered before, but now they’re something I can actually manage once or twice a week, so they make the list so I can have the satisfaction of crossing them off.
I actually had a couple of rrrrealllllly good weeks, so that made my lists more ambitious. One of my favorite things to do on earth is fuss over my house. I already have blueprints in my mind of the house we want to build someday, and even in our junky apartment, I’m always thinking of changes I want to make, furniture I want to build, solutions to little home problems that keep OCD me awake at night.
Our Canadian friends had some family coming into town, so about a month ago, Canadian girl asked if I’d help give her some ideas about what to do with her place. I barge in with my palm pilot and my tape measure, and grill them about their personal style, their taste, their budget, their goals. I came up with some ideas, and we set about making them happen. I thoroughly took over, bossed them around, and made all the decisions. It was so much fun! Bear just kept following behind me, skaking his head and casting apologetic looks at Canadian boy. Something along the lines of, “Dude, I’m sorry. You had no idea what you were getting yourself into.”
There have been loads of changes I’ve been wanting to make to our place, but with no concept of time and no deadlines whatsoever, there’s been absolutely zero incentive for me to leave my bed and sit at the sewing machine. Until Canadian sister came to town. I’m so fussy about my house, that even when a total stranger comes over, I want it to be all perfect. So I made curtains and a valance (which I’ve always hated but this one is freaking awesome because the fabric is all mod and gorgeous) and replaced my copper silk dupioni bedspread that got shredded with a plum faux silk dupioni that can actually go right in the washing machine. And with two cats and a very sweaty man, that is a super big plus.
We also have this gorgeous antique dining room table with vintage 50’s dining chairs in peach and chrome, but the table was mounted on these tiny wobbly legs held together with ancient stripped bolts, so everytime I put the bowl of broccoli on the table I was taking a chance that the whole thing would come crashing down. I’ve looked and looked for decent table legs and was just about to drop $100 on silver pipe to McGyver something together, when I ventured into IKEA and found they were selling the perfect table legs for $20! The only problem is that the old legs mounted on the outside of the apron, and the new legs mounted on the inside, so I was left with big gaps at the corners where the legs used to go.
But the spirit of McGyver was still strong in me, so I used it as an opportunity to bring some more color in the room. I got some plaster of paris, dyed it that bright apple green that’s so popular right now, made some molds out of a cereal box, and cast plaster bricks that I could mount on a bolt and screw right in place. They look fantastic. And then I used the left over plaster to mold some apples which I buffed up with wax, and now those sit on top of the table as a centerpiece. I’m so freaking proud of myself.
I still want to make curtains for the dining room, bedroom and possibly my studio, get a picture of apples and put it on canvas, and build some ottomans that I can use as storage and cover in brown ultrasuede for the living room. But now that Christmas is around the corner, that will all have to wait. Now I have stockings to make.