Monday Mornings

Mondays are odd when you work Saturdays...for me it can be kind of a day off, or a launch into a crowded week, and today I am starting slow. My house is cold, so I worked out on the stationary bike a bit while I read some essays from a library book that has to be returned. It's a big motivator for the bike that I can ride it while reading, or watching TV, or just for a few minutes here and there. The scenery does sometimes lack interest.

My living room is full of projects that are in progress: redoing my Holiday Market displays, getting my tote bag design pinned down, looking at some old art I pulled out of the files to see if I can use it again. During the late 80's I did some really precise and well-crafted art, between four- and six-color designs of flowers and birds stuck in pockets printed on the shirts...the pocket concept got a bit forced but there is a little group of orchids and a lovely rose, and quite a few birds, so I am thinking I could use parts of them for some little bags I got from Mike's garage sale. As with the tote bag design, I have to get things out in view and look at them for a few days while I visualize the details and get a fully realized plan. I love how my creative process works itself while I do other things. The big drawback is that I have so many things in various stages that it gets messy fast.

All of these art projects are just piled upon my house research which has slowed, and I really have to clear the table again and get back to the book. Maybe my window of opportunity has closed a bit with the approaching holiday sales season. Maybe just saying window will get me closer to my window sill project which I am so reluctant to dive into.

It's just a rotten window sill but it involves removing siding from the south wall, the original south wall, so I don't know what I will find and possibly destroy in the process. One of my theories is that these present windows were larger than the originals but I don't know how I would find evidence of that. I know I don't have even a single piece of the siding left, as I used every scrap to connect the remodeled part back to the original, and even had to use a different type on the back wall where no one will notice, plus some T-1-11 that is hidden behind the wood rack and will need to be replaced someday too. So when I put it back together with the new sill I will somehow manufacture, I will also have to patch in some siding that will fit. The kind I have is pretty obscure and doesn't even show up in my research of clapboard types. I'd go to Bring to look for it but that will take a strong will so that I will not come home with more projects. I find old stuff irresistible so a trip to Bring can be dangerous.

Payment is starting to come due on the lick-and-a-promise decisions I made when trying to finish the project enough to get us moved in back in 2005 or whenever that was. There were some things I did that I can't really understand at this point, unless I just ascribe them to ignorance. I knew so little about houses and wood back then that now there are glaring awkwardnesses and projects that involve tearing things out and replacing them. All of my outlets are upside down because I saw one done that way and thought it was correct. I followed right down the path of someone else's ignorance without doing the simple research of asking one dumb question. I did that more than once, sad to say.

Houses just don't really last very long, as they are such a collection of details and components with lives of their own. I guess I will be working on this house for the rest of my life, if I'm lucky. That's a relief in a way, since I can put things off for next summer knowing they will just rest here and wait for me, like the back door of the shop which has needed replacement for a decade now. Yes, it's getting worse, and no, it's not going to fix itself, but the urgency isn't really there. I can take the time to do a better job than I would if I were in a hurry. Somehow I have learned that I want to do a better job. I suppose that is a form of maturity that I am happy to have gotten a glimpse of at my age. It sort of balances out the other urge that takes the form of "I just don't care," and "that's good enough." Might be good enough for the short term but those long terms are a much different proposition.

It's hard to know what is really important. Maybe nothing, maybe everything. Some of the tiniest things persist and linger and over time smell worse and bigger, and it's a mystery why they don't just fall between the cracks like so many other tiny crumbs. I've tried to slow down and be more careful just in case the tiny detail I am concerned with becomes one of the persistent ones. Obsessing over tiny details is not the way to get a lot of big things finished, though.

Today my goal is to finish one project in the living room so I can get my sewing machine out, in order to finish a few more. I'll either pick the biggest or the smallest, or if the sun comes out I might switch goals and tear into that windowsill. Although it is cold and this northwest wind isn't helping, I'm running out of chances to work outside. I have almost dug up the last of the Bishop's Weed for this season, a very opportunistic weed I have been trying to eradicate for most of the time I have lived here. I'm right on top of it now that I have two good feet and my back is behaving well. My Mom reports that the ivy I grubbed out of her yard a few years ago has remained grubbed out. She occasionally has to pull some, but the great majority is gone. If that impossible task succeeded, my Bishop's Weed one can too. Persistence is a virtue I seem to have taken in.

So I will persist in mixing my day off with my crowded week and see what I can get crossed off my list today. Maybe I will start with this lovely bowl of figs I just got from one of my favorite farmers. First I will put them in the living room so it will count for my finished project if none of the others qualify. Not really cheating, but still repeating a really time-wasting habit of those who live in small places...moving things from one place to another. I do a lot of that. Sometimes I call it organizing, sometimes cleaning, and sometimes it just makes me laugh.

At least with the figs I will have something to show for it at the end. Hope your day is productive!