clearing a space

 

happy monday to everybody!

i'm at work right now, literally, it's one of the 2 days a week that i drive 2+ hours into the city to work from my office. today has been interesting with employee drama and an unexpected visit from a former co-worker who we all thought had already left the state. usually it's just me and the boss at the office but today we had quite the cast of characters. it's been a fun day and right now i'm in the office by myself. now that the time has changed and we have more daylight in the evenings, i like to stay late until the traffic on the highway has cleared and my drive is so much nicer...plus, by staying that late chris has to feed the kids and i get home just in time to say prayers and send them off to bed.

i really wish i had some fun pictures to share with you of my exciting weekends lately but, quite frankly, the last several weekends have kind of sucked.

first there were a couple of rainy weekends where we didn't go anywhere and then a couple of weekends where i had things i wanted us to do but other plans and/or obligations kept getting in the way...or i thought they were going to get in the way and then they got canceled and it turned out we stayed home for nothing and that was even worse.

i guess i got into a real rhythm in my past life - taz always used to call me the director of fun and it was my job to find cool festivals or events or new places to explore and i took my job very seriously so we spent every weekend doing something fun even if it was just something little.

life doesn't work that way anymore. i still try to find fun things but sometimes chris has already scheduled something else, sometimes he works on the weekends when it's just the 2 of us, sometimes we go to do *my* fun thing and the kids complain so much that it isn't fun for me anymore and, of course, sometimes the weather doesn't cooperate.

it's kinda been a hard lesson for me to learn and i still haven't figured out how to have a better balance. i do know that i get super cranky when i feel like the weekend has been a waste and that's just not fun for anybody.

however, it doesn't really take much to make me happy - this past weekend it was just the 2 of us and i really wanted to go to the beach (still, haven't been in months even though i keep trying to plan for it) but chris, unexpectedly had to work in the morning so i took myself to a clothing shop and got something cute - definitely retail therapy at its finest - and sunday was supposed to be our beach day but chris had things around the house he wanted to do but a trip to outback steakhouse and an adult beverage that came with a cute koala rubber duckie made everything better. all in all it was the best weekend i've had in a long time.

here's an old picture of my studio. have you noticed that i carefully crop all pictures of the studio to only show my side? remember how i told you that chris had started making a sewing table for c out of an old bunk bed frame? i wish i had taken a picture of it because it was massive and was crowding out all of my space but that's the exact reason why i couldn't take the picture, it felt overwhelming to have it in my studio and i didn't want to document it. it seriously made me want to cry every time i walked in and saw it.

since c still hasn't even looked at the sewing machine since we gave it to her at christmas, shown absolutely no interest in it even though she asked for it, i saw no need for it to continue to take up space in the room. i also saw no need for 2 drawers full of j's toys and his lego table to be left in the room as well. chris agreed that c's sewing machine should really be set up in her room and we'll get her a nice little table for it and he also agreed that j's things really belonged in his own room.

but, he didn't bother doing anything about all of that so yesterday i decided that one thing that would really make it a great weekend would be to take those matters into my own hands so i moved toys, tables, sewing machine and sewing paraphernalia into their respective rooms and then i lifted the massive bed frame on its end and shoved it into the wall where it will be transformed into a storage cabinet for me.

it was a heavy beast but when i get an idea into my head, nothing can stop me. and now the room (which i wish i had a picture of but i don't so i'll post one next time) is so much better.

i feel like i can breathe in that room again. i hadn't even wanted to to go in there and create because it felt oppressive. i felt like something that had been created for me was being taken over and i was being minimized. i have a feeling it's kind of an analogy for my life so maybe that's why taking back the space has filled me with such joy.

so this past weekend was a good one and i plan on having many more good ones, i just have to clear the space for it.

there are exciting things happening in the coming weeks to look forward to, it's a new season and i'm going to make the most of it.

also, i'm just going to take a day off work and drive myself to the beach because i'm tired of waiting.