Everything That Goes In the Studio is In the Studio

I am now 39 days into the 365 Project and have discovered a truth: When all else fails, take a picture towards Austin from the back deck. My goal with the project is to take pictures that capture the essence of the day--a pictorial journal of the year. Though the focus of today was getting the studio set up more (not totally, not for a good while), and while I could have taken another picture of the progress there, I ended the day with sunset over Austin from the back deck. That view was the essence of my day. I am so happy with our location now that it's hard to find words--and the completion of the parade of boxes into the studio and the return of the U-Haul on the studio was the catalyst for my giddy (exhausted) joy this evening.

After seven months I finally have a studio again--not all set-up, not even any clear workspaces on which to, well, work, but I can *see* the studio. It's no longer a repository for everything we haven't gotten around to organizing for the house, or a stand-in for the garden shed, or a maze in which to lose the cats. No, Now when I survey it from the door to the house I see a studio from one side to the other. Using the garage as a garden shed is actually funny because one thing we don't have at this house is any kind of garden or tool shed. We have a weird room under the master bedroom only accessible from outside under the deck, and for now that's a wood shop/garden shed. It doesn't have any windows, but it does have a hole cut out of the wall with a window ac unit in it. It has three sets of fluorescent light tubes, finished drywall walls, a cement floor, and big double steel doors. Oh, and it has a little wine closet in it with racks for bottles built in.

That last paragraph rambled a bit, but I can be excused as I am beyond rode hard and put away wet. The point I'm trying to make is that I finally feel moved in. The greenhouse (where I set up for ikebana, soap-making, jewelry making and, oh yes, growing flats of plants for the garden) is a total disaster with the new stuff that got moved into it from the garage/studio. The wood shop/shed (little room under the bedroom--I think I'll start calling it the bunker) is packed higgledy-piggledy with stuff from the garage. The utility room I was organizing and setting up before heading off to Florida a lifetime (two weeks) ago is still not finished. The textile studio hasn't been touched in months. And the studio will take weeks to finish setting up--but I don't care. In spite of all that's left to do, I feel more settled in than unsettled.

Tomorrow I will need to clear off a couple of work areas as I have a couple of orders to do, but that's going to be the extent of my physical efforts. The day for me will consist of the ubiquitous, iniquitous taxes and other administrivia which I must conquer before heading off to Wisconsin next week for my Master Spinner's class. It will feel good to sit in the comfy chair sipping tea and working on the laptop--perhaps even without a cat in my lap!