Settling In

It was a wonderful Labor Day weekend here in Austin, although we obviated the spirit of Labor Day by working hard unpacking all three days. Saturday, we hired a Task Rabbit worker and the three of us (Dave, the worker, and I) unpacked all the boxes of 5-lb frit jars. Sunday, Dave moved all of the boxes containing non-textile items out of the sunroom and into their proper location for eventual unpacking. Then we set-up the furniture in the sunroom and unpacked all the yarn. Monday, Dave got all the boxes of fabric out of the closet and into the sunroom, and we also unpacked all the 5-lb jars of glass powder in the studio. Dave finished by breaking down all the boxes and hauling them off to the side porch. In all he said we emptied over 100 boxes, moved 40 more, and the glass alone was just under 4,000 lbs... I can really see the textile studio and the glass studio coming together. (The former sunroom is so professionally laid out now that it has been renamed the textile studio.)

After all the lifting and moving and unpacking, yesterday I took it easy. Took Jessie to school, got a driver's license, had the dogs' invisible fence collars adjusted, talked to Bill at Elliott Metal about some new designs, and met a friend for lunch. It was a perfect morning! Then Jessie texted me, sick at school and needing to go home. After getting her tucked into bed with cold water and fresh sheets, I spent the rest of the afternoon quietly signing up for groups and organizations, scheduling their meetings and gatherings on my calendar, and generally expanding my local network. That was great too.

Today I started by making to-do lists and planning next steps for all my various undertakings, and in hindsight, I'm not sure forward-thinking is a good thing! Time seems to stretch on boundless and forever in front of me until I break it down into it's discrete units and pair those units with tasks. Then it all goes to hell. Putting all the different pieces of life and work that I am juggling into slots labeled days just doesn't work--they don't fit. It's like discovering outer space and instead of thinking of going to the moon, I am trying to plan (and schedule) the moon, mars, the next solar system, and a universe on the other side of the cosmos: The scope of the projects doesn't fit the tools I'm using to schedule them. The obvious answer is to put some things off for the distant, unscheduled future. In the past, the things put off would be the fun and exciting things. And then I would find myself hating my life as I trudged from have-to-get done to have-to-get done. This time I am going to take a suggestion from my friend Alyssa to heart: Instead of spending all of my time on drudgery until the drudgery is done, I am going to schedule two hours of fun project a day. That leaves seven hours of chores, and that's enough.

With that plan in mind I am off to get some chores done and then end the day with a little knitting or crochet!