I’ve been working my ass off lately. Getting a lot done, learning new skills, trying to get things to go smoothly around here. All while not feeling terrific but who feels terrific these days? Anyone? Well, not me. Anyway, I wanted to share some of the things I’ve been doing/learning, so here goes.
This is kindling I gathered up around the yard and broke into useable pieces.
I’m trying to avoid paying for at least some of the kindling and fire wood we’ll need to get through the winter by taking advantage of the dead wood that drops off the oaks around our house. I had to buy a saw because the only one we had was rusted to oblivion.
Part of a large branch that fell in our yard that I sawed into logs using my own human muscles and a hand saw. ^_^
Our farm share was as abundant this year as it always is and I am trying not to let it go to waste as much as that is possible. Having things like beets already cooked and ready to heat up helps. I’ve also been trying to use the already running wood stove to cook as much as I can to help keep the electric bill down.
Beets from our farm share cooking on the wood stove.
My friend’s washing machine mangled her new work fleece that she has to wear and she asked me disguise the worst of it with decorations. I was also able to reinforce it from the inside and hide that obvious divot better.
I’m also learning to make upcycled sweater mittens. I made these with a felted lambswool sweater and used a pair of fleece pajama pants to line them.
Flawed but toasty!
I’ve been drying herbs, peppers, and other things to use over the winter, some from our farm share, some bought hella cheap, some grown right here at home. I grew the mint! Don’t laugh too hard, I am a blight druid who loves plants and desperately wants to be a regular druid. Being able to not kill mint is a milestone.
I feel like I’m starting to figure out who I want to be or at least some of what I want to be. I want to be more self-sufficient, more skilled at things that help, that matter, more content with what I have and able to create more of what I, and we, need to be well, to be happy, to be comfortable. I’m finding that I enjoy being productive when it’s for a purpose, I like working hard when it matters, like getting the wood into the shed before it snows, using the remains of our chicken dinner to make broth I can use in my potato-leek soup, or taking a ruined sweater and using a fair bit of it to make something useful instead of just landfilling the whole thing. I don’t feel well, but I do feel good, satisfied that I am making progress toward something worthwhile, and that ain’t nothing.
I’ve removed as much junk as I can without a truck, gathered as many building supplies as I can without a truck, and installed new locks. Now all I can do is wait for Anita to email me back with a time she can come help me. Ok, maybe not ALL I can do… I need to get a truck, and someone to drive it, and people to help shift the desks and random junk and get all that out of there. Right now I have things ready to go in there as soon as it seems reasonable, which is not now, like an old futon for the loft once it has a floor and things like that.
I can’t wait for the space to paint and I can’t wait for my little napping spot. I had Another crappy night’s sleep last night. My sweet husband snores and I can’t win with the cats. If I let them in they don’t curl up and go to sleep they lick our noses and demand to be pet. If I shut them out they scrabble at the door intermittently through the night. Top those two items off with my body aches and acid reflux and, I hate to tell you this, I cannot remember my last truly good night’s sleep. I intend to escape the snoring and the cats when I need to. Sure, it will be pretty damn cold out there sometimes but I like the cold.
Even though it was his idea, my husband was getting a bit balky about the whole shed thing. Not the first time something like this has occurred. He gets instant buyer’s remorse from loads of decisions, the opposite of me, I am at peace once a decision has been made, my anxiety melts away. When we bought our house he was instantly overcome with doubt, did we pick the right one? What if_____???? (fill in with any house disaster imaginable, repeat until you run out of ideas.) I was filled with anxiety until we decided on this house and the sale actually went through. Once it was ours I was utterly at peace. To all his what ifs my, at least internal reaction, was: So what? Once it’s ours we just deal with whatever comes up, things are settled, decided, and IF we showed up and found the house on fire, say, and sinking into a swamp, my attitude would be, “Ok, first we put out the fire, then we shore up the side that’s sinking and call someone in here to make a hell of a retaining wall. We got this.” When he beats himself up thinking some poor parenting decisions might have contributed to our kid’s issues, I say; “These are the kids we have. This is where they are. It doesn’t really matter how they got here we just have to help them where they are. We got this.” I get where he’s coming from, it isn’t like I don’t have doubts too, or don’t beat myself up over the past, but I stomp on those doubts and try to deal with what’s in front of us. I don’t know, maybe I’m just better at being in denial over things and he’s just more honest with himself. It’s really quite striking how opposite we are in this area though.
Anyway, he was getting balky about my shed, as I started to say before the inevitable side-track, and near choked when I told him the estimate. ($15,000 for anyone tuning in for the first time.) But he had no reason for alarm, my budget is $1,500 and I’m not insane. He started saying ‘if only the older kids would move out…” but I stopped him. I said; “No, I’ve thought about this a lot, I’ve been thinking about this for Years. I don’t want my studio to be a room in our house, I want it to be separate, mine, only for me. I never considered a room in the house, I thought about renting space, getting a mobile home of some sort, or a shed.” And I think he heard me, and understood me, finally. Usually understanding between us is easy, it’s only lately we seem to be running into some small issues. I think it’s me, I think I’ve changed a bit, I’ve hit a point where if I don’t start taking my own needs seriously my life will be over and I won’t ever have put myself first in any meaningful way. I’m not some martyr, I’ve indulged myself in certain ways, buying books, getting certain items that make me feel spoiled rotten, but this is important and will truly help me be ME.
Meanwhile, my husband works a job that drives him crazy And goes to school for a degree to help lift all of us. I know, I do feel that it’s unbalanced, the hope is, in my mind, that he will finish up this degree in a matter of several months and then, with the time freed up, maybe he will write or do something else that feeds his soul. And I will guard his creative soul-feeding as fiercely as I have guarded his study time. Also, when I say that the shed/studio is mine, I mean that, I need to have control of it, but I do not intend to exclude him from using it. If he wants to study in the loft while I paint I would love that. I’m also making sure that I have the means out there to cook a bit and I fully intend to make meals just for the 2 of us, to light candles, put on music, and have it be a place of peace and respite from the world. A place where we can be alone for a while. Privacy has been ridiculously hard to come by in our house. With the kids all in their teens and 20s we literally never know when they will pop by our room with some request or news or nonsense. I know they could walk to the shed too but I think they might just be able to understand not to wander by with trivia and not want to make the slightly added effort.
Gen-Xer Remix 