I put the irk in work

How is it, Timmy Sean, that in the last ten days I’ve gotten so much work done, and yet feel that I haven’t gotten any work done?

I haven’t gotten really any HaldeCraft or Patreon work done (oh lordt I’m so late on this current chapter that is just fighting me every.single.step) but. But! Shit is rapidly getting fixed around these parts, and the garage/workshop looks fucking brilliant.

Duane has generously loaned me his trailer for the second time – yes, I have found enough stuff to dump out of your work area that I’m up to two trailer-loads. Sorry/not sorry. I know you always thought about building a second shed for metal work, something along the lines of the many work areas your dad has, but… I’m not you. Heck, I barely need the space I have for all the tools and stuff!

Of course I know people are going to see the piles of stuff I’m pitching, and tell me it’s perfectly good stuff so don’t throw it away. To that, I say, if it’s so good, you come out and get it! You come give this stuff a good home! I don’t have a specific project in mind for anything that’s in that trash pile, and I want the space more than I want shit I might eventually at some point find a use for. What do I want more than a pile of stuff I don’t have an immediate use for? The ability to take care of the projects I want to take care of, with as much ease as possible, by having an orderly work space where I can find the shit I do need without having to dig through a bunch of shit I don’t need.

The list of things that have been repaired keeps getting longer. As I was telling Jenn when she and Duane were dropping off the trailer yesterday, yes. Yes, the big things that Tim built, the deck, the kiln shed, those are big and amazing and wonderful and he had a right to be proud of them. But the things that would have meant more to me? The things that would make me happier in the long run? Are things like fixing the window that was broken for seven years, putting a fan above the stove, replacing the doors. Little things. Little things that someone might not even notice, let alone feel like showing off, but damn. D A M N. Those little annoyances add up, and I’d be just as happy – heck, HAPPIER, even – getting a hundred boring small things repaired than getting two big things that can be shown off.

That’s not to say, Tim, that I don’t appreciate everything, from the planning of to the building of the things you did. But I didn’t need those things to live out here. I need a window that’s not broken. I need a door that doesn’t scream METH LAB HERE.

Organizing this workshop, learning what tools you have (and which of them work, and which of them don’t), seeing what I need to get, seeing what I need to learn how to use to do things around here… that’s important.

I really can’t thank Jenn, Duane, Jeff, and Erin enough for all the physical carpentry/building/organization help the four of them have given me in the last couple of months. I think it was June 2nd or so that Erin and I spent most of a day cleaning out an organizing that first time, and Jeff and I are almost done. Which is a far cry from some time in late April or May when Erin and I were supposed to start, and I cancelled on them at the last minute because I just wasn’t even ready to start. I was afraid to touch your things, which didn’t make a LOT of sense what with you being dead, but… I still thought you’d be hella mad if I moved something or threw something away. That was then, this is now? You wouldn’t want those good quality tools to not get used. You wouldn’t want me to live in a place that’s falling apart around me. A few more things need to come out (and Jeff has a couple of projects that are coming in, that he can’t work on at his place – shit, a little floor space and tool usage is the absolute least I can do for all the sweat equity he’s been paying in!) and then… And then!

So even though we’re not quite done, I had to write this post and show off what a journey it’s been from start to almost-finished.

And to say that now, instead of being afraid you’d be mad at me moving things or throwing broken things away, I’m instead, excited to learn about what works and what’s here and what I can use it for.

xoxo y’all