Today, as I’m writing this (you’ll be reading it on my tomorrow, your today, so this takes place in your yesterday) I am doing my work in the house instead of the studio.
Office Day (like Office Space but with less stapler drama)
Sunday is usually my “office day.” I work on social media for HaldeCraft for the week, and I try to write a blog post for here and for work, to post on Monday. I usually do that in my office studio, because that’s just the way it’s been. When we first moved out here, Tim would actually take his weekends as weekends a lot of the time, and while I can happily do computer work with TV on in the background, I’d like it to be TV I like (currently season 4 of Grey’s Anatomy) and not entirely the Hallmark Channel. Bless his heart. Tim was the most unromantic person I ever met and yet he could rarely be budged from the TV if there was a Hallmark movie on. ANYWAY. I would work weekends in the studio, Sunday being Office Day.
The problem with Office Day in the studio is that I can very easily get distracted by things in the studio. I’ll do a day’s worth of social media posts and then get up to stretch my legs and walk around and in doing that… I see all the things I could be doing if I wasn’t working in the studio. All the unfinished ceramics stare at me. All the coasters that need to be engraved. All the yarn that needs to be dyed. It’s like that scene in O Brother, Where Art Thou where the sirens are singing and Pete gets loved up and turned into a horny toad. At least three times a day on Sundays, if not more, I’m in the studio trying to work in the office but also am in the studio feeling guilty about not being in the office.
To Change or Not to Change
I don’t know why I didn’t change things up when Tim died. I guess because I spent that first year just trying to grasp at anything normal, like a life raft. And then Jeff moved in, and …. I don’t know. I tried to work in my home office some nights after regular work, but sitting at the desk doing computer work when I didn’t have a TV in my bedroom was boring – I kind of wanted that background noise. But if I sat in the living room on the couch, working while covered in dogs, I also kind of felt like I was hogging the living room. Like if Jeff wanted to watch anything on a big TV instead of his computer monitor, I was already there. I wound up buying a TV for my bedroom, and quickly discovered it was much easier to sit on the bed with my laptop rather than at the desk, because that way the dogs could sit with me like they did on the couch, and so Being Covered with Dogs and listening to the TV while working on the computer…. it felt a lot like how I used to do computer work back at the old Gainesville house, and that was somehow comforting.
I probably could have kept going like that for a while, but Jeff moved out, and now I have the whole house to myself. So why not work in the living room for a while? It’s spacious, I don’t have to climb in and out of bed, and I’d already started a little breakfast nook work station area in the kitchen, on the island.
The Space to Get One’s Head Straight
I have a lot to say about the two planners there, the ADHD Cleaning one and the Anti-planner, and the one on the screen, the Artful Agenda. But that’ll probably have to be in a different post because I’m already at about 700 words and I didn’t want this to be too much than 1000 (you’re welcome, haha). So what I have here is my little kitchen island, that’s seen so much since we moved in eleven years ago. My god. Eleven years. I’m coming up on the 11th anniversary of signing the mortgage… that one that I just paid off a couple of weeks ago. That could almost be another whole post – suffice to say that it’s finally starting to feel real, and maybe that’s why I’m exploring how I want to use my house.
But to get back on track, this is such a lovely little area to sit and sort of get my head straight for the day. One of the things I’ve had to admit since Tim died is that it’s really, really hard for me to remember what needs to be done, when. For the longest time I’ve thought it would be … weak … for me to put things in multiple places so that I would see them and not forget. Like, only really stupid people need to keep notes about the same thing in three different places, right? Oh. Or people who have been through a deep trauma, and are working on their grief at the same time that they’re trying to rebuild themselves at the same time they’re trying to keep a house and a business from falling apart. And now I live alone. So who’s going to make fun of me if I have the same thing written in three different places? The dogs? The rats? Man, fuck those rats.
So I have things written down in this new digital planner I’m trying out. I can access it on my phone, my computers, my tablets, everything. So it’s a safe place to put notes because I’m always on one of those things. It’s not like my beloved physical planner that I can either forget in the other building, or just never get around to opening in the day. I put a magnetic whiteboard on my newly wallpapered fridge, and on it I write “this needs to be done probably this week but I might have said that last week so here it is in front of my face where I see it first thing in the morning AND every time I open the fridge” things. They are also in my planner, but I’m using this whiteboard as more of a series of rotating sticky notes. You know, those ones you write and stick on your computer screen at the end of the day, so you see it first thing when you get to work in the morning?
It’s My Living Room and I’ll Work if I Want To
I mentioned last week that my 20+ year old TV died… in the background there is the replacement TV. Why is it that as soon as you say the words out loud “I’m finally at a place where everything is working and I don’t need to spend any unnecessary money for a while” … appliances start to give you trouble? Sure, I could have moved the relatively new TV from my bedroom to the living room, but I have to admit I’ve become pretty spoiled and I really like falling asleep to Murder She Wrote. A cozy crime show with no loud gunshots, yelling, or loud music montages? Yes, please. Sweet dreams.
So here I am today, Grey’s Anatomy on in the background (never seen it before; I’m on Season 4 but I’m really thinking of ditching it for a re-re-rewatch of ER), working on the couch. I have walked over to the studio three or four times; once to feed the animals and a few times to either get something over there or to take something over there…. like the paper towels that I bought at Costco three weeks ago but never had time to take them to the studio because I only ever notice them at night when I’m already pretty worn down and frankly taking something back over there is the last thing on my list.
What have I gotten done so far today? Besides feeding all the animals, and myself.
- I’ve gotten my social media for the week plotted out, but not the posts written yet.
- I’ve downloaded and practiced with a different video editing software; I’ve been using Corel Video Studio. You might remember a year ago I bought a new desktop for the office because my laptop was having trouble handling the program, and it was kind of limping along anyway. I was still using it for things here in the house, but the best time I have for video editing is after “regular” work hours, and the laptop was just freezing up and not handling it well. So now I have a new desktop here in the house, and I installed Video Studio on it and… it won’t run. I don’t know if it’s that Corel is mad at me for installing it on different computers (allegedly you can install it on two, as long as you’re not running them concurrently) but every time I tried to load a video on it, if it got to the screen at all, the screen would just be black…. but mostly it would just load and load and load and I’d have to Task Manager out of it. So I read review after review and decided on trying out Wondershare Filmora and honestly? I like it better than Video Studio!
- I’ve done oodles of laundry, and because I’m right here within hearing distance of the washer and dryer, I even got it all cycled through! Most of it was sheets and blankets (already put on the bed) but I’ll be folding the clothes after I finish writing this.
- I did the dishes.
- With feedback from a friend, I’ve worked on some HaldeCraft redesigns that I’ll be rolling out over the next few weeks and months.
- I’ve gotten this post done.
- I cleaned the coffee pot and the microwave – not just the outside, but the inside as well. And cleaned the stove and the sink.
Basically, I’ve gotten both a lot of work-life and life-life things done today and I’m also not exhausted by sundown. And I’ve spent time just … being in my house. Thinking about the things I still haven’t finished, but also looking forward to the things that are going to come after that. I’ve been entertained by how The Potato has been loving sitting in the window looking out at the back yard while The Butter patrols it and keeps us safe. It’s been so chill that even Tulip, who doesn’t like dogs, has been sitting on the couch with me and not even leaving when Honey Butter comes to sit on the couch to rest between patrols. I’ve been enjoying actually being in my house. This is my house, only I live here, and I can use it however I want. As long as the dogs are happy, haha.
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