Contents Under Pressure

I have a one-year-old chihuahua named LB (“Lightning Bolt”–I’ll tell you that story another time) Wilbur III, Esquire. I adore LB to pieces and baby him way more than I should most of the time. Today, LB is being a moody little pain in the butt and growls and barks his head off at the whole family every time one of us so much as moves an inch. I have told him a dozen times or more to knock it off, but I might as well have been talking to a stump (a barking, growling stump), because when My Sweetheart came into the living room from the warehouse a little while ago LB went off like a freakin’ siren.

And so did I.

I got nose-to-nose with a (usually) sweet, little 4 pound dog and yelled my head off at him to stop it, Stop It, STOP IT! like an insane person. And I hurt the little guy’s feelings. Poor baby boy. I never even talk ugly to him, so he was totally unprepared for me to go off like that. I feel like a bad person for it.

The reason I lost my cool, I suppose, is the fact that I had been struggling over this post for–oh, I don’t know–close to an hour, maybe, and I had nothing to show for it at all. The reason I am, or was, stuck is I feel like I really have a lot to say here today and all of those thoughts are crushing up against each other trying to get out and building more and more pressure the more I try grab onto just one of those thoughts. My thought process has all the qualities of a warm, 2-liter bottle of Big Red soda that someone just dropped on the hot pavement. Not a good thing.

I was thinking about this post yesterday. The possibility that I would be blocked like I have been wasn’t even a consideration. In fact, I spent a lot of time thinking about this post and expected it to just flow right on through my fingers and into the internet then onto your screen almost effortlessly.  Just like I told you on Thursday that I was all fired up to kick the 4-day challenge meme in the patootie (yes, I said “patootie”), yesterday I was all fired up to tell you that the desk I had planned on moving out of the office for a complete surprise repurpose in another part of the warehouse had been given a stay of execution because I am not going to complete that project this week.

I know, I know… I am not doing so great with these challenges, am I? Not even a little bit.

The reason the desk is staying put is because poor prior planning promotes piss-poor performance and I had failed to take in the big picture when I posted the challenge set-up this week. Yesterday when I was ready to roll up my sleeves and get to clutter-busting the desk, I headed into the warehouse to clear the spot for the desk to start its new life as a major component in my new dressing/sewing room (construction pending). There’s no missing the big picture in the warehouse… It looked like this:

And there is no room there for my desk to find a new purpose…

So, I upgraded my challenge. This is the progress so far:

Wow! That pressure isn’t as strong as it was a little while ago. I think I will be able to get some more work done out in the warehouse before I make the next post.

Oh… And btw… I made up with my baby boy before I even made this post. I picked him up and held him close. he even rolled on his backand let me hold him like a baby and rub his tummy (a position in which he usually is pretty insecure staying for long) for as long as I wanted. But I didn’t kiss him on his cute little head, although I was quite tempted… LB does not being the recipient of kisses.

LB Wilbur III, Esquire

Getting It Done Because I Said I Would

Christine over at 100things100days is one of the most interesting and thought-provoking writers I’ve read. She’s got a great post that I swear she might have climbed into my head and taken notes for. Go check it out and come on back (after you read my comment on her post).

Go ahead… I’ll wait… (I’ve got a couple things to do while you’re over there, anyway.)

A big part of the reason I started the repurposedKate blog was to create accountability by sharing my mental list of to-dos with whomever cares to take a look at my fine mess and declaring my ambition to tidy it up with an invitation to come back later and view the results. This IS NOT the anxiety-free technique, not even a little bit.

But… When a girlfriend stopped by for a short visit about a week ago and asked what I’ve been up to, for the first time I can remember in years–nay! for the first time in maybe a decade or more–my answer was not a variation or derivative of “not too much” accompanied with a shoulder shrug and a change of subject. Instead, I rambled on and on about starting a blog and about blog buddies. I told her about the first project in my weekly clutter-busting series here that shows my mess on Wednesday and the same space un-cluttered or repurposed on Monday. I was showing her my most recently made bracelet design and going on about the then-up-coming launch of my Etsy storefront when she apologized for not having time to stay longer to hear more about all that I’ve “been up to” and started toward the door. Her visit was over and I was still talking about all that I am doing or have been getting done.

I was dragging my feet getting to the “open shop” stage of my Etsy set up… Until I hinted at it two or three times. I can hardly believe that I am actually doing something I have dreamed of doing for years, but had cheated myself out of the thrill of doing it by keeping it to myself. I procrastinated getting to the work of organizing the warehouse until I started the weekly challenge. My Sweetheart had to help me finish, but I had the Etsy launch and another couple of projects underway at the time. By the time the Weekly project was ready to photograph for the Monday reveal all of the other projects (except the launch) were complete!

Now, I try to focus on what I am getting done more than on what I need to do. Right now I feel like I may be on the verge of a stroke due to the anxiety of thinking of all of this stuff all at once (and while trying to hurry up and got off the computer and out the door for an important early morning puppy delivery). But I know that it’s going to pass and I’m not going to have a stroke and by the time the sun sets again I’ll have transformed a couple more to-dos into to-dones.

Hopefully I’ll get that new necklace design finished by then, too. (See how I just did that accountability thing again? I just have to sneak up on myself with it!)

🙂

Stuck?

Something is amiss in my corner of WordPress.com. I’m having trouble posting as often as I would like to post. It isn’t lack of inspiration that is preventing me from posting; I have a little leather-bound notebook I carry everywhere and write lots of ideas that I want to write about. I am just having trouble with the flow of blogging…

When I have an idea, I lack photos of the project which is the subject of the idea. When I do have the photos I want for the post, I don’t have time to stylized them to have the “feel” I want them to have, upload them, tag, title, caption and describe them for publication and write the post. The final result of my blogging inspiration ends up something like selecting the photos I want to use and getting them ready to post and “running out of time to write” so I go surf through the blogs I follow instead because I enjoy it.

I would really like to post something here daily, but I am falling short of that goal. Then I feel guilty for not posting every day I don’t post. I feel guilty to the point that I don’t even comment on the blogs I follow because I am afraid that someone who might follow repurposedKATE if it appeared to be active may click-through my comment and see that I haven’t posted in EIGHT days! I am not sure how to get over this hump and let my workflow, well… flow.

I get the feeling that I’m not alone in this muck, either. My favorite reads are either openly expressing the same discomfort or I am sensing it when I visit their posts.

No, that’s not true. Not all of my favorite blogs are winding down, Home Sweet Here is a posting powerhouse demonstrating substantial posts with plentiful photos about 5 times every week! How is this possible?!! Another favorite who isn’t slowing down is Janey’s Room. There was a lull over there before the first of the year, but it seems that activity is on the upswing now. Clearly, these two are not to be counted among the others I mentioned before. 

As of yesterday, I’ve got the feeling that the blog which originally inspired me to start repurposedKATE, 100 things 100 days, is getting back on track after a little down-time and Christine’s consecutive confessions about self-sabotage and procrastination. I’m glad to see that she’s continuing to post and I have a new (to me) power washer in the warehouse waiting for me to fire it up for the first time that gives me the idea that I’ll be getting my second wind any time now.

Bloggers I love that seem to be feeling the same malaise that’s hanging over my blog are both contributors whom I admire a great deal and delight in reading have both posted on this very subject, although with slightly different meaning and direction. The inspiration behind this post, in fact, comes directly from ReStitch Me’s near-anniversary post and the Not Messy Confession MrsJ published in the past week and a half or so.

In the earlier post of the two, ReStitch Me asked for approval for some time off to sort out some things so she can come back a to her blog with a greater sense of balance. She had me fooled for sure, because sure looks to me like she’s got it together. MrsJ, was equally frank in her post, confessing that she didn’t feel she had a significant contribution to make when so she posted from her personal life, just for the sake of posting something. I thought both entries were very admirable. I wanted to offer my supportive comments, but here I was… Not posting on my blog.

See what I mean about something being amiss in my corner of WordPress? How do I go about fixing this so I can get back to the purpose of this blog in the first place? I have an idea or two that I’m not quite ready to put out in the open yet, but if the situation doesn’t change soon, I’ll have little choice. In the meantime, I am hoping that someone who has a suggestion

for getting me back to posting and getting my flow flowing will offer it in the comments… I hope everyone who reads this has an idea and leaves a comment.

Have you had this problem? Did you solve it? How?

Know Who Your Friends Are

Don’t Give Up!
No matter how much time has passed since your last entry don’t be discouraged, what’s important is that you write in your journal today!

~By Rachel Bruner, About.com Guide

Hi, again! Sooooo much has happened since my last post! I hardly know where to begin. No—I doknow that I should start by offering my honest gratitude to those of you who have been with me through my absence from this blog and those of you who have not been with me but are here now to see where this repurposing notion will take me from here.

And now: time for a little catching up, I suppose. Let’s see, when I last posted I was well behind on my vow to publish images of the apartment(s) I share with my sweetheart. While I hadn’t managed to post the tattle-tail images of the tendency to hoard that I share with my sweetheart, I did manage to take a few pics to share with the morbidly curious among you. After all these weeks, the photos are online (the first gallery, below) for the world to see the stuff with which we had cluttered our world prior to the second week of February.

before

before

before

before

before

before

Even I can admit that these pics may seem a little redundant, but I didn’t have the chance to finish taking photos before our household was struck my an unexpected and life-changing event that nearly cost my sweetheart’s life. By a miracle, my sweetheart is still with me, but the initial result of the unexpected event was more than 40 days of in-patient care at our regional Trauma I hospital, a quarter of that time my sweetheart spent fighting for his life in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit.

Looking back at the clutter that had given me so much grief prior to the second week of February the mess doesn’t seem so unmanageable. Very little in life seems unmanageable prior to the event which sent us to hospital-hotel for so long. But we did learn first-hand the truth behind the adage that says “you find out who your friends are when you’re down in a ditch.” The three people from whom we expected the most help and support—taking care of the little things like caring for our dogs and keeping our home safe and secure—during the six weeks we were sequestered at the hospital flat-out robbed us blind within a day or two of the tragic event, and other “friends” riffled through what was left of our hoard under the guise of “securing remaining valuables” on our behalf rather than packing our things onto a moving truck as they had agreed.

I don’t think you can imagine our heartbreak when we set foot in our home for the first time after 6 weeks of inpatient care we learned that in our absence we had not only been served an eviction on each of our apartments, but we were on our own to pack up and move our possessions under a three-day deadline. A small sample of the state of our possessions as we discovered them is documented in the gallery below…

ransacked

ransacked

ransacked

ransacked

ransacked

ransacked

We did manage, miraculously, to load out the apartments into a storage unit by way of a U-Haul truck before the constable arrived with a trash out crew on the deadline date, and we are both still here, alive and well and together. We are calling that a win, despite the “help” of our “friends.”

Now we are determined to keep that win working for us going forward. We have both come to terms, I think, with our psychological quirks and we’ve decided that we are going to make those quirks work for us rather than try to force ourselves to work around them. To that end, we’ve just rented a 2500 square foot warehouse (including two office rooms and a shower/restroom which are all topped with sub-flooring that will function as living quarters) with permission to build-out the interior to suit our residential needs.

There’s a lot of work ahead of us between moving our things from storage to the warehouse and constructing our living quarters. We’re pretty strapped for cash after all we’ve been through, but our plans for the living quarters are based upon building most of it from salvaged and reclaimed materials. Beyond that, we’re facing the set up and operation of what we hope will be a rewarding salvage, repurposing and resale business. Our major obstacle will be transforming our mustang convertible into a truck and trailer for the business. It’s all pretty exciting but a little bit scary, too. We’ll keep you posted on our progress… We shouldn’t have any trouble coming up with photos to post as we work it out. 🙂

Thanks for stopping by again.