What an awesome week

Do you know how long I've waited to hang embroidery hoops?

Do you know how long I've waited to hang a plate wall? YEARS. ETERNITIES. EONS.

This week was my first week of quote-unquote working from home part-time. Tuesdays and Thursdays I stay home, the rest of the week I take care of Patrick's grandma-- which has been my main gig since April 2009. It's cake, most of the time, except for when it isn't cake. And then it's the hardest job imaginable.

Well, maybe not imaginable. Not as bad, I would imagine, as coal mining. Or applying tar to a blazing stretch of highway in the middle of July.

Anyway. I had originally planned on walking away from that completely, but then that damned Voice of Reason piped up, urging me to put on my big girl pants and do the responsible thing. Baby steps, right? Don't walk away completely, it begged me. Most of the time, this is cake. What if that assignment falls through? What if you end up sleeping in a cardboard box? 


I opted for part-time. I moped for about two weeks after I did The Responsible Thing, thinking I was selling my dreams short or some other melodramatic such nonsense, but now I realize the truth: this is the best of all possible worlds.

At "work," I do my writing. Clickity click go the fingers. If it's a good week, I can easily do all the writing I need to do on my at-work days. Which means I get to spend Tuesday and Thursday unabashedly playing at home.

Eventually, I tell myself, I'll calm down and settle in to actually working from home. That was the initial idea. But, for just this first month, maybe, I'm going to use this precious, GLORIOUS free at-home time doing all the little exciting things I've been thinking about-- and haven't had time for-- for a year.

Things like that plate wall, and those embroidery hoops.

A few notes: last week, we received some wonderful furniture. Patrick's other grandma is downsizing, and don't you love it when timing works out perfectly like that? For years we'd been using a glass-topped patio table in our dining room. Now we have a gorgeous, extendable, wooden table that makes me smile every time I walk in. I've already ordered the fabric I'm going to reupholster those seats with, but that sort of thing really shouldn't surprise you.

We also got a big china cabinet, a curio cabinet, and a bench out of the deal. Things are shaping up.

Also shaping up? Our stairwell. Patrick's parents have decided to give us a stairwell for Christmas. Isn't that nice? Whenever I come home and find that more progress has been made on the banister, I praise the good heavens that we are saved from having to do the job ourselves. Our banister turns four times on its way down. Do you know how many screw-up-able measurements that takes? How many perfectly mitered cuts?

We're hosting Christmas this year. Did I tell you that? We are. That sort of occasion calls for a proper tree, not the dinky four-footer we've been using since the beginning. To that end, I brought home an 8-foot artificial Christmas tree yesterday. For thirty-five dollars.

This has just been an all-out amazing, wonderful week. Hope yours was, too. Now that I'm going to have time to be home and do things and take pictures during daylight hours, I'll probably be bringing the old blog back to twice-weekly posting. That feels good, too. Happy weekend! I'll be back, Tuesday probably, with pictures of our whirlwind wedding weekend in the Finger lakes.

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