The results of discovering that my incredibly frivolous skills are actually essential work has had interesting results. I made 50% more in 2020 than ever before. At first, I was a bit concerned about taxes but that was kind of silly: it's still just very part time and as my orders went through the roof, so did my expenditures. Taxes weren't a problem. And I've been able to pay down my credit card! Win win!
Meanwhile, my decision to take Sundays off from work is paying off big time. In addition to getting the bathrooms cleaned once a week (I seem to remember doing this when my kids were little) and dusting and vacuuming the rest of the house slightly more than seasonally, I finished clearing out the walk in closet in my office/studio. This is the room that was the girls' bedroom since the early 90s. A month or so ago, Josie came over and went through that closet. She took nearly everything she wanted. The rest she said I could dump, donate or give away. So I did. I tossed about two large garbage bags of college textbooks, notebooks and other crap that is of no use to anyone on earth. I filled three bags with dorm utensils that I'll donate to Goodwill and I brought one big box of still nice clothes that had been Josie's back in high school over to my sister's house for her nearly teenaged daughters to pick over. I don't know if any of it will be of interest to them but I figured they'd like a look at it.
Once I'd emptied the closet, I moved a lot of stuff that was cluttering up the studio space. When my parents sold their house, I took all the footstools my mom had collected over the years. I have 9 footstools of various sizes now piled up in that walk in closet. Four of them are small but five of them are big enough to use as extra seating. They are all unique and interesting and it will be fun to design for them. This is part of our plan to keep Mom alive forever: she can't go until she finishes needlepointing new covers for all of them.
After the stools went in, I started packing in my extensive frame collection. I have several dozen frames, with and without glass, varying in size from 6x6" to 3X4'. I buy them at estate sales, Goodwill shops and sometimes find really good deals at antique shops. I have two original watercolors hanging in my kitchen wearing really pretty frames I bought in Exclesior 15 years ago; a set of four frames for $60.00. If you've ever had anything professionally framed, you know that's a steal.
With all of that moved into the closet, the studio space seems twice as big. Now I just have to start making use of all of it. I do have a desk set up with Mom's latest needlepoint being blocked. My blocking board had been on the floor, which was far from optimal.
Then, I decided to repaint two of the book cases on the porch. One is four feet tall and its nice but it's not made of good wood, so I have no hesitation in painting it. It was stained very dark about a hundred years ago, which isn't really in keeping with a porchy vibe. So I painted it the same color as the ceiling; 'Watery' by Sherwin Williams. That's also the color on my kitchen walls so I had it on hand. For the second book case, which I had painted a dark wine color about 20 years ago, I wanted to go a shade darker than the first book case. I ended up buying two quarts, one skews to the blue (reflecting pool by SW) and the other to the green (drizzle, also by SW). I ended up using the greenish tint. I used the blue on a new bird house I found under a chair in my office. I have no idea when I bought it but I was thinking I needed another; one of the trees in the back yard was down to only two bird houses.
Today, I'm going to start painting my office. The main room that I use was once Zack's bedroom. 25 years ago, I painted the room the way he wanted it, which meant navy blue trim with white stars stenciled on and red and white stripes as a border. He was very into red white and blue. 20 years ago, when I moved into the room, I left a lot of that but also painted the formerly white walls with whatever colors I happened to have. Every wall in the room is different. I'm over that. Mainly, I fell in love with the darkest blue I used in the new bathroom. It's called Gossamer Blue, by Benjamin Moore. I'm going to start with the trim, which will be white because I bought a gallon of white over a year ago to do my kitchen with. I haven't had a chance to repaint the kitchen because thanks to this stupid shut down, Jay never goes anywhere. He does the cooking so repainting the kitchen really ought to be done when it won't get in his way. I could have done the back hall but I'm busy doing other stuff. Anyway, I'd rather start renovating my office.
It's been about 8 weeks since I started taking Sundays off and It's been great. My bottom line hasn't suffered a single dollar and I'm getting other things done. I'm sharpening my axe. Maybe in the not too distant future, I'll actually get to start writing again.
It really does feel like I've added an 8th day to my week.