Rearrangements

Moving furniture around, rearranging my living space used to be one of the ways I gave myself a new environment to live in. Add in painting and the occasional bit of wallpaper and I was a happy camper for a while. That was back then. Back when I was younger and had more energy.

Now? Leave me alone.

Last week, early one morning, I woke to an incessant beeping. Beep, beep, beep. After a while, I rolled out of bed and set out to hunt down the source. It was my UPS (uninterrupted power supply) for my computer. A little red light flickered. With a sigh I turned it off. And then back on. The light was green and there was no beeping. With a sigh of relief, I concluded some electrical surge had tripped the switch and went about my business.

About an hour later, again the beeping started...first it was spaced out, but soon picked up speed. At that point I summoned the house hunk and inquired what he thought the problem might be.

He noted another red light on the other end of the device that indicated a ground fault in the building wiring. Fabulous. Our apartment building is well over forty years old. And it's for sure the owners are not going to start tearing out walls to redo the wiring.

After some discussion and investigation of the other electrical outlets in the room, we located one that was "good". Unfortunately, using it for my computer would necessitate moving all the furniture in the room. And thus began my week of rearranging. Actually, I'm still putting stuff away.

Prior to moving in the current office, my desk was out in the living room and my granddaughters slept in the room. In an effort to provide a quiet place where I could write while the family watched television in the living room, we swapped places. At the time, it was going to be a temporary solution.

Over time my office also became the place to stash Nanna's stuff that didn't have a home--temporarily. In other words, it became a room-sized closet. That was three years ago.

Now rectifying the situation was on my schedule as a spring project--not a beginning-of-the-year project. But since I had to move everything anyway...

As I said, I'm still organizing and putting stuff away. And in the midst of that, I'm also organizing and putting stuff away in the spare room because my son is coming for a week-long visit at the end of this week.

I freely admit I have a lot of stuff. Yarn, fabric, paint (acrylics, craft and watercolors) brushes, canvases, huge sheets of vellum and other calligraphy supplies, ink, pens, light boxes, clay, beads, frames, and so on. That's not even considering the musical instruments, craft and calligraphy reference books and the drafting table. I'm selfish enough to want to keep my stuff. That's an unlovely admission, but there you are. After rearing four children, I like having stuff. My stuff.

All I have to do is figure out where to put my stuff for the next week or so. Once my son goes home, I'll have time to rearrange the spare room back to it's original craft/art room purpose. And my office can finally return to being an office.

So that's what I've been up to for the first week of 2012. What about you?

anny