domesticat.net - Much ado about the usual nothing.

intended consequences

domesticat — Fri, 18 May 2012 03:21:30 +0000

I don’t know who among you reading this will be shocked and who will stand up and yell ABOUT DAMN TIME, WOMAN.

I’ve been facing this decision for some time, and through a multitude of tiny steps I inched my way toward it, nailing it down by unofficial degrees, but never being brave enough to take a step that would commit me fully and financially. I seeded the ground earlier this week, not explaining to my friends what was going on but saying “if I don’t commit by the weekend, beat me senseless.”

I committed. I stared at this screen for several minutes first, though, willing myself to choose. Most of our actions have unintended consequences. This one would be laden with intended consequences.

I cried when I got to this point, for lots of reasons:

I am thirty-five years old. I have survived the shittiest eighteen months of my life, and as a result, the entire trajectory of my life has changed. I have never known what my future would hold, but if the past year and a half has taught me anything, it has taught me that if I stop acting like I have a future, I won’t have one.

I write those words as much for myself as for you, the reader, because the past eighteen months have beaten me up on the inside, on the tender and hidden parts of the soul that only one’s closest friends see. They’ve ravaged enough that it’s taken me months to acknowledge this: the only thing that scares me more than doing this trip … is the thought of who I will become if I’m NOT the kind of person who would make this trip.

I’ve chosen.

I choose life list item #7: finally take that decades-delayed trip to London.

I choose life list item item #16: Successfully order beer. In German. In Germany.

I choose to make travel part of my life again. I choose to put my camera gear into my backpack again, and get lost in a strange city. I choose to trust that the world still has amazing experiences for me, if I can be brave enough to go out and find them.

I choose to go to Europe for a month. I’ll start in Munich. If I’m lucky, I’ll arrange for crashspace in northern Germany and eastern France with co-workers. Somewhere in that month, I’ll end up in London. What happens in the space between is yet to be determined, but it is an intended consequence of tonight’s actions.

I fear what people will say. I fear the talk and the gossip of I-can’t-believe-Jeff-isn’t-going and the can-you-believe-she-left-him-at-home. I fear I will be judged a bad wife and a poor caregiver for Jeff. I can’t control the opinions of others, and the fear of those opinions has become my constant companion.

I’m going anyway. Andy Dufresne had a point.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

Choose.

Fuego

domesticat — Sun, 06 May 2012 21:53:44 +0000

Date:

28 April 2012

Photoset:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/domesticat/sets/72157629616673256

Recipient:

Alex's younger child

Pattern:

Chopsticks

Level of completion:

Sewing (under 50% completed)

I’ve been looking for a reason to use the Chopsticks design for some time, and am finally making the time to try it out here. The original pattern shows this design in neutrals, so my version differs mightily from the original. I’m following Alex’s color request: the colors of the German flag.

I threw in orange for good measure. If I’m going to have yellow, red, and black — why not slide in orange, too?

Yes, I know they look like fluorescent traffic signs.

I’ve even slid in a bit of the Australian fabric that esmerel found:

No new fabrics for this quilt; I raided the reds that Jake sent me, plus my stash — I had enough of these strong colors to make it work.

I’m still mulling over the back. I have a recycled 1970s Star Wars flat sheet coming my way, but I’m not sure if it’s the right choice because the sheet has a white background and lots of blue.

I’m not sure what pattern this quilt needs for a back, but I know it needs to be almost explosively nerdy, and I need to decide soon. This quilt’s going to finish quickly, and I need to get my decisions in place now.

Forgive the crappy writeup; I’m not in the mood to write, but I needed to get this quilt at least on the list.

Scarlet

domesticat — Sun, 06 May 2012 20:57:24 +0000

Date:

7 April 2012 - 25 April 2012

Photoset:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/domesticat/sets/72157628434004917

Recipient:

Jennifer and Lewis

Pattern:

Log cabin

Level of completion:

Completed and given away

Scarlet was a short-timer, a quilt top nabbed for a song, given a few quick repairs, and finished up. I make no secret that I keep an eye on the auctions for used quilt tops; mostly I look to see what’s out there, and very very rarely I’m moved to pick one up.

She — and this quilt top was a ‘she’ from the start — just delighted me from the start. It was lovely, imperfect, and utterly without pretense; it was a hand-sewn quilt top in the log cabin variation known as “straight furrows.”

The description:

Vintage Log Cabin Quilt Top. Not sure of age. From an Estate of lady who was over 100 yrs. old.

About 70-74” wide and 80-84” long. All hand pieced, slight musty odor from storage. A few minor stains, showed a couple in last two pictures. They are not very noticeable.

Great old colors, blues, browns, reds, peach, pink, black, gray and others.

Cost? $35 before shipping, $43 after. When I opened up the box, I was delighted by what I saw. The squares weren’t perfectly square, but the end result was pleasing and the overall appearance was spot-on. My reaction was that it was exactly what I hoped it would be: the kind of simple, clean, charming quilt that will wear well, serve as an instant faux heirloom, and see love and use.

I wrote the seller and confirmed a little more information; she bought the quilt top at an estate sale in Terre Haute, Illinois — very near Burlington, Iowa.

Since several of the prints were 1930s-era, I picked up a 1930s repro fabric of little red dots on a white background, ran a simple quilting pattern of sketched flowers in lines following each of the furrows — white thread on the lighter sections and red on the darker sections — and sent Scarlet on her way.

I wish there was more to say, here, but the truth is that Tenzing barely even had time to sit on the quilt before it left the house.

Matryoshka

domesticat — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 21:03:08 +0000

Date:

7 February 2012 - 19 March 2012

Photoset:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/domesticat/sets/72157629260762577

Recipient:

Dave and Jenny's "Pascal"

Pattern:

Squares within squares

Level of completion:

Completed and given away

This … THIS … has been the secret project. The one I couldn’t explain much about, because if I said anything of substance, I would give away a secret that wasn’t mine to tell.

Here’s the problem, and the joy, of the Drupal community. Everybody knows everybody. Doesn’t matter that we all live in different states, or that we work for different companies. We know each other. Sometimes we know MORE about each other than we want to know, and the only way to keep a secret is to keep your big, yapping trap shut.

Back from convention-land

domesticat — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 03:47:41 +0000

Oddly, it wasn’t as horrible as I expected. I think I half-expected the potential housekeeper to come in, blanch at the horror, and say in hushed tones, We can make it right … for a price!

It wasn’t anything like that, really. We talked about the square footage of the house, and we talked about how frequently I needed help, and some of the crazier chores I needed help with, and what day of the week was best.

All those antacids and it ended up totally being a business transaction. Which was exactly what I needed. I’d put aside the thought of dealing with this issue while I was in Colorado, and I was so slammed after getting home that I didn’t have much time to obsess over hiring household help.

I made the leap. I hired her.

I think I’m just relieved to know that as of next week, the floors will be clean, fans dusted, and things just dealt with. If I can keep up with the Herculean task of the giveaway and tossout, there’s a chance that once tidied, the house could STAY tidied.

* * * * *

Speaking in general terms, attending the convention was good for me. I didn’t get to go to all the sessions I wanted (due to customer load, I only made it to two sessions) but I got a good amount of face time with my normally-remote co-workers, and did the kind of work that demonstrated that if I’m allowed to attend future conventions, I’ll work my tail off.

I gave away a quilt, too — one that I’ve posted photos about on Flickr and Twitter, but not discussed at length because the story isn’t mine to tell. Not yet. When it is, though, I’ll write it up. It’s a joyful and sweet story, and one I look forward to telling. The convention was my one shot at delivering this quilt in person, and it was worth the tiredness and effort it took to get it ready in time.

I also followed the time-honored tradition of conventions and took one night to have a massive, epic throwdown with some of my co-workers. I was indeed there for the hilarity that was #eatoncon. I bought some drinks for co-workers, trekked from one bar to another, and witnessed both truly good and truly bad karaoke.

I witnessed a drunken Australian doing tequila shots.

I witnessed an executive — who makes more money in a month than I make in a year — completely obliterate a classic rap song in karaoke. I was glad I didn’t know who he was.

I appreciated that three co-workers approached me separately to let me know that I’m handling the new job well. I’ve wondered, but it’s hard to ask.

The bar kicked us out at 2am.

The boys can keep their beer. My old friend Jack Daniels and I felt the need to renew our friendship.

I ended up in a diner with someone who, professionally, I consider almost a mentor but whose personal life and personality are a mystery to me — and we talked until nearly four a.m. before I borrowed his (shared) hotel room floor for sleeping, since I wasn’t safe to drive.

His 2011 was as bad as mine, if not worse. He bears it with greater dignity than I do. If I could learn how he does it, I’d be a better person.

The convention was a good thing for me. I was glad I spent the money. I felt … part of something. It was a fleeting feeling, something I don’t yet know how to hold on to, but for a few days, at least, I felt like I was part of a team.

It felt normal. This, in and of itself, is a gift.

* * * * *

I took a few extra days to get home. I stopped off, got a hotel room, and rested. I made new in-person friends. I shopped for fabric. I tried to live in the sunshine a little.

I nearly didn’t make it home on my first try, thanks to aircraft maintenance, but I came home and immediately put my money where my mouth has been for months: I need help. I can’t deal with this house and this life without additional hands. Maybe someday I’ll be able to do it, but right now, it’s better to give up a small chunk of take-home pay and buy some serenity and clean carpets.

For now, though, sleep. This day is done, and the next one starts awfully soon.

Depth: 5'2"

domesticat — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 21:13:52 +0000

Admitting you’re in over your head is hard. It hurts. I don’t know anyone who enjoys it, and I don’t know any fellow perfectionists who can do it without feeling a great deal of shame, hesitation, or remorse.

This afternoon, I admitted that I was in over my head, and I pulled out a recommendation I’ve been sitting on for months — I called a professional housecleaning service, and have an appointment with the owner after I get back from my conference. We’re going to go over what parts of the house I could realistically ask a third-party service to clean, and if the cost is reasonable … bite the bullet, swallow my pride, and do it.

I am — to be blunt — exhausted. I have been working off and on to deal with the clutter around the house, and it is in better shape now than it has been in some time, but I recognize I cannot maintain my current intensity at my job and hope to keep whaling on the house at this rate. If I could have someone help deal with the bigger chores, it would ease both Jeff’s burden and mine, and I think it would do wonders for me.

I don’t want someone to make my bed every day, but I would like to have some part of my weekends and evenings that wasn’t devoted to Trying To Keep My Life Afloat. I’d like to sew without guilt, or actually go out every now and again without feeling the weight of the to-do list pushing down on my shoulders.

I’ve put in an enormous effort over the past couple of months to deal with some long-standing issues with room use and closet layouts. Taking a rarely-used room and turning it into a sewing room rapidly dealt with some of the issues, and ripping out and redoing the office turned it into usable space, too. But now I need to finish hanging shelving in the closets to make them work for us, and work on major structural decisions around the house … and I can do those OR I can keep up with the day-to-day.

I hate admitting I have limits. I hate letting anyone see them. But I realized it was a matter of time before all my friends compared schedules and realized that nobody has seen me in months, so I’m staging my own intervention here.

I’m afraid to ask what it’s going to cost. I hope it’s reasonable, but I think I’d pay it, even if it wasn’t, just to get the bathrooms scrubbed and some semblance of order kept in my house.

It’s a sobering thought, realizing that friends who live in California will, after next week, have seen me more frequently in the past five months than friends who live three minutes from us.

Epic, chilly journey

domesticat — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:18:54 +0000

Yesterday, in sewing terms, was nothing short of an epic journey. I had to check my last.fm account to see a tally of exactly what the final answer was (the question, of course, being, “What do I have to do to finish this quilt top this weekend?”) —

4 episodes of the Splendid Table (200 min total)
1 episode of WireTap (26 min)
1 episode of On Being (50 min)
4 episodes of Trust Inc (112 min total)
1 episode of Marketplace (27 min each)
1 episode of The World’s ‘tech’ podcast (16 min)

431 minutes, or just over 7 hours. I had joked about treating Saturday like a workday, except a workday devoted to fabric instead of software troubleshooting, and I think it’s safe to say I actually followed through on my jest.

I’ve felt frustrated and blocked for most of the week, because I felt like I’d already learned the lessons Mitzvah had for me, but I wasn’t yet done with the project. I like it when an artistic project teaches me something new, and if the difficulty is correctly pitched, I feel like I’ve just gotten a handle on things right as the project completes.

Mitzvah was a double wedding ring quilt — my fourth. I’ve learned the lessons of this pattern already. But, before I whine exceedingly, it’s worth stating the obvious: while it’s true I didn’t pick the pattern, the fabric, or the colors, I took on this project because it was the right thing to do.

True, I will have bellyached all week over “why isn’t this project DONE yet?” but, this afternoon, when I show the finished quilt top to the recipient, I’m pretty sure I will forget every bit of it. It’s a hugely personal project for her, and my finishing it means the quilt top that her now-deceased mother left unfinished … will get finished.

I’m sending it out for quilting, which means I can do a quick reset on my sewing room, tidy up, and move on.

* * * * *

In the meantime, we’re waiting for a heating tech to come out to our house to do an emergency repair. Yesterday, I thought I was being my usual chilly self, but I looked at the thermostat and noted that it seemed a little low. I put on a sweater and went on with life. I’m always cold, after all.

It didn’t hit me until a few hours later that something wasn’t right; the blower was blowing, but the air wasn’t warm. As the evening wore on, I realized my sewing space was obviously chilly. I checked the thermostat again and knew something was wrong. We tried turning the system off and back on again, and sure enough, we didn’t hear the burner ignite.

We’ll get it repaired today, and Tenzing will stop snuggling out of desperation. The brothers Fang were quite the nestlings last night.

* * * * *

Confirmed: the repairman has come by. It is indeed the igniter on the heater. He’s off to get a replacement, and then we should be toasty warm again. This is a good thing — Edmund is quite the lapful, and he snuggles when he’s cold!

Remember me? I live here

domesticat — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:21:35 +0000

It has been a hectic few months. Travel enough and you have this constant, vague sense of displacement; wake up, and you wonder for a moment, where am I today? You are frequently a timezone ahead, or a flight behind, or some combination of the two, and every hotel room has an alarm clock that works in a slightly different way.

I am trying to get back into the rhythm of life-at-home. I am trying to learn to pace myself on weekdays, to leave time for therapy and other things, and to cook mightily on weekends. A couple of crockpots full of food on a weekend makes a much saner week.

I am — solitary, these days. I am aware that I really need to get out, maybe work from a coffeeshop for a half day or so, maybe see a movie on a weekend, but the truth is that I've had so few home hours in the past month or so that I'm just not ready to emerge yet. I know I should suggest to Jeff that he get out of the house, even if I'm not ready to just yet.

It's funny, I read quilt blogs and I have such an envy of many of those people. They seem to have such time. My catchphrase for my co-workers sums it up nicely: "Who buys the cat food?" Meaning, if you're spending all these hours on work or other duties, where does the time come for these other things?

I did take a weekend of serious selfishness after my week in Boston. I took the Acela Express from Boston to New York, where Colter met me at Penn Station. I then went headfirst into the New York theater scene for a weekend, seeing Wicked, War Horse, Book of Mormon, and Godspell within a 48-hour period. I don't know if art and culture feeds all souls, but it feeds mine.

I remember sitting down to my sewing machine a week ago and feeling like I needed to introduce myself to it. Remember me? I live here … sometimes.

I am aware that the Traveling Laptop Show is not done yet. I have a bit of a break until March, when I'll head west for a conference, and then I will need to make some decisions. I have the possibility of a once-in-a-lifetime trip in the August / September time frame, but I am hesitant to commit to it and need more time to think.

I think that with some time at home, I will feel more grounded, more capable of considering such a mammoth undertaking. Today, tomorrow, the day after — these days are all too soon for such thoughts. I have not one, but two partially-unpacked suitcases in the guest room right now (one from Florida, and one from Boston / New York) that need tending and unpacking. It seems folly to contemplate more travel when I am not yet fully unpacked from my last two trips.

For now, though, I'm home. I'm working, a seam at a time, on getting Mitzvah ready to go off to the quilter's. I'm working on learning this new job. I'm trying to teach the cats that they need to let me work in peace during the day.

I am aware that what is happening to me is deeper than a traveling schedule. It is, on some levels, a fundamental shift of self. Jeff's accident shattered both of our lives, and fourteen months later, I'm only just now beginning to reassess the broken pieces. I don't really know what I can make of it yet, because I barely even know what I have to work with at this time.

Add in a change of employment, and that changes your life's focus as well as your social structure. Let's be honest, we spend as much time with our co-workers, day-to-day, as we do with our spouses and families. Combine personal and professional upheaval and the end result is almost unrecognizable.

It bears little resemblance to the panicked, spousal-warrior life I was leading in various ICUs in January and February 2011, and almost no resemblance to the life I had, pre-accident.

The sense of displacement probably goes further than jet lag, but it's a convenient excuse.

In time, it will all become routine, right?

Mitzvah

domesticat — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:34:33 +0000

Date:

15 August 2011 - 11 May 2012

Photoset:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/domesticat/sets/72157628780181157

Recipient:

Mellbergs

Pattern:

Double wedding ring

Level of completion:

Completed and given away

Blog entries referencing this quilt:

Epic, chilly journey

Stick with me here. You’ll read the first few paragraphs here and wonder how in the world this is going to have a happy ending, but … it does. I promise.

* * *

I have struggled to name this quilt, as well as to write about it. It goes without saying that 2011, thanks to Jeff’s accident, was … hell, let’s pick a few adjectives:

painful
life-changing (and not in a good way)
unforgettable
humbling
brutal
exhausting

Let’s just go with those to start. Mix in that as Jeff’s survival became assured, and his return to (first) consciousness and (second) independence became more apparent, it became harder to write about what was going on in my life. Jeff and I were always private people, and every time I started to write about his recovery from my perspective, I realized I just couldn’t talk about it to the Internets At Large. He wasn’t able to speak for himself, to say what he was, and wasn’t, okay with me discussing, so I shut up and stayed shut.

I think I can say this about 2011: after having lived through it, I will rip the fucking throat out of anyone who ever again dares say to me, “Whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”

No, it doesn’t.

If it’s bad enough, it cripples you emotionally, shatters your ability to cope, makes you fearful to reach out to your friends Yet Another Time because you know you are the person who needs more help than any single person can provide …

… and you learn to get by with less, or nothing, because you have no other choice. (Sheer stubborn endurance is not automatically equal to positivity. Sorry, self-help industry. Find another sucker.)

I came out of 2011 with an unhealthy dose of resentment, but I also came out of it with a bright spot. I started 2011 with a spouse barely clinging to life in the second of two ICUs, and I remembered one thing a nurse told me in the first ICU:

“This is either gonna be really short, or really long. You need to prepare for both possibilities, because no outcome is guaranteed.”

Meaning: injuries like Jeff’s don’t have quick recoveries. They can have quick deaths, but any potential recovery from a near-fatal brain injury is measured in years, not days or weeks. (Also, for those of you who weren’t there at the time, it’s the only time in my life I’ve known anyone to celebrate moving TO the trauma ICU … because it was a step up from the neurological ICU.)

About six months in, it became harder to ask people for help. I had drawn down so deeply on my friend reserves, I was past “favors owed me” or “favors easily paid back” to … “how the hell do I ever start paying back what I’ve already asked for, much less what I’ll need in the next few months?”

The funny thing? Some people stick around. Having survived 2011, I can also say this: if you are ever in a position like the one we were in, you will NEVER be able to predict who turns out to be a long-haul friend. Sure, you can point to your bestie-since-pigtails and guess that one, but there will be some Someones in your life who just won’t disappear, and who they are will surprise you.

They’ll be the ones who have the uncanniest timing, who will call you on the day that you simply cannot handle the six most recent One More Things™ that have just been thrown at you, and say, “We were wondering if you had eaten dinner yet. We have extra, and would like to bring it over.” At that point you do NOT cry with relief, but you put a smile in your voice and say, “That would be wonderful, thank you.”

— and you totally don’t mention it’s the first hot meal you’ll have had in a few days. Because you’ve got PRIDE, buddy. It may not keep you warm at night but it WILL get you through the next thirty minutes.

… and these people, whom you didn’t know at all before the accident? They keep calling. Not all the time, but just enough to know that you’re on their radar, and they remember that life didn’t magically go back to normal just because Jeff was released from a rehab hospital. When he’s not strong enough to travel, they bring food to you; when he is, they invite you to come visit them and eat there, at a table, like you remember civilized humans doing, once.

It’s enough to remind you, yes even cynical you, that there really is a LOT of goodness in people, if you make it possible for them to show it.

So what do you do if, on one of those invited dinners, this person who has fed you repeatedly over the past year comments on the quilt you’re binding and says, “You know, my mother started working on a quilt for me before she died. I’m not sure how far she got. I’m curious now, so let me pull down the bag…”

This is what we call in Amy-land a CELESTIAL HINT.

So let’s recap.

Worst year of my life to date? Check.
Chatting with a person who has been unexpectedly, repeatedly, and frequently generous to us during said year? Check.
Said person lost a parent years ago, before that parent had completed an instance of a craft that I just happen to know how to do, in a pattern that I’ve done a few times before? Check.

Hello, universe, I’m Amy, and I’m still taking hints here.

Of course I asked if I could finish it out for her, precisely because she was the kind of person who would never, ever ask if I could. Her genuine intention was so plainly obvious: to show the fabric to someone who understood, and then to pack it away for that Someday that would come after her two boys were grown and her job was calmer — that magical Someday in which she would learn how to finish the quilt her mom had started for her.

Jacob likes to tease me sometimes about my complete and utter soft-heartedness that can be found underneath my cynicism. He jokes that I am rescuing orphans from the Island of Misfit Quilts, one at a time, and setting their worlds right: fixing them, finishing them, and putting them in the hands of people who will love and use them.

It’s silly, and I laugh about it, but he’s right. I do it for that very reason; I grew up with these items being both useful and treasured possessions, and I derive a massive sense of satisfaction in seeing each of these orphans to their forever homes.

Here’s everything you need to know about me, in a nutshell: massively overcommitted, massively overwhelmed, but I looked at this fabric and the story behind it and I could. not. say. no. The thought of this fabric getting put back in its little bag and packed away for another decade, until another appropriate conversation happened, just saddened me.

So I cut the little arc pieces, and I bribed Hallie, who was interested in picking up some simple sewing jobs, to do some of the straight-line sewing, to get them to about this point:

She completed a large swath of the arcs, and returned them to me, neatly packaged, awaiting me to have the time and brain capacity to work on this quilt.

In that time, I’ve struggled to name this quilt. I don’t even know the name of the woman who started it; I know that she named her daughter Jennifer, and her daughter turned out to be a generous and decent human being, and that’s about the extent of it. It’s hard to name a quilt when you know so little about it. I know that Jennifer chooses to live her religion, rather than speak about it, and I found myself thinking about words that had to do with the intersection of memory, duty, and religion.

The Greek word for memory, anamnesis, stuck with me a long time. It plays a subtle and important role in Christianity; in liturgy, worshippers are encouraged to remember, starting with Jesus’ instructions during the Last Supper: τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν. Do this in memory of me.

The word didn’t seem right, though. Every time I tried using that word, or one similar to it, for the quilt, I could feel the wrongness. I eventually decided to start sewing, with or without a name for the project, hoping it would come to me.

It hit me, a night or two ago: in Judaism, there’s a term for a deed done because it is the right thing to do: מִצְוָה‎‎, a mitzvah. The Hebrew term originally referred to commandments by God, but its usage has filtered down several levels: a commandment by God, a moral deed done as a religious duty, an act of kindness done because it is the right thing to do.

Exactly. This one finished piece was just enough to show me the intended pattern:

…my hands can do the rest. I do not claim to be religious, but there is a rightness to this task that comforts me. I cannot pay back what was given to me in 2011, not now and not ever, but I can finish this project. When it is done, it won’t get one of my traditional care labels, but instead one of what I found in the bottom of the bag:

The Island of Misfit Quilts will have to live without this one.

Room reboot #1: office

domesticat — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:17:37 +0000

Scott, bless him, offered to come up for a few days around New Year's, and we've been busy creatures during that time. The New Job™ means I work out of the house, but the bad part? I didn't really have a good workspace for me, my phone, and my laptop.

We needed to fix that, but doing so meant that we needed to tear down not one but TWO corner desks, combine two computers into a single work station, put in shelving, and blah and meow and etc.

Good news: we're mostly done.

Jeff's former desk:

My former desk:

Scott, currently applying for sainthood, and Jeff as they worked on disassembling the equipment from the two desks (I broke down the actual desks)

At the end of the night of assembly, I shot these photos to show the progress:

and

This morning, after moving the final major pieces into place, here's where the office stands. The desk is built, the CPUs are lofted and strapped in, all of the minor bits are arranged and working, my VOIP workphone is ready and there's room for my laptop on the desk:

oh, and the other half of the room? A place to rest, make calls, think, and eat lunch:

Now that this square table is out of the sewing room, I have to … uh … clean up the disaster-area sewing room, install the real tables for it, and finish it out … but you know what? We're getting somewhere.

I can also now say, "Step into my office" and mean it.

Anyone fancy a run to the technology recycling center? Or the county's incinerator? I've got stuff to drop off…

Notable things:

The server's up high.
The printer no longer lives in the guest bedroom closet.
I have a desk lamp!
I will now work in the same room as my work phone!
I stole Jeff's photo frame from the hospital. It now has a ton of cat photos.
Why yes, I did loft the monitor with Jeff's Microelectronic Circuits textbook.
We still need two UPSes.
My scanner has a home at last!
Did I mention that the printer no longer lives in the guest bedroom closet?
No more uncomfy wooden chairs! I have a butt-friendly rolling chair. With cushions — and ARMS. Suck it, minimalists. I like my creature comforts!