This is Not a Real Post.

Hello out there (assuming anyone is still listening)!  Just like the title states, this is not a real post.  It's going to be more of a photo dump.  After more issues with my teeth and continued dealings with a sick cat, I just really haven't felt like writing.  I think about writing a lot, I even do projects and take pictures to go along with blog posts, but very seldom do I even actually feel like writing.  If there are any fellow bloggers reading this, you understand that writing a blog post can be a long, tiresome project.  I always attempt to make each post as perfect as I can before publishing, and that can take hours.  And, when I don't feel like spending hours writing/editing a post until it is perfect, I simply don't do anything at all.  And then this blog sits silent, which is boring.  Sometimes I feel like I can actually hear readers unsubscribing every day that goes by without posting.  So today I am just hashing this out, minimal editing, in an attempt to just post SOMETHING.  Hopefully it will help get me out of my "I don't feel like blogging" slump.  So here you go.

The following is nothing more than a series of pictures I took two days ago when I suddenly felt like doing something resembling actual cleaning.  They are nothing more than simple before and after shots of key areas I targeted as needing extra attention.  I used my iPhone to take them, so they kind of suck.  I really need to just start using my real camera again, but the iPhone is just so handy.  (Read: I'm lazy).  On to the pics!

Video shelf before. (The beer bottles so belong to the Tall Cute Guy.  I hate beer!)

Video shelf after.

Night stand before.  (Have I mentioned I'm a Coke addict?)

Night stand after.

Bathroom shelves before.

Bathroom shelves after.

Bathroom sink before.

Bathroom sink after.

Overall view of the clean bathroom.

Ok, that wasn't so bad.  The post is far from perfect, but if I aim for perfect every time nothing will ever get done/written.  Sometimes you just have to settle for "good enough".

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Owie.

I. Am. In. So. Much. Pain.  It's not even funny.  For about the past 6 months I have been dealing with the seemingly never ending saga of getting my teeth fixed.  Fillings. Root canals.  Extractions.  Not fun. But, that's what happens when you don't have dental insurance and earn poverty-level wages.  I only have a few things left to get worked on, but at the moment my most pressing issues are two back molars that have already been worked on, but to no avail.  The fillings are  very deep and the nerves are very agitated.  I could get them root-canaled, but that costs about $1,000 each.  Not really an option.  Instead, I am going to have them pulled, but after having nearly gone into shock from the trauma the last time I had one pulled, I am insisting I be knocked-the-hell-out this time.  (Note: I had all 4 of my wisdom teeth pulled with only local-anesthetic, and I did just fine, so when the oral surgeon wanted to pull my #15 molar local-only, I didn't think it would be a big deal.  I was wrong.  I left the office shaking, dizzy, sweating, and crying.  Never again.)  Because I want to be asleep with no memory of the event this time around, I have to go to a consult appointment with the oral surgeon first.  That appointment is for Monday.  If all goes according to plan, they will be pulled Friday, and Friday can't come fast enough.  In the mean time I am hurting.  Bad.  Normally for tooth pain I just take Ibuprofen  and that does the trick nicely.  If I need more help, I add on some Oragel and ice packs.  If that doesn't help, I try warm salt-water rinses.  If THAT doesn't help, it's time to call in the big guns.  My dentist gave me a prescription for Vicodin last week, and she knows that if I ask for pain meds, I must REALLY be hurting.  I almost couldn't take my first dose fast enough.  The problem is, even Vicodin isn't working.  It get a small amount of relief for about 2 hours, and then the pain is back to full-intensity.  It's miserable.  I'm miserable.  I fall asleep with ice packs on my face, and the moment I wake up in the morning the entire right side of my face starts to throb.  Plus, the pain meds make me really sleepy and wonky-feeling, so it's very hard to feel motivated to do anything.  All I want to do is lay in bed and watch Law and Order: SVU on Netflix.  I told you all of this to explain the next part of the story:

Yesterday I was in the drugstore waiting in the pharmacy line to pick up my prescription refill, looking like a hot mess.  I had no makeup on, my hair was in a messy ponytail, and I was wearing scrubby yet comfy clothes. I had big dark circles under my eyes.  The Tall Cute Guy said that he can actually tell how much pain I'm in because he can see it on my face, and it was showing in full view as I stood in that line. As I was waiting, I hear a woman in line behind me chatting on her cell phone about "if you want to wear nude eye shadow, you really need to wear fake lashes so your eyes will pop" and other such beauty-related topics.  After a few minutes I turned around to sneak a peek at her, and realized it was a girl I had gone to high school with. I immediately whipped my head back in the other direction, hoping she didn't spot me looking like such a wreck.  I mentally kicked myself for not following the FlyLady "rule" of getting dressed to shoes, including fixing my hair and makeup.  Now, there I was, looking like death warmed over in front of one of my old classmates, who of course looked completely put together and worthy of being seen in public.  I did not.  It was embarrassing.  I'm pretty sure it was situations like this that the rule was invented in the first place.  I felt like such a loser.

Normally, I DO fix my hair and makeup before going out, and I really enjoy having that confidence of looking put together while I'm out and about.  I felt like I had failed myself big time, and that pain or no pain, I should have sucked it up and put my best face forward.  But then again, maybe this kind of thinking is just my perfectionism getting in the way and I should cut myself some slack?  I don't know.  All I do know is that I'm in pain, and I feel embarrassed.  So, I'm asking you- should I have sucked it up and cleaned myself up before heading out to the pharmacy, or should I cut myself some slack?   

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Getting Things Done (Or Not)

I got a promotion! (Sort of.)  The real story is that on paper, I am still a historic interpreter for the living history museum where I work. (Actually, all our titles recently changed to "Museum Educators", but that's just semantics.)  The "promotion" I am speaking of is really just making the additional duties of acting as the museum costumer slightly more official. To be clear- the museum doesn't actually have a "Costumer" with a capital-C.  They haven't for years.  They have regular employees such as myself who have some skill and knowledge in this department doing their darnedest to keep everyone looking decent and as period-correct as possible.  For the past year, they didn't even have anyone doing that.  The costume department became a free-for-all with no one accounting for who was wearing what or maintaining the costumes we have, let alone producing anything new.  I took some of these duties upon myself trying to keep things from going totally chaotic, such as sewing on buttons for those who lost them, or altering a petticoat so no one tripped on the hem.  I was doing these things on a completely unofficial basis as favors to the wearers of costumes in need of mending, mainly on my own time with my own supplies.

This year things have started off with the pleasant surprise of management making my completely unofficial title of costumer slightly more official.  Like I said, they don't have an open position for a capital-C Costumer, and haven't for a decade.  What I am now is the costumer, lower-case-c.  (I hope this makes sense.) Basically I fulfill the duties that a Costumer would, which is mainly running the costume department, but since the official position doesn't exist, I can't even hope to be the official Costumer.  I didn't get a raise, I don't get cool business cards with my name on them, but it does give me more hours which I desperately need, so for now, I'm happy.

I spent weeks just trying to get the costume rooms cleaned up and organized enough to function within, and now we are well into the beginning of our programming season.  For part of the day I play a roll in our Underground Railroad program like everyone else, but after they leave in the afternoon you can find me sitting in the basement costume office trying to keep my head from spinning with everything that needs to be done around there.  Some things are very long term or low-priority tasks, such as neatly winding up the bags of ribbon that were donated to us so they don't get all knotted up, but other things are last-minute yet high-priority such as replacing 4 buttons on a pair of man's trousers that all popped off on the same say so he has the ability to wear them the next morning.  I'm pretty sure the employee wearing those trousers thanks me that I at least recognize the difference in priority levels. ;)

The only problem I am having with this priority-level thing is that it often leaves me with tasks sitting on my to-do list that I really really want the satisfaction of crossing off, but when other things pop up (or pop off, as in the case of the buttons) they get moved to the back burner.  A good example of this would be (ironically) the case of another set of buttons.

This coming weekend we will be starting another program for which a few staff members need additional costumes outside of what they usually wear.  One of these items is a wool over-shirt from the Ohio Pioneer era of 1810-1815ish.  The employee who is to wear this shirt apparently has much smaller wrists than the last guy who wore it, so the cuff openings just slip right down over his hands.  Not a problem- all I need to do is add another button to each cuff about 2 inches over so he can tighten them to his size.  This should take me 15 minutes, tops.  However, even though I put this task on my to-do list a week ago, I still haven't been able to get around to doing it.  Other things have taken priority over the shirt buttons because their due-dates have fallen in a more-immediate time frame, such as RIGHT NOW, or the following morning.  Tasks like these crop up every day and I must fit them in with the other items that are more on-going projects.

I realize this is life, and how I should be handling things. The problem is, the shirt-button due-date is this coming Thursday, here it is Sunday, and this 15-minute-tops project still isn't completed.  I know with the way things have been going I will probably get the chance to put them on sometime like late-Wednesday afternoon, and to me, this feels like procrastination.  It's not, I know that, but I am the kind of girl that likes to get things done, cross it off the list, and forget about it.  Not,  let them sit festering on the list for over a week where it taunts me with it's approaching due-date.  I'm sure this is just another way my perfectionism is manifesting itself and I will just have to adjust and grow accustomed to this way of prioritizing projects, but can't someone make the little nagging voice in the back of my mind telling me I have somehow failed go away? Please?

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Driving Myself Crazy

I feel all over the place, I don't know where to start, therefore nothing is being done.  I don't like this feeling.  I have so many little things and a few big things that I want/have to do, but I can't seem to focus and actually complete any of those items.  You could say I feel overwhelmed.

A big part of my problem is my perfectionism.  A perfect example of my perfectionism is that of my new sewing room- formally living room.  I previously wrote about how my ex took the living room furniture leaving me with a room full of randomness.  I hate randomness.  It's hard to re-do a room if it has no designated function.  Luckily my friend TJ suggested that I turn it into a sewing room. I really liked the idea and immediately started bringing my sewing supplies up the two floors from where it was previously housed in the chilly basement.

My Dad helped me carry up an eight-foot-long folding table which will serve as my sewing work space. My ironing board, boxes of fabric, organizational drawer cabinet, and of course  sewing machine all also occupy this room.  All this in addition to the stuff that was already in there, like my desk, coffee table, TV stand, and my ex's remaining saltwater reef tanks.  I had my work cut out for me.

Before I began, the room looked something like this:

The desk was the only "completed" part of the room.  Everything else was sort of pushed to the edges. I started arranging and rearranging sometime around 7:00 last night.  I took this picture about 10:00:

At this point, I was still surprisingly upbeat.  It was fun trying to figure out where everything would go, and when I was done I was going to have my cute little sewing room right there next to my bedroom.  No more cold lonely basement for me!  Then, around 11:00, things took a wrong turn...

I'm going to try and walk you through my thought process during all this, but I'm warning you now- we're about to get inside my head and it ain't pretty.  Here goes:

OK.  Desk is already set up and looking cute on the north wall and I want it to stay there, fish tanks are taking up half the west wall, so that leaves  the east wall to put the sewing table.  No problem.  But wait, that is a shared wall with my sister's room, I hope she won't be annoyed by the sound of the machine through the wall.  Better go check.  (Did a test run of machine noise.)  Nope, she said she can't hear it, we're good to go.  Now I need to set up the ironing board.  I want the ironing board to come off the table like an "L" on my right hand side like I had it in the basement. I'm left handed and it's the most comfortable place for me to have it, all I need to do is swivel my chair to the side and it's in the perfect spot.  But, if I do that in this room, it blocks the door.  I could just put it up when I need it and take it down when I don't, but I use it so much during a project to iron seam allowances that doing that would be a huge pain in the butt. No, better just to leave it up. If I put it on the other side it blocks the desk.  Obviously the table needs to be on a different wall.  The north wall, where the desk is now,  That way it will be the focal point in the room.  But I like the desk there. No, it's the only other good spot for it, I can deal with moving the desk.  OK, table is on the north wall.  It looks kind of nice there.  Now back to to the ironing board. It can now go on my right side where I want it. But if I put it on that side, that means the desk has to go on the opposite side and there really isn't room over there. Maybe I could move it to the other side of the room and just get used to it being on my left?  Sure.  Let's do that.  Hmmm. If I have it on that side the tray part where the iron sits is to my left, and that means the pointed end of the board is the end closest to the table, and that looks weird.  Plus, it's harder to iron my work dresses that way.  If I turn the table around, now the iron spot is on my right side, and I'd have to keep reaching across for it.  No way.  The ironing board has to be on the right.  Now to deal with the desk.  I like things centered, even, balanced, etc.  I want the desk in the center of that wall. No problem.  Wait-problem.  There is an air vent that protrudes from the baseboard a couple inches keeping me from putting the desk where I want it.  I can either center the desk and just have it pulled out away from the wall a few inches, or just have it off centered by about six inches and push it up against the wall.  Nope, neither are to my liking.  It will drive me nuts to do either.  The desk has to go on the other side of the room.  Which means the ironing board has to move again, back to the other side.  We've been though this.  Ugh!...

Anyone still there?  I totally wouldn't blame you if you all just un-subscribed from my feed right now after having read that.  I'm not kidding when I say this is only a small portion of my thought process last night. There were several other issues that came up, but if I went into further detail I'm afraid I'd make your eyes bleed.  I also moved that desk back and forth across the room no less than five times.  I finally gave up around 2:00 AM.  I'm still not happy with it. I even got my sister involved as a fresh set of eyes, and she has concluded that I am a psychopath...

I've always been able to take take whatever furnishings and decor I have to work with and somehow bring the room together in a way where it seems as though  it was meant to be that way.  Everything belongs.  I can't stand it when a space appears as though the things within it are only where they are because it's the only place they would fit.  In this case, it's the truth.  And it's driving me nuts.  Here's what it looks like now- I know to you this will look just fine, but to me, it's still all wrong:

I know it's crazy to have spent that much time agonizing over something so trivial.  I really can't help it.  If I'm going to be spending a lot of time in there I want it to feel right, and it doesn't.  Plus, this was only one example of how my perfectionism takes over.  I do this kind of thing all the time with the most mundane of tasks and over-analyze them to the point I have a "freak-out".  Somebody take pity and shoot me, please?

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