Today I’m pondering art. Moreover I’m pondering that canvas covered in books at home. I told you my art never ends as it started. Already the painting has made a shift from a bird to a girl with an umbrella. I found a lovely stock piece from DeviantArt. With the help of Photoshop and a projector I could get the outline onto the canvas and then paint it in. I super wish I had the stuff for screen printing! That would be awesome.
I’ve decided I want my house back. When we moved in the house was already full of other people’s stuff. Lots of which we simply stuffed into the third bedroom (which has been impossible to get into for about a year now). So about 2 months ago I finally entirely cleaned out our closet and bedroom from top to bottom. In the process I scattered stuff throughout the rest of the house in a “staging” attempt for a full house siege on the mess (one room at a time). The next day our a/c died. We live in Louisiana. Sweltering is too soft a word for the heat that consumed our house (and us with it). We got a window unit and barricaded ourselves into the clean bedroom for about 5 days while we waited out a weekend and then struggled to get a new a/c unit installed. By the time that was done the motivation had gone out of me. Finally it’s back and my house needs to be cleaned. I’ve emptied out a lot of the spare bedroom and donated 6 trash bags of stuff to Goodwill along with throwing out 3 trash bags of trash. I’m almost to the point of being able to organize the third room into a nice storage/craft/guest room. Last night I wasn’t able to get anything done but tonight… I think I may need to stop by the store and pick up some more dusters and 409. I’m declaring war on my mess. The battle plan is: I’ll start in the farthest room of the house, my bathroom, and then continue until I reach the parlor (Shawn’s guy room) on the other end of the house. There’s a LOT of work to be done between.
We’re still counting down to vacation. I’m afraid that some of the stress might be getting to Shawn so vacation is very much-needed. The restaurant Shawn works in as Head Chef/Kitchen Manager is owned by a rather impulsive young fellow. He bought the restaurant on a whimsical idea that it would be a fun job, decided he didn’t like the clientele, changed the restaurant into a bar & grill instead of fine dining, wants the place to succeed but refuses to put any more money into the place (It needs a super makeover). Anyway, after 6 months of trying to make it work the way he wants it to and trying to make money off of the place without having to put a dime into it he has finally decided he wants to sell the restaurant and open up a food wagon instead (first the idea was he was going to move the restaurant to Mississippi, then they were moving to Alaska, then he was going to join the military, then so on and so forth. He has a new idea every week). My dear husband is a bit of a workaholic (and EXTRA committed). He is constantly trying to better himself and his resume and the business he works for. In the beginning when Shawn would have an idea to better the business (he’s cut their food cost down by 80%) the boss would get excited and then implement it. Now the boss is never excited except about the two guys who went to look into buying the place. Shawn says they want to turn the place into a creole restaurant, which is all fine and well, but that they want to entirely renovate the building and change the layout. That would mean shutting down. Shawn is afraid he’ll be losing his job soon. Moreover he’s disappointed because we were just getting ahead and just finally getting things done and in order. We can survive on my income alone, but we don’t have any money leftover after survival and usually end up a few dollars in the red each month. If we’re ever going to be able to move we still need a good year of both of us working stable positions. Sadly I guess that’s just not how the world works right now. I really think my parents had it easy. Economy was generally on the up, jobs were plentiful, and job security wasn’t just an urban legend.
Sorry for this somewhat depressing post. I’m just feeling a little under the economy.
A January Bird 