Cooped Up

These girls live at a very cute store/succulent nursery nearby. I bet their names are
HENrietta and PECKnelope. And they've been friends since junior high.

When one's husband is temporarily living in another county, one finds it very easy to keep the house relatively tidy (one's own messes are invisible...) and also very easy not to leave said house. Thus creating an even keener awareness of where things "should" and "shouldn't" be in her castle.

Over Christmas break when Mr. W was here for two solid weeks, I had to reprogram myself after I short-circuited in response to his small abundance of random piles. You saw a sampling here...

The sock really does make the entire shot.

There was the RC helicopter hospital that took up residence on our dining room table, the miscellaneous mail, tools, nails, keys, and clothing items that lingered near the front door, the monstrous bag of receipts that threatened to overtake the couch...

Not being used to having someone else's stuff in my space, I had a minor freakout at him one day.
But as the vacation wore on, I realized something really important (after doing a little self coaching):
I would much rather have the stuff than the alternative. I'd much rather have Mr. W and his swirl of pigpen flotsam than no Mr. W at all. I'd rather have his mess in the house than not have him in the house.

It was a pretty powerful mindset shift.

But likely one I'll have to work to maintain when remodeling mayhem begins in a few months. Mr. W gave me a talk recently about how he would need to take some time off to recuperate after finishing the movie—so he wouldn't want to start renovating right away.

But the boy cannot sit still.

Case in point: he decided to start construction on the greenhouse/chicken coop over Christmas. Even though he knew that he wouldn't finish it and there would be many other projects needing to be done in the spring, he couldn't resist. I don't think he was at the house for a day before he headed to Home Depot and began plotting.

Here's a before shot of our side yard. We knew the killin' shed would need to come down
at some point. Hoping we won't have any Poltergeist situations...

When his BFF came to town for New Year's, they took sledgehammers to the shed and turned it into this. Another pile...

The yard itself went from this (I think Mr. W was secretly delighted that he had to purchase a new chainsaw to get that old stump out):

 

 To this (I learned this is "straw," not "hay." It's only hay when it's green, soft, and edible):

After that, construction began on the new foundation for the green-coop structure (If he lived here, I'd take a picture of the design sketch he created so you could see what it's supposed to look like when it's all done).

There he is, hard at work putting insulation under the foundation to keep the girls warm.

Finally, up came the framing for the walls. And the loose plans to install an electronic chicken door that lets the girls into their run every morning....

 

 That was as far as he got before he had to go back to LA for work. We're pretty excited he hit the wall stage. And I was slightly elated when he showed me some old horse shoes he discovered in the construction debris.

I have a feeling I'll need some extra luck to continue keeping my head right about the home and garden disarray. But it's better than the alternative...

Sucker Punches from the Universe

Image credited to this site

My calendar and to-do list have been putting me through the ringer lately. And I feel like a wimp for even saying that because I know there are loads of people out there who have far more on their plates than I do. But man alive, does it feel like the Universe been giving me a run for my money...

I think it really started to sink in when I had to drive up to the Santa Ynez house the night of Mother's Day to meet an appraiser in the morning (we're refinancing). Although I love going to the new house, those trips lead to neglect of the Hollywood house...and I often come home to find cat hair and cat litter covering every surface. I'm hoping it belongs to my two cats and they're not throwing wild parties while I'm out of town...

In the back of my mind I also knew that I'd be traveling again for the next 3 weekends, all while trying to balance some semblance of house cleanliness + yardwork (Mr. W's grapevines are particularly high maintenance...) + errands (for myself and other people) + a couple of much needed social obligations + those pesky jobs I'm juggling right now, with two different employers and my coaching business. Oh, and did I mention I also had PMS?

The icing on the overload cake was that I was set to lead a weekend retreat for four women I'd never met. And the topic was *Overcoming Overwhelm*! How ya like the Universe's sense of humor now?!

We have a saying in coaching that goes like this: "You've got to live it to give it." And clearly I was living it.

I asked myself the age old gem "How is this serving me?" and realized that, although endlessly painful and frustrating, my stress was helping me remember tactics that would be good to mention at the retreat. 

Thankfully, the weekend went well and I was able to squeeze in 2 full hours of weeding in the front yard before the girls arrived. When I came home Sunday night (after 3 hours in traffic) I was delighted to finally have a smidge of downtime.

And then the cat had some sort of seizurey thing where his back legs wouldn't work right.

And I went over the edge.

Mr. W took the brunt of my f-bombs and Trader Joe's beer tried unsuccessfully to calm my nerves.

The "I CAN'T TAKE ONE MORE THING!!!!!" soundtrack was playing over and over in my head.

But I rallied and got the cat to the vet Monday (he's fine, just needs to be watched in case it happens again). Held things together through my workload Tuesday. And Wednesday, heard the piece of advice that made everything finally feel better.

It wasn't overload, it was abundance.

Having someone position the situation this way released some clenching fist inside me and allowed me to start looking at all the craziness through a lens of gratitude. Sure I had tried to see how things were serving me the week prior, but something about attaching that word "abundance" to it made the feeling of it shift entirely.

I am lucky to have such a full life. A full life that overflows and spills messily over the edge of my cat litter box sometimes. I'm lucky to *have* to travel between two houses and two countries. I'm blessed to have so many social obligations blocking my nights and weekends. I'm fortunate to have such an influx of work filling my waking hours.

And when I can stop and see things from this perspective, I'm grateful for all of it.