hazelchaz | I used to be a lunatic from the gracious days. I used to feel woebegone and so restless nights.

Photos online: Driving Around (15-Mar-2008)
The Old Homestead part 25: Lamps and Projects (23-Mar-2008) et seq.
Fabric on File: Taking Inventory (25-Mar-2008)
The photo of library_lynn and my mom with the walkers is for ala_mokita, because he wants to borrow one and put racing stripes and low-rider fringe on it.

I went over to the Old Homestead, because Mom & Dad are supposed to turn their mattress every two weeks. It was gratifying to see some of the finishing-up-and-movinging-in progress. Settling-in-with-good-habits is proving to be more problematic, however.

I brought over some notecards (actually, they're extra animelosangeles postcards, but who's counting) and talked to Mom and wrote down tasks/milestones/obstacles on each card. Some of them are things that handyman Jay is handling, other things are projects that Mom and Dad are dealing with. An example would be "Paper Towel Holder (shopping)." Mom likes the one Lynn bought at Target, because while it sits on the counter it's solid and heavy enough that you can tug on it and get a sheet, not the whole roll following you across the counter.

Based on our conversations, I wrote estimated completion dates on as many of them as we could manage, and plastered them all over the side of the fridge (left). Apparently the front of the fridge is not ferromagnetic! I told Mom that one of the important things is to identify what tasks you have, and to assign them priorities. Then when you find yourself drawn to a more-interesting but less-important task -- classic work-avoidance technique, all the Badens have it down pat -- you can remind yourself that you've already written down that task, and you'll get to it later after you've finished what you're supposed to be working on.

We'll have to see how that works out, of course. And much of the house is in a transition phase -- they're not fully moved-in, they're not all settled-in, and not everything's built. In fact, the fan lamps just arrived, so that meant I could dissasemble my floor lamps and take them home. The kitchen is due to be finished this week -- finally, after about three months. Or four months, depending on how you count it. This photo at right, showing the cabinet parts peeping out of their boxes, was taken 2007-12-01. The photo at left, when the cabinets were in place but not the counters or sink, was taken 2007-12-23.

They're not caught up with the laundry yet. Mom estimates they're eight loads of laundry behind. We set a deadline of one week to get caught up -- that's with doing one or two loads every day, or taking the whole lot for a ride to the laundromat. I also found a distressing pile of materials on the dining table: there were a few papers on top of a fabric thing, on top of a pair of gloves, on another paper or two, covering up the two brush paintings that Dorothy framed, on top of some more papers. Heterogenous strata, in other words.

I said that if you can't see it, you'll forget about it. (Which is what happened here: she'd forgotten where she put the framed paintings.) If you've forgotten it exists, or where you put it, you don't really have it anymore -- therefore, every time you cover something up you're saying "goodbye" to it. The brush paintings are Mom's art, from a class on Chinese Brush Painting she took about thirty years ago. She had forgotten she'd done them, but they turned up in the clean-up, and Dorothy had them framed.

The reason they were sitting on the table at all is because they haven't been hung on the wall yet. They're not hung up, because she won't know where they'll suit best until all the furniture's in place. She wants to avoid lots of holes in the walls. I suggested she should get some of the 3M sticky hooks (right) -- the small size (left), so she can put them up now, and change her mind later without a significant penalty. And one place to put a picture is over the thermostat -- there's not going to be anything put in front of it (like a bookcase), and it's probable that there will be some kind of picture there.

It's possible that you'll be able to see a bit of the white plastic, because the picture might not block all of it. But it's a temporary measure anyway -- when you decide that's really where you want it, you can remove the plastic doodad and put a nail in the wall. Or something.

The Great Satan and the Little Dog. One thing that I don't want to forget has to do with when I was married to Debbie. Her little toy poodle "Vanilla" was convinced I was the Great Satan. The poodle had seniority over me -- she'd bought the poodle out of pity when she saw it in with the other doggies, years before we started going out. I told her a relationship based on pity would never work... that dog died of old age, twenty years later, having outlived our marriage. Anyhow, Vanilla would yap yap yap each time I had the temerity to walk in my own front door. So one of the things that I want to remind myself is that I don't want to be the Great Satan -- and I don't want to be the little dog, either.

When I was at my folks' house, I wrote all of their tasks on cards. They ought to be associated with the calendar, because so many of them have completion target dates. The calendar's due to go on the wall as soon as the secretary's in place. Or possibly in a drawer, which I think is a major mistake. If the problem is that the calendar's not pretty enough, get another calendar!

I've got a white board on my office door at home, and I've been writing my own tasks on there. "VANILLA/SATAN" with a red circle/slash through it is one of those notes. Another task is to finish writing my thank-you cards for everyone who worked on Animé Los Angeles. So why am I sitting here writing this LJ entry on my keyboard instead of finding my purple pen and getting back to work? I'll tell you about all my fabric some other time.