Facelift

One year ago today we put the 'finishing touch' on the face lift of our home.  Since then the plants have managed to grow, but I still want to buy more of the Dragon's Breath sedum to fill in the beds.

Life is a constant state of maintaining what you have, both physically and emotionally.

When I was a kid, I honestly thought adults had it 'easy'.  I think the myth that you can do what you want when you are 'all grown up' is what gets us through childhood!

Looking back I know now that life is a tangled web of responsibilities - to yourself and others.  Human beings aren't meant to be solitary and the constant reports of 'cabin fever', a well known state of mind in remote or isolated places, shows that we need some sort of interaction with others.  Well, the majority of us.  I know some who are quite content to be completely alone.

Even an introvert like me wants and needs some relationships with others.  I find many of those here, on line, but I also dearly love my friends and wish I could actually spend time face to face with them more often.  So many of them live so far away that a visit in real life becomes a huge treat.

The past week I had a rare opportunity to spend a little face to face time with a few people who mean a great deal to me.  I was able to find out more about what two of them were doing with their lives.  We are all of an age, going through many of the same kinds of scenarios, each trying to be productive and give back to the weaving community.  The third friend is dear to me beyond the weaving, although that was how we originally met.  We keep in touch daily so I see photos and hear about what she is doing in almost real time, but there is nothing like being there, walking through her studio, touching her textiles.  She even gifted me with some of her recent work.  As every weaver knows, a weaver sharing her textiles is an honour to receive.

But really what we are all doing is working on keeping our lives in 'order'.  As all of us are in our - ahem - elder - years, we are all being faced with the same things.  What will happen to our looms and yarns when we can no longer weave?

So, I spent a lot of time on the drive home yesterday with emotions roiling.  Do I get the surgery on my foot, and if so, when?  Doug and I talked at length about it and given the huge impetus to close down my business we decided to wait until after the craft fairs are over, extend renting the annex into January and not feel so pressured to get everything done NOW.

Delaying the surgery will give me a few more weeks this autumn to work on increasing inventory for the craft fairs because right now I don't have enough inventory to make a decent showing at the third and largest of the three I'm contracted to do in Oct/Nov.

My desire to shut down the business of my studio grows daily as I find myself increasingly unwilling to deal with the administrivia of running a business - the bookkeeping, budgeting, scheduling, governmental reporting of taxes and income.

The AVL is all but gone.  Doug needs to take the air system apart, currently looking like a tangled mess on the floor, but actually still in it's working configuration should anyone be interested.  It needs an air compressor, which Doug will move into his shop but all of the hoses, fittings, switches are still there.

The industrial pirn winder is still here along with a dozen industrial fly shuttles and around 1000 pirns.  While an AVL fly shuttle box might have to be modified to accept the shuttles, it's not a huge fix for someone with decent woodworking/engineering skills.  And it might well fit some other brand of loom's fly shuttle.  One person has dibs on it but it thinking it's not a good fit for her after all.

There are a couple of 'spare' sandpaper beams, 60" weaving width, but that can be cut down.  One is covered with the cheese grater stuff, the other is the beam off my loom.  Plus I have a coil of the cheese grater stuff which can be applied to someone's beam.  (Primarily use for weaving with rayon chenille so it will grip properly.)

With the Megado arriving next month I'd really like to get rid of the rest of the AVL as quickly as I can, but since we are keeping the annex until the end of January, I can store some things until then.  The larger items will need to be picked up.

I am considering letting the industrial cone winder go, too.  I'm not repackaging and selling yarn anymore so once I get a few larger cones broken down into smaller packages for my own use it can go.  Frankly it can probably go now if someone wants it.

With everything at the annex needing to come here, I am in a constant state of 'if I move this here, I can set up more shelving there' or 'who can I sell/give this to?'  'Do I really need this?'  'Am I seriously going to make lace again?'  (Probably.  Maybe.  Hopefully.)

Nothing is 'settled'.  Nothing stays the 'same' for more than a day or two.  I find the constant shifting of the ground under my feet exhausting. 

But out of the trip came some hints of what might lay ahead.  Avenues I might pursue.  Rabbit holes I might fall down.

I have also been doing a lot of thinking about the Olds College Master Weaving program, and I find I am still heavily 'invested' in wanting to carry on doing that.  I just don't know if my state of health is going to co-operate.  So I leave myself open to whatever happens in that regard.

I am trying to focus on the here and now and not look too far into the future.  I feel as though this coming 7 months will show me what is important to me.  And at the end, my life will have received a much needed face lift as well as my house.