"I Will Rest When I'm Dead"

Melissa Ferrick sang these words on her album Listen Hard released in 2002 and it hit me as soon as I heard them that it is truly my life motto. The past couple weeks were such a whirlwind I feel like a rock star; minus the heavy drinking, late nights and musical talent parts. Perhaps it can be attributed to inhaling so many paint fumes or the extra special workout my body got after lugging boxes up and down stairs but it is amazing to me that March is already over.

We signed the lease for the apartment, decided to move in on the 29th since it was a weekend, and immediately I was purchasing materials and packing up the tool caddy for my painting job in Maryland the following week. The morning I was leaving Matt and I decided to check on a whim how much flights would cost out of BWI if he were to drive down with me and then fly back the same day. It was so reasonable he was yelling book it and I was printing a boarding pass before either of us actually realized what was going on. We caravaned to Hartford, he parked at short term and I picked him up only going a few miles off the original route; all so I could have some company for the ride. We made it to the other airport in about seven hours and he was flying back home as I was flying down the highway to the house. Since I would be staying there during the duration of the job they left all sorts of convenient items such as a bed, towels and a coffee maker but the rest of the house was eerily empty as if the surfaces were screaming "after 35 years of tobacco smoke, please paint me now".

I got started that night with spackle in the hallway upstairs on the water damaged ceiling and it was all uphill from there applying spackle, primer and paint to pretty much every surface that was not a floor. I was feeling high in about two days. It was lucky that I had help (in a big way) through a friend of family in the area because I would have been there painting until June otherwise. He was an amazing benefit to the speed in completing the job and even though I was the one to prime and paint about 800 linear feet of trim, he was the one to prime and paint almost every ceiling and many walls in the house. We had a blast and a lot of laughs. Eleven fourteen hour days later I was once again packing up the car to head home feeling like I was suffering from withdrawals without being able to spend even a second writing the whole time I was there. The return leg of driving was all me so Oreo kept me company on shuffle until Jersey when I decided it was time to stay awake by singing so Mraz was all over the speakers until I could get coffee in Connecticut. Here are a few key before and after shots for everyone to enjoy!

First Floor Bath

Shadowbox & wall paper removal

First Floor BR

Hallway ceiling

Matt picked up our keys on Friday so I met him at our new apartment after the drive back and we hugged for about ten minutes. It was nice to rest my cheek on his and I absorbed that moment as deep as I could to gather the strength for the final push of my two weeks of insanity. We stayed over my Mom's Friday night and on Saturday drove the couple hours out to the house in Western MA to pick up the last of the furniture there. After dropping that back at my Mom's we hit our storage unit on the south shore to pick up the items we have not seen in the six months we have been living at the furnished beach cottage. Sunday was the big move in day and we had help from Auntie, Uncle, S & B which was more than we had ever hoped or expected and not only did they all help carry boxes and random furniture they brought food and a camera to commemorate the day. Everyone peeled off here and there and Matt and I fell onto our mattress at about 11:00 last night after getting about half our new place set up.

I think I must have temporarily died last night because I slept through the night for the first time in a month and this morning actually feel as if I rested. My real life will resume tomorrow but for now I plan to do nothing but look at those boxes and hope they unpack themselves while I surf the web all day.

All My Brushes are Packed

When I am faced with a very long journey that I have to take on my own I try to remember two of my favorite gals on TV that always made being independent look so fun, Laverne & Shirley. I am not exactly moving into my own place and getting a job down at the bottling plant but there is an eight hour drive involved and two weeks where I am the only one in charge of what gets done and what does not. I love to travel so this will be an adventure just like skipping down the street.

Laverne was always funny but Shirley really just seemed to have it all together through her chaos. She was independent and responsible and that was the perfect role model to follow. Of course I was three when the show first aired so perhaps it was all in my head but that is what I really got from their antics each week.

Give us any chance, we’ll take it.
Give us any rule, we’ll break it.
We’re gonna make our dreams come true.
Doin’ it our way.

Nothin’s gonna turn us back now.
Straight ahead and on the track now.
We’re gonna make our dreams come true.
Doin’ it our way.

There is nothing we won’t try,
Never heard the word impossible.
This time there’s no stopping us.
We’re gonna do it.

On your mark, get set, and go now,
Got a dream and we just know now,
We’re gonna make our dream come true.
And we’ll do it our way, yes our way.
Make all our dreams come true,
And do it our way, yes our way,
Make all our dreams come true
For me and you.

I will channel a little bit of that while I complete the interior of my client’s house in Maryland. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Schlemeel, schlemazel, hasenfeffer incorporated. I am skipping off to enjoy two weeks of sixty degrees and lots of paint fumes in the almost south so see ya’ll in a couple weeks.

Subtle Joys of Self Employment

I started looking for opportunities in self-employment almost twenty years ago, roughly two days after starting at my first job. I am a free spirit with an over-active imagination, so finding something that didn’t become boring was always my greatest challenge. No MLM or sales position was left unturned. I invested countless hours into envelope stuffing as a teenager producing only one reply, sold beauty products door-to-door and found out that what I really sold was about 200 catalogs to myself. I originated Mortgages, contracted as an Office Manager and was as a Unit Manager for a popular plastics line. Perhaps what I was craving all along was simply freedom.

Most people that run their own business will undoubtedly tell anyone who listens, that freedom is the key reason to be self-employed. They will boast that being your own boss is the greatest feeling and that setting your own hours makes everything worthwhile. In my estimation that is all just a bunch of hooey and I would like to share the reasons why I personally would never go back to corporate America now that I have had the taste of life on the other side.

Pee on the community toilet seat. I once worked in a building which was also home to two clinics: an eye center and a cardiologist. My office was on the same floor as the eye clinic, whose patients were primarily over 75. The fact of nature is that as a person gets older their bodily functions do not cooperate as well as when they were young. Throw blinding eye drops into the mix and ironically the picture becomes clear. One day our Department was told that our office would be moving. I thought for sure it would now be safe to sit since the elderly ladies with eye drops would be no more and the only users of the bathroom would be fellow office mates. Not more than a week after our arrival to the new space is when I realized that a person doesn’t have to be older and blind to pee on the seat but they actually have to be human to clean it up.

Boredom. In the world of ties and pantyhose most people will do anything just to hang onto their job. With rising mortgage rates and falling house prices, not to mention so many layoffs, there is a panic that sets in among worker bees that if they are not constantly busy they too will be downsized. I would like to point out that no matter how hard a person tries to hide it, there is no way to disguise the glassy eyes that could have only occurred from playing three straight hours of spider solitaire after taking a two hour lunch paid for by the company. Add to that sneaking out of the office a half hour early and it is basically the makings of a typical day at my last company. I try to recall even one detail of something I did at that job to garner such a huge salary but all I come up with is a 4.0 GPA in school and a journal where I jotted down quips about how I must have been working what the Sopranos refer to as a “no show” job, even though I was there. There were many days I felt like Peter Gibbons.

Talking for the sake of hearing one’s own voice. Idle chatter about nothing in elevators and inane questions with no logical answer are two great examples of this. One good one I always got was “How are we doing today?” Did I miss something? Was I sharing my desk with someone else? How can one person be a “we”? Was my co-worker referring to me and the inner dialogue that is constantly running in my head? That response would go a little something like “Look I’m having a really busy day today you see my eBay auction is coming down to the wire, I have so much schoolwork to do and I’m just so bogged down with all the smoke breaks I plan to take later so I don’t feel as if I can fit your ridiculous questions into my already jam packed schedule.” Although that one is good, my all time favorite office question was “How was your weekend?” I knew no one would ever want to hear my true response which goes a little something like “It was fantastic because I didn’t have to see you people and I got to spend all the money I made here last week which is pretty much the only reason I am back today.” It was a good thing I always brought a journal to work so I could write down what was in my head otherwise I would have taken up roof archery years ago.

Things That Make Me Say Hell Yeah!

First and foremost right now is my job. I love my job and I am finally starting to do it. Recently I was hired to finish a family room, this week I am working on a kitchen, and it looks as though things are starting to pick up more so after that as well. The family room was a wonderful light color wash over a deep blue base and everyone (including the homeowners) was a little scared to see that initial color go on the wall. Not me though. I kept saying ‘trust the skills’ and everyone stepped back to let me do my thing. The homeowner called me two days later to say how they both loved it so much now that everything was back in the space. I don’t have an official final photo yet but here is the gist of the finish.

This email is something that made me smile and laugh this morning so I really wanted to share it.

A man in Topeka, Kansas decided to write a book about Churches around the country. He started by flying to San Francisco and started working east from there.

Going to a very large church, he began taking photographs and making notes. He spotted a golden telephone on the vestibule wall and was intrigued with a sign, which read

'Calls: $10,000 a minute.'

Seeking out the pastor he asked about the phone and the sign. The pastor answered that this golden phone is, in fact, a direct line to heaven and if he pays the price he can talk directly to God. The man thanked the pastor and continued on his way.

As he continued to visit churches in Seattle, Dallas, St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, and around the United States, he found more phones, with the same sign, and the same answer from each pastor.

Finally, he arrived in Massachusetts. Upon entering a church in Boston, MA, behold - he saw the usual golden telephone. But THIS time, the sign read

'Calls: 35 cents.'

Fascinated, he asked to talk to the pastor, 'Reverend, I have been in cities all across the country and in each church I have found this golden telephone and have been told it is a direct line to Heaven and that I could talk to God, but in the other churches the cost was $10,000 a minute. Your sign reads only 35 cents a call. Why? Why?'

The pastor, smiling benignly, replied 'Son, you're in Boston, Massachusetts now, home of the Boston Red Sox, the Patriots, Celtics, Bruins and Boston College! '

You're in God's Country, It's a local call.

Learning to play the drums, sort of. I am working on that kitchen this week and because the home is that of my best friend’s Mom we are spending a lot of time hanging with S & B. They are gamers, specifically Xbox, and have introduced us to all kinds of entertaining game play over the years. None of those games ever made me want to purchase a video gaming system until now. Their latest purchase was Rock Band. You build a band that initially has no money and no prayer of ever making it big and after a few days of singing and playing along to some seriously crazy rock tunes at gigs all over the country the money and fans begin to flow in. The game comes with a mic, guitar and drum kit. B is typically the singer, although Matt gives him a run for his money now when he isn’t on bass, S plays guitar and I have decided to follow my life long dream of learning to play the drums. All of them admitted that the drums are the toughest to play because the timing needs to be just right but after a handful of tries I was scoring an 80% on ‘Say It Ain’t So’ by Weezer. I am hooked and have the blister on my right hand ring finger to prove it. I generally don’t make resolutions so let’s just call this a goal for 2008 – I am going to finally take drum lessons which is something I have wanted to do since about age nine.

The last thing that really makes me scream hell yeah is the power of positive thinking. For the past three months I have been working to build a business and decided that there is no need to worry about it working out even though money is a little tight and I am doing all of this on faith; all of the seemingly random directions my life has taken to get me to this point, the skills learned, my ability to be organized and my positive outlook will provide more than enough for our little family to survive. You know something, it is working and I am not afraid of it nor am I going to walk away from it like I have managed to do so many times in the past. This is exactly where I am meant to be and it feels great.

Tomorrow Will Soon Be Today

My first faux project begins tomorrow; I go over in the afternoon to prep the surfaces. It is something totally liberating and scary all at the same time to be completing the first faux job for an actual client on my own. This business was never something I even planned to start but when Matt accepted a position in Boston it was clear I had to do something so this business began to take shape. It makes me glad because not all people can say they truly enjoy what they do for a living and I love that other people feel happy through the artistic contribution I bring to their homes.

The reality that I was looking to run my own business is true but faux finishing would not have been what I would have considered two years ago. After completing 2 years of design school my brain was going to explode if I had to make any more labels for a CEO so when I came across the job ad it was like my creative nature began to smile. I dove into finishing with reckless abandon, and OCD, just like I tackle everything else. Working with those crazy LI gals was the best education I ever could have asked for! Now, with every job I complete on my own I will think of all the time we spent working together and inevitably start laughing hysterically.

Although my job does not define me it does encompass such a large part of my day that it is important for it to provide some joy while I do it. As my business begins to take off I am reminded of all the things I love about doing finishes. Number one is the level of satisfaction to stand back and enjoy the beauty of the final result. It is also gratifying to mix a color perfectly to match what a client is looking for without having more of a reference than what they are telling me they would like. I guess the final joy would be that it keeps me in shape; thousands of steps up and down ladders will surely tone my butt over time. No drama. No stress.

Things that are happening right now that are long overdue:

The world is catching on to going green and reducing CO2 emissions
Writers are going on strike
Jason Mraz is working on a 3rd studio album
Newscasters are hosting SNL and proving they are funny
Brett Favre is helping to lead the Packers to an amazing winning season
New England sports are at the top of everyone’s radar
Designers are contacting me to view my faux portfolio

A plane is landing in Boston today with sick crew members and the dark side of my brain immediately begins to laugh as the movie Airplane comes to mind. “Chump don’t want no help chump don’t get no help.” I am sick this week with some heavy coughing and yucky green stuff which is forcing me to cut down on smoking. Maybe it is fate telling me that this is truly the time to be done with that nasty habit. This is the year I have pledged to quit after all. Life keeps moving and shaking through all its many ups and downs and I plan to do the same.