satisfying projects

by

Satisfying Project: Device Garage

Our kitchen has a lot of pleasing features, but right up near the top are the two appliance garages. One of them holds our toaster, air fryer, and seldom-used Ninja Creami. The other has been serving as a junk repository for the past three years.

Until now.

I’d originally designated “clean the appliance garage” as a chore Carla could take on to make extra money. However, Carla lacks both the time and the motivation to tackle such a task, and it continued to irritate me on a daily basis. So I tackled it.

I started by getting rid of: random boxes no longer holding their original contents, old school papers, old receipts, expired coupons, broken crayons, and an empty tape roll.

Then I relocated: an old laptop, several cords with no discernible purpose, recipes, sparkly ribbon, the handle to the ice roller I use for my feet, and a mini humidifier I no longer use.

It took an hour, maybe two.

And now look at the garage!!!

It still holds an assortment of useful things: rubber bands, permanent markers, a variety of tapes, a box cutter, notepads, tape measures, the remaining pair of scissors from what I swear was originally a three pack, coupons, a giant bottle of Purell with which my husband and I refill our smaller car bottles of Purell, spiral cat toys, our Bug Guy.

It also still retains some echoes of its previous contents, storing what I might call “valuable junk”: business cards I will possibly only review the next time I tidy this cupboard, a box FULL of pencils, a baggie full of the things that one sometimes finds and cannot identify, a timer I use maybe three times a year, and some wooden dividers that belong to our flatware drawer but have no place in the current configuration of said drawer.

The purpose of this particular appliance garage, beyond providing room and board to the aforementioned household detritus, is to serve as a home for my child’s laptop, iPad, and Switch. Aside from Very Specific Exceptions, I do not allow her to use those devices in her room, and I expect them to live in the garage when they are not expressly in use.

Right now, they sit in a little heap. This works just fine, but I kind of want them to have their own storage space. Partly because I like things to Look Organized, and partly because I have a vague unfounded worry that it isn’t good for their longevity, to sit on top of one another all the time.

If you search for “device storage,” you will find things like this. And this is FINE. But I want something that orients the devices horizontally rather than vertically. Why? Nobody knows. I just do.

Such a thing is surprisingly difficult to find. It dawned on me that I don’t need something specific for devices; we already have a way to plug each device in, and there are only three of them, so I can’t imagine the cords getting terribly tangled. I realized that what I was envisioning was really one of those filing stands that people put on their desks to sort ingoing and outgoing mail.

Less difficult to find, but surprisingly expensive.

This one is okay, but it seems overly expensive for what it is. I also sort of worry that it might tip forward with the weight of the laptop?

This one is cheap, but it’s also quite boring, and its sturdiness is questionable. I suppose a device shelf that lives inside a cupboard doesn’t have to be nice looking.

In terms of utilitarian sturdiness, this one gets high marks, but it is definitely too expensive for what it is.

I like this one, and I don’t think it would tip over at all. But it’s a little bulky for something that will live inside a cupboard.

Suffice it to say, I have not purchased any sort of device holder. YET.

Sometimes I charge Lenny’s robot ball (which is technically part of this toy) in the garage, which gives him extra justification for checking things out.

Some questions for you:

  • Do you have a storage garage in your house? If so, what does it store?
  • Where do you/your family members keep devices when they aren’t in use?
  • How long until this tidy space devolves into squalor once more?
by

Three Things Thursday

I have an exciting day of errands and a home improvement project with my dad and physical therapy in front of me, but I’m having a very hard time getting going. Here are three things on my mind.

Meeting People Never Gets Easier: No matter how old I get, I never find it easier to meet people. In advance of the meeting, I get SO NERVOUS. Like, cannot focus on anything else nervous. If I lose track of the time for five minutes and then realize that I haven’t looked at my watch to ensure I’m not late, my heart drops into my stomach nervous. And then during the meeting of the people, I feel like I vacillate WILDLY between trying so hard to Be Myself that I forget entirely what that is/feels like, and trying too hard in general that I come across as completely unhinged. Am I making too much eye contact? Am I laughing too loudly? Why am I trying to be funny when I am not funny and also this new person has no context for my sense of humor? Am I gesturing with my hands too much? Why did I say that? I feel like I should prepare a Suzanne Briefing Pamphlet to hand out to new acquaintances, so that they know I am 100% always this awkward, but the awkwardness will smooth out (at least a little bit) (I hope) over time.

How Does She Do It? I ran into a neighbor at the grocery store the other day. I was in athletic clothes and tennis shoes, I had brushed my hair and washed my face but didn’t have a lick of makeup on. She was wearing an adorable outfit, had a full face of makeup, and looked like she was ready to star in a commercial for that grocery store or perhaps accept a nomination to become the patron saint of motherhood. She is one of the most genuinely nice people I have ever met, she is involved at her kids’ school, and she has five children. (The oldest is Carla’s age.) Listen. I know comparison is dumb and useless. And also, I want to know HOW??? Like, what does her morning look like, that she has time to get five children off to school, but also has time to make her hair look like that and do her makeup and choose the cutest outfit? I feel like you are going to say prioritization, but also, that can’t be the only explanation???? There are occasions when I need to be presentable first thing in the morning, and I manage it, but just barely. The most recent time I put on Real Clothes and makeup (and by “makeup” I mean mascara and eye balm), we left the house fifteen minutes late. I wake up at 5:30! I don’t even exercise or shower in the morning! All I do is tend to the cat, make and drink tea, wake up my child, make breakfast, pester my child to get out of bed/get dressed/eat breakfast, throw on some exercise clothes and do the bare minimum of hair/skin/dental care. Maybe this other mom’s kids actually get out of bed when she wakes them up, and maybe she doesn’t make them breakfast, maybe she is always fifteen minutes late, and maybe her husband is also helping with Morning Stuff? I know they don’t have a cat, but THAT CANNOT BE THE RATE LIMITING FACTOR. I’m not even jealous. I’m just perplexed. Okay, I’m also jealous. But I really want to know HOW.

Cleaning Project Success(es): I finished my Big Cleaning and Organization Project this week. It took seven hours and resulted in five enormous black trash bags full of trash. There is still a clothing organization element I have yet to complete. I find that memoirs are the ideal content for me whilst undertaking projects of this nature, and I listened to The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop and unSweetined by Jody Sweetin while I worked. Both books were narrated by the authors, which I loved. I enjoyed them both immensely. (I also tried both You Never Know by Tom Selleck and Paris by Paris Hilton, but they didn’t do it for me so I moved on.) After I’d shut the door on the clothing aspect of my big project, I undertook a smaller cleaning project: my desk. Somehow – probably because I tend to sit in my cozy armchair to do any actual writing – my desk becomes a repository for all manner of things, from receipts to coupons to things I need to return and books and old Halloween decorations and wrapping paper and bat mitzvah invitations and more. It had gotten to the point of overflow that my cat would knock multiple things onto the floor every single time he jumped up onto it. Often in the middle of night, jarring me from sleep with a pounding heart until I realized the sound that had awakened me was not a murderer but Lenny displacing a box of highlighters and handful of carpet samples. Anyway, it was time to clean it and clean it I did. Shall we place bets on how long it takes before my desk is once again overcome with stuff?

Okay, that’s all I’ve got. I am going to go put on makeup and Real Clothes and do the things I need to do.

by

Seven on a Saturday

The weather report SWEARS we will have sunshine this weekend, but so far the only sun I’ve seen was this past Thursday. It’s early yet, but the clouds are not filling my heart with hope. The pervasive grey is inspiring nothing but an intense desire to curl up in bed and read murder mysteries, but let’s try some random bullet points and see what comes of it. 

  • A Little Light Shopping. Speaking of my unending desire to read: I continue to buy new books while simultaneously continuing to reread Sophie Hannah’s Culver Valley mystery series, which I already own. (I am on Book 10, The Next to Die, out of 11 so far.) My husband is baffled by my insistence on reading old books when I have so many shiny new ones to hand. But it makes sense to me. I get to indulge in a series I adore (I am finding that I am enjoying these all on a reread even more than I did the first time, although I do find myself weary of Charlie and Simon’s relationship). Plus, I get to fill my book shelves with happy little treats to look forward to. Best of all worlds! 
  • Light Therapy. I went outside for a walk four days this week, which is more than I’ve been able to muster lately. I KNOW that being outside, in the fresh air, surrounded by birdsong and trees, boosts my mental health. But sometimes it’s just HARD to do the thing. My parents go for a walk outside pretty much every single day, rain or shine or snow or sleet, and that’s deeply inspiring to me. But STILL. Wanting to do the thing, knowing the thing is good for me and will make me feel better, does not always lead to Doing The Thing. 

Thursday, we had actual honest-to-goodness sun and I made sure to take advantage of it. I walked around my neighborhood and came upon an older woman walking ahead of me. She was all bundled up in a winter jacket and gloves, hood pulled up over her hair. I tried to do all the things I could think of to alert her of my presence – scraping my feet on the gravel, coughing – but when she turned around (I was still a good ten feet behind her) she jumped and said “Oh!” in a startled way. I apologized for scaring her and we chatted for a few minutes. During which time she told me I needed to COVER UP. (I was wearing long pants and a long-sleeved sweatshirt; it was nearly 50 degrees.) Turns out she was concerned not about cold but about skin cancer, about which I am not cavalier, I promise. But I also need those sun rays to soak into my skin and stimulate all that yummy vitamin D production (I have no idea what I’m talking about, just to be clear). I assured her I was wearing sunscreen but I probably should be better about wearing a hat to protect my scalp. 

  • Light Switches: My dad and I replaced some faulty light switches this week, which is one of those projects that feels SO thrilling to complete. It was surprisingly easy, once I got past the fear of electrocuting myself. (We turned off the power before we opened things up; I hope that is obvious.) Our next project will be to install some light fixtures in the furnace room, which is bafflingly lightless. To that end, one of my purchases this week was a roll of copper wiring. My future as an electrician grows ever closer.
  • Fake Light. I have been encouraged by a trusted professional to look into buying myself a light therapy lamp. This does not mean I have been diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder – I have not; and when I looked at the reviews of SAD lamps she sent me, I became perhaps overly concerned by the stern warning that only people who have SAD or who are under direction from a medical professional should use one of these lamps. And then a friend, who recently HAS been diagnosed with SAD, said she just started using a light therapy lamp and is having awful side effects – headaches and sleep loss. So now I don’t know what to do. Should I buy this lamp and hope for the best??? Or ramp up my efforts to be outside every day?
  • Lumos! While we’re apparently on the inexhaustible topic of lighting, one of my favorite things are the smart plugs my husband installed on all of our lamps. I can either ask Siri to turn on the lights or use my phone to turn them on, and it’s delightful. So I can be finished reading in bed and just say, sleepily, “Siri, turn off my bedroom lights” and the lamps will extinguish. Or I can be carrying my book and a full mug of tea down the hall and call out to the Echo in the kitchen, “Siri, turn on my office light” and it will be on when I reach my comfy chair. It makes me feel a teeny bit like I live in Hogwarts. 
  • Light of My Life: My husband, daughter, and I went out to dinner recently, and Carla was enamored with the paintings on the wall. She insisted on taking my phone so she could preserve her memory of the paintings for infinity. (She will never look at these photos again.) She is such a delight. 

I am off to meet a friend, which is one of the best ways to illuminate these cloudy days; the prospect of seeing her has been a bright beacon to get me through yet another gloomy week. 

I hope your weekend is full of light in many forms.