Merry Christmas

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Wow, December has been a crazy time for me. My life has been overrun with things other than scrapbooking and creating. Well, there has been a little creativity but it has involved many hours of house renovation. This is why I have been MIA from the crafting World. I have been playing with paint and tools but it has been house paint.

We have been expecting the arrival of long lost family visitors for the silly season after my husband invited them several weeks ago. Well, you know what happens when people you don’t know are coming to stay…you panic! Yep, first, you have deep discussions with the invitee about: What were you thinking?, Where are they going to sleep?, Where is our family (our four children and their partners) going to sleep? Um…we don’t have a bathroom! The bathroom had been stripped for renovation and we had been using our ensuite for aeons. Plus, little incidental things like…there is no bed for them too sleep in, no bedding, etc.

Now, our house is 24 years old with 24 yr old paint, and all the other things houses collect over 24 years (including things with 8 legs). To us, it is comfy and colourful, we are used to the many little bits and bothers a country house which has housed a family of six collects, but to others, it may be viewed differently. In my panic mode, I’m thinking that city folk from elsewhere may not see the charm.

So, hubby’s response was don’t worry, they are coming to see us, they won’t care about the state of the house or where they sleep. Then, he steps over the line and mentions the most sacred space in the house. “If you didn’t have two bedrooms filled with art supplies, etc., they would have somewhere to sleep!”. Woah, I’m going to let you imagine how the rest of that conversation went.

To be honest, he did have a point. I do have two bedrooms of the house, one is my art/craft studio and the other is an office/storeroom for all the paraphernalia which you collect as an Art Specialist and Teacher (of everything). However, there was no way I was able to give up these spaces, where would everything go? How would I ever keep my sanity, if I couldn’t create? Not happening, nope, no way!

Anyway, for weeks I have been scrubbing, fixing, repairing and painting. I have developed new skills, such as I can now damp proof a concrete floor and I can assemble new bunk beds using an Allen key. All of this happening while still working/teaching, writing student reports, dealing with hyped up teenagers who can smell the holidays. Then there is the Christmas shopping and cooking, buying curtains, quilts, mattresses, etc. You get the idea. So, have I stepped into the most sacred space? Nope, not for a month, unless I needed sticky tape to wrap presents.

Bring on the New Year I say when life will return to some sense of normality and I can have some me time. I am aching to get back into scrapbooking, I cannot wait to play with ink and paint, fussy cut out flowers, and use reams of paper. I’m making a list and checking it twice…