March 10 on 10 (okay 10 on the 12th)

Irritating Monday!

Sorry, I LOATH Daylight Savings, it throws me off for an entire week. I'm sure it made tons of sense when we were largely an agrarian nation but now that we have these wonderful things called "electric lights" it seems like we could let it go... BUT NO. No use whining (even though I just did), let's do this month's 10 on 10 instead.

10 on 10 is a project with the fabulous Carly Robertson of The Simple Things blog. I want my closets to look like hers.

Actually, this month it's more than ten and it's on the twelfth but why be technical.

So, my sweet blog friend Maria posted a comment the other day that I just had to talk about. (I'm about to single you out Maria.) Her blog is Jamie Says Dream and it's absolutely lovely, you should have a look, she's on my blogroll too. Anyway. Maria said "I can tell you have lots of energy, I feel like a snail in comparison! :-)" and I thought, "Oh my, no, no, no, that's not true at all." and I became worried that I was giving you all a very wrong impression.

I read that to Hun and he started laughing.... and he kept laughing.... waaaaaay beyond what I thought was an appropriate time to be amused (I had to pinch him. He stopped laughing). He was laughing because that day I didn't actually get going until noon, I had to go shopping but I was in a bad mood so I grabbed something sugary at every stop. By the time I got home I had eaten a Cadbury Creme Egg, a bag of Twizzlers and had drank a Coke so I spent the rest of the day in a glucose stupor before giving up and going to bed.

Actually that's not true, in the evening Hun said "I'm tired of tripping over all of those boxes, if you lay on the bed you can tell me what to put in them so I can get them out of the way." So I draped myself over Lu's still unfinished pouf, which was in the middle of our bed, and gave Hun directions. THEN I went to bed.

The truth is that I always have TONS of stuff that I'm working on. What I don't have are many things that I am finishing or even making progress on. If you look very carefully at this blog, you will notice that there are lots of things that I tell you I'm working on but there are almost no "afters." That's because I started them, and I'm still working on them.

So this 10 on 10 I thought I'd show you all of the stuff I have going on and tell you how long it's been in the works. This should neatly put any thoughts that I am an energetic "get it done" kinda gal to rest, permanently.

Oh, I should add that I took some of these in a hurry and it shows...

1. THE CLOSET PROJECT:
Time Elapsed: Two months
Time left: probably three months
This was our horrible, icky kitchen closet. It is also the last wall of our kitchen that needs finishing. Top left: the unweeded "before." Bottom: all the junque that was in it (except Maisy, she's not junque). Top right: the weeded version.

After we got it weeded it was time to tear it out, so here is that project (I'm counting these as the same):

Clockwise from top left: the weeded "before," without walls, electric in place, the stuff to finish the wall.


Now we have drywall... well, it's in progress. 
That closet is going to have a built-in office space in it, (at the rate we do things it'll probably sometime next year).


2. Organizing Our Closet (part of Our Room project)
Time Elapsed: two years
Time left: three months
We've been working on our room for about two years and we are close to finishing (you would hope after two years, right?) The closet is part and parcel with that.

On the left: the "before" lovely right? Top right: putting Kassett boxes together. Botton right: a big pile 'o boxes and wrappers.

Here are the boxes with stuff in them... this in not the "after" because the rest of the room looks pretty much the same. No, we don't have doors yet. Who needs doors? If I were Carly, Jen, or Benita, these boxes would be labeled and in neat rows.

3. Tabletop Photography Class
Time Elapsed: one week
Time to finish: three weeks (I'm actually on time with this one, it's amazing what paying for something will do to motivate you.
This week was all about lighting. We had to take a picture of one object in twelve different kinds of light. This is "soft diffuse, side lit" This class is AWESOME!

4. The Dumb Pouf
Total Elapsed: five months
Total time left: this week (finger's crossed)
 When we last met the dumb pouf it needed to be resewn and restuffed. It has since been resewn by my mum and partially restuffed by me. I have to cram two more bags of stuffing into it and hand sew it closed. I'm going to do it this week... no really.

5. Lucie's Room
Time Elapsed: Two Years
Time Left: hopefully fifteen days
We are SO CLOSE on Lu's room. This is one of her Roman Shades that my mum started sewing for her. I have to finish sewing little rings onto them, thread the cords, make the batten board, affix it to the wall, add the cleats, insert the dowels... OK, there's a lot left to do, but we're still close. I am DYING to have one room DONE. It'll be Lu's very soon.

Oh, I also have to open one of the shades up and replace the dowel that my mum put in. I walked straight through a door holding the shade in front of me, the dowel caught on both sides of the frame and snapped. It was a moment of pure brilliance on my part (go me!) Hun's comment: "I saw that coming."

6. J's Blog Design
Total Time Elapsed: One Month
Total Time Left: Six Weeks (I promise, J, I really do)
This is the design board that I'm working on for J. It's to help me see the all of the elements that comprise her vision. It's one of projects that I will be working on this week. Hopefully, J will let me blog about the process.



7. My Great Grandma's Dresser
Time Elapsed: One Year
Time Left: One Month
This is going to get its own post one day. I started refinishing my Great Grandma Beckwith's dresser about a year ago. I put it out on my deck and got all of the paint off of it. But then I left it out there, partially covered, for about two months until Hun gently reminded me that rain is not good for wood furniture. So it went into the basement for another while and I finally got the first coat of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint on it today ( I'll review that sometime too) I would be celebrating my progress more, but all of the drawers are left. You can see a tiny picture of them in the lower right corner. It's a bad pic in my dark, ugly basement. The color is actually really pretty.

8. Organizing Lu's Room
Time Elapsed: two months
Time left: I just have to go and do it for crying out loud!
Well, there are all of the baskets. Lucie filled them but they aren't exactly right. You already saw my haul from Target and in the corner is a pic from the stuff from IKEA. I just have to do it... Juuuuuust haaaaaaave toooooo dooooooo iiiiiiiit.... *hypnosis voice* "Yoooooou aaaaare geeetiiing sleeeeepy, yooooou waaaant toooo orgaaaaanize heeeer rooooooom." Nope, it's not working.

9. Homework from InDesign Class

Time Elapsed: four days

Total time left: maybe one, it was due yesterday.

OK, in my defense I decided to start the class four days after it began so I am playing catch-up. Still, I'm kinda stuck. I'm making sets of calling cards for five different kiddos. It's not there yet and I have four more styles to go. Oh, if the owner of that name and number remains silent no one will know exactly who it is and what area code that starts with... Oh and "Surprise!"

(I removed the InDesign photo per the owner of the phone number's request)

10. Lu's Room woodwork
Time Elapsed: this is getting depressing
Time remaining: GET OFF MY BACK WOULD YOU!
Woodwork, again, we're close... we have been... My friend Missy just recommended a guy who does woodwork today. I might have hope again.

11. Heather B Design
Time Lapsed: at least a year
Time Remaining: I have no idea.
See how it says "March 9th?" BWAA HAAA HAAA HAAAAAAA. Not gonna happen. I think I'm looking at June. I took lots of classes and I need to focus on those. I will change the sign though. Think of it as "Heather B Design will be updating this sign to say "Reopening in June" by March 19th, 2012. See you then!"

And there you go. Some, not even all, of the projects that I have underway that I am a looooooong way from finishing. See? I'm not superwoman, not my a long shot.

Oh and Maria, I love that you said that, you are so very encouraging! The fact that you and others are actually waiting to see my progress is what keeps me moving forward! If you weren't commenting and letting me know that you're rooting for me, it would take me far, far longer to get anything done, if I did it at all. So THANK YOU!!!! Maybe if you keep saying it, it will come true ;-)

See you tomorrow!
H