I don’t know why, but I feel like this year has really challenged me more than any year before. Every year at this time I find myself longing for the end-of-year break, but this year I feel like I’m crawling toward the finish line, completely parched and gasping for air. This year just feels different than others.
Overall, I know I am close to completing our bedroom suite. Since I’m so close to the finish line, should I am highly motivated to complete this project. And even though I’ve been working every day and making progress, I feel like I’m reluctant to do so. Never in my life have I felt like I needed an extended vacation away from our home, but as you know, given our situation (or more specifically, Matt’s situation), that’s not even possible.
That’s why I decided to take a longer break at the end of the year this year. I know that’s quite a shame as it leaves us all on a bit of a cliffhanger. That is not my intention. I’m not trying to be like the writers of a television show who intentionally leave viewers on a cliffhanger at the end of a season and make them wait until the next season to see if their favorite character died or managed to make it out alive.
But of course there is no way for me to finish our bedroom before the end of the year. So I decided to finish this week and then take a two week break (instead of my regular one week break) before continuing in the new year.
I’ve made a lot of progress this year that I’m really proud of. I’ll do a final review of this year in a rare Saturday post in two days. I looked through my list of goals for this year to see how much I had accomplished and was actually very happy with my progress this year. So I think after a two week break I’ll be ready to get going again.
I won’t be taking a complete project break during my break. I don’t think I could go two weeks without a creative outlet, and working on projects is my creative outlet. But I would also like a little more time to focus on things I haven’t had much time for this year, like making jewelry or maybe finding a fun art project to work on. I need some small, fun, easy projects that aren’t necessarily related to our bedroom suite.
So I’m going to finish up this week and try to get as much of the bedroom work done as possible. Today I plan to do as much of the curtain work as I can. And then that was it for me until Monday, January 5th. And then in the new year, I pick up right where I left off, with the bedroom, finish it, and then move on to the next project. For me, this will be the studio bathroom – a project that was abandoned a while ago when I planned to convert it into a walk-in pantry.
But now that our plans for this area have changed, I need to finish this bathroom. So this will be the first project I focus on after the bedroom suite is finished.
In the meantime, my contractor will be working on converting the hallway bathroom into a storage room, and I’m sure that will require some work on my part as well after everything is removed, new drywall is installed, and the water heater is installed there.
So these are the first projects I have planned for early next year after I take a much needed two week break. But for the next two days I’m going to focus as much as possible on the bedroom suite. I hope to have at least two of the bedroom curtains finished and hanging by the end of the day. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that today is a productive day!
