Meltdown…

Yeah, I know I haven’t blogged in awhile, I’m starting to get letters.

So I’d like to think that this past year, difficult as it has been, I’ve managed to navigate it with grace, humor and shear determination.  I’ve had my house overrun with contractors since last fall, cleaned out more sh*t than a human being should ever have (and I’ve barely made a dent), reclaimed spaces as my own, and tried hard to keep a smile.

Until this week.  I got off a plane Saturday morning after a sleepless flight home on the red eye from Seattle.  I knew going into this that my painting contractor had electrical difficulties and the east wall of the kitchen was out and what I didn’t know at the time was so were the ponds.  I knew I’d have to call in an electrician.  I also knew that my ethernet to my office computer was starting to act up again, and that I had probably a hundred emails that would have to be attended to and navigated before I got on a plane Friday morning for Vegas for a two day workshop.  My  landscape contractors had come in my absence and started the major overhaul of my gardens.  Some of this is timing, especially weather, and availability.

Running on no sleep, I will say I had a lovely Mother’s Day with my children, and my newly painted kitchen looked fresh and clean.  My daughter spent Friday as I was flying home trying to reorganize everything so I’d walk into usable kitchen.  And I did.  And I’m really really grateful.

And then everything went south.  Electrician contractor was able to come Monday, find an obscure GFCI circuit in the basement that had tripped for some reason and restore power to my east wall and figure out that the outlet in my studio that apparently wasn’t working, which I discovered the week before when I pulled out a wall unit to access it, was never in fact hooked up.

And then the dog got sick.  Kennel cough. It is a virus, sort of like the flu, just has to run its course, rarely happens especially with vaccinations, but  it did, and I had a pretty miserable dog on my hands.  And I have to board them again tomorrow for the weekend while I’m in Vegas.

And then yesterday morning, I had my annual mammogram/sonogram and a decascan.  I had cancer 15 years ago, I cannot go through this annual ritual without some angst.  And I have two friends who’ve lost their husbands about the same time my husband died, and they were both diagnosed with breast cancer and we buried one of them a couple of weeks ago.  Haunted is a better word.  Yes, I’m stressed.  Until I get that call that all is well, I’m stressed.  I admit it.

There is the other looming issue, pun intended, that this time last year was the beginning of the end.  I was in the Pacific Northwest teaching when everything went to hell in that proverbial handbasket.  I was with many of the same people as word started to come in that things were not OK with my husband.  Did I mention that haunted is an appropriate word?

And then there were the ethernet problems.  I was holding on, sleepless and concerned for my coughing dog, until I could not address the 100 emails that needed my attention, orders, contracts,  and to top it off, the final edits for two articles I have written for two different magazines.  Both had complicated issues, and I couldn’t do any of it.  I couldn’t follow up on anything, I couldn’t send out information, all I could do was answer people temporarily on my cell phone email access, inadequate when you are having conversations with editors.  My tech guy came yesterday and spent four hours, tracing the problem to a frayed wire in a switch, and everything worked fine for about two hours and then my ethernet went haywire again.  The difficulty was my internet/WIFI worked fine.  My office system does not use WIFI for many reasons, though I’m in the process of correcting that for emergency purposes.  My office system is hardwired and has always been.  

I was a cranky bitch yesterday.  I have house guests on top of everything.  Someone I adore who will love me in spite of everything.  I am really grateful that all my contractors and my friend, and my son gave me space to grieve and be pissed, exhausted, and  cranky.  

I had a feeling a couple months ago, that the ethernet cable that fed my office needed to be replaced.  My tech guy would always find a culprit and fix it and things would work OK for awhile.  This time, though he thought he found a solution, it was pretty clear to me that the entire cable needed to be replaced.  I had checked the garage below my office, trying to figure out how the wire was run through the ceiling of the garage and wondering how the hell we were going to rerun the wire and what alternatives I had.  This morning at 6am I was woken up by my late husband, I kid you not, who kept telling me, the cable goes up to the attic, don’t you remember, we ran it together.  I spent the morning tracing the line, up the northwall, across both attics, (you don’t want to know the amount of sh*t up there that I haven’t even begun to deal with) and down the south wall of the house, 140 feet.  Everytime I would lose site of the cable, a voice would tell me to look up, look under or look ahead.  The joy I felt when I traced it to the switch box in the basement was just the best.  I did it.  I found it.

Tech guy came back after lunch today.  I told him that we were rerunning the cable.  It was 90 degrees today in North Jersey.  It was about 115 in the attic.  He wasn’t happy, but I was the client and he had no other solution.  So up in the attic we went, I climbed over everything into the corners, and guided 140 feet of cable down through two walls, across two attics while he pulled from the other ends, one end went to the basement and the other to my office.  Turns out the original cable was co-axial, 24 gauge wire, state of the art at the time, but totally inadequate for speeds and data demands in 2017.  It seems to have worked.  I’m overjoyed that in spite of spending an hour this afternoon in 115 degree heat, we did it.  I kept picturing myself in a sauna. People actually pay for that.  I just kept breathing.  We re-ran a new line and my system is running at full speed and I’m happy.  

The shining part of the whole day yesterday was the landscape contractor who moved about 50 mature bushes and began the transformation from out of control gardens to something beautiful I can actually manage.  He did a magnificent job, mowed my lawn and I walk outside and smile.  Except it was 90 degrees today.  And 92 tomorrow.  So I have to hand water 50 transplants and hope they survive, knowing I’m leaving Friday and there is nothing more for me to do.  They will live or they won’t.  I’m doing the best that I can.  

So I had a melt down yesterday.  I’m not proud, but I have good people around me and lots of support.  And I got through it.  The dog is about 90 percent better.  The plants are mostly still alive, the ethernet works, the electricity in my studio and the east wall of the kitchen and the ponds work, and the only issue I’m having is my freaking website and shop are down.  Really?  We are working on a long term fix, obviously moving everything to a more reliable hosting company, but trying to decide how I want to have my shop moving forward, whether to keep printing my monographs, maybe start a video download, 99 cents for a video of a technique, lot of ideas, we will see where it takes me.  The important thing for me is that the information doesn’t die with me.  I’m seeing so many of my peers retire, or die, and that information is lost, I am too much of a teacher to let that happen.  

And so, thank you dear readers for your patience, I’m sorry there are no pictures, I’ll follow this blog with the great photos of the Whatcom Weavers Guild and my five day adventure with them.  Meanwhile, the dog is healing, my friend and her husband are here and wonderful, my office system has steady internet, the voice of my deceased husband has quieted down, and my gardens are gorgeous.  I look out over the balcony and I want to cry, happy tears.  It was a challenging week, but Friday morning I’m hoping to get on a plane and head to Vegas and teach an inkle weaving class.  I fly home Monday night on my 62nd birthday. I’m hoping the new gazebo will be installed by painting contractor.   I’ll be OK.

Stay tuned…