New Start Next Week

I got the key to the dance/art studio space today, but the owner still needs to do some more work removing things from the smaller room before I can claim the space as my own.  By this time next week I will be in it, getting to know it and bringing my art stuff into it.  I got the camper toilet and I'm getting a cheap camper kitchen set up on Friday and I now have two ceramic heaters to heat the space.  So I'll be roughing it a bit, but I'm sure I'll get used to it pretty quickly.  I'll have a lot of sweeping to do and if I can clear my clogged vacuum cleaners, I will vacuum, too.  But first the electricity needs to be turned on.

It's been off since December 2012, so an electrical inspector came today and gave me the thumbs up, so the electricity might be on by the end of the week.  Luckily, we're having pretty warm weather for this area at the time of year, mid 50s.  I'm just hoping it will last till after Thanksgiving, which will give me a few days to bring over my main easel and a whole bunch of other stuff, most of which is not too heavy.  I have a long list.  I have a small refrigerator, an extra microwave and an extra coffeemaker machine.

I bought 8 cheap chairs and 8 cheap display easels to use for drawing if I set up a sketch group.  I've been doing research looking for the best out of the cheapest things I can get for this space because I just don't have the money to get the great stuff.  It all adds up...  I will be spending a chunk of my inheritance.  If I work hard and am fortunate I will make that money back with a bit of a profit if I start a business in 6 to 9 months.  It will take 2-3 years, but I could do it.  I will also be working on improving my house, so that I can possibly rent the upstairs and live downstairs using the heated garage as an extra room.

I have to pull up all the crappy carpet myself, which will be hard, dirty work.  First I have to clear out as much stuff as I can from the upstairs and store it either downstairs or in the smaller room of the rental space.  I don't have a lot of truly big, heavy furniture, so I might be able to do it myself.  Or I might have to get past my insecurity and ask for help.  I will also check out YouTube which is an amazing video resource library.  My cats will have to stay downstairs while I work, which I think will be fine once I've cleared out and organized the garage.  It's a part of the house I don't allow them in, so they will have a blast checking it out.

The first thing to take care of is my garage and I've worked on it a couple of days this week.  Once it is cleared, swept and organized I can paint the walls.  Probably just with primer to start but that should lighten up the space.  Then I can bring my music equipment into the garage and set up a tiny studio so I can continue to work on songs and sing.  So I'm figuring by mid to late January the house should be looking pretty good and then my friend can visit for a few days and get a feel for the house and the town and the surrounding country and see if she likes it enough to move here for a while.  She'll be coming during the hardest season, mid winter.  If she can like it then, she'll really like it when it gets warmer.

So I've got two jobs to do in two months, the home job and the studio job.  Can I do it?  Right now I feel as if I can if I pace myself.  I'm praying that it's not going to be a very snowy winter with temperatures dipping below zero, but even if it were, I think I could manage.  The studio is only a ten minutes drive away.  When I can't work in the studio because of the weather, then I can work at home, including making some tie dyes.  I have to test out all the dyes I got 7 years ago.  They've never been opened, but they have been sitting in a dark, but heated garage.  I'm getting a 3 DVD instructional set to walk me through how to set up in my garage.  The laundry room/kitchenette area is adjacent to the garage, so I'll have easy access to a double sink, a washer and a dryer.

I've been feeling pretty good lately working with all these plans.  It's been rather quiet in my mind, too.  It's like pre-work quiet time, not pressured, a time to prepare for a lot of activity.  But still, I have to pace myself and keep the balance, neither overdoing nor doing too little.  Next week is Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday, but I don't know if I'm going to celebrate it this year, except for getting myself a turkey breast, making up some stuffing, cooking some green beans and eating some pumpkin pie at home.  My brother will be making a feast for one of his friends.  Last year was the first year in a while that my brother hasn't prepared the Thanksgiving meal at my house because I was just too mentally ill at the time to handle it and now I just don't want anyone in my house till after I've worked on it.

Not much more to say right now, except that my life seems to be shifting into a new direction.  We shall see how far I get in a month, before Christmas comes.  I'll try to continue posting here as I make progress.