The case for low expectations

Yesterday was not a particularly great day.

The work continues at the house. A carpet crew was coming to finish the playroom — a room that was originally going to be carpeted a month ago, but due to some under-measuring, and thus under-ordering, was not. They were to come between 9 and 10, but somehow wound up at the wrong house, and did not arrive until 11 or so. I had been looking out the window every 10 minutes trying to find them, since the doorbell isn’t working. Then in the afternoon, some furniture was supposed to be delivered between 1:30 and 3:30. To make sure I found that crew, I was also looking out the window every 10 minutes, hopping up to make sure they would get to the right door. They never came. They claimed to have knocked on my door for 20 minutes, but it wasn’t my house, because out of morbid curiosity I reviewed the outside security camera footage and, nope. Dispatch confirmed the address, so I have no idea what happened.

Anyway, all this was pretty frustrating, as my entire day was taken up with these waiting windows, and at the end of the day, I still didn’t have the furniture.

On the other hand, in the few minutes in between checking for trucks, I at least knocked a bunch of smaller tasks off my list. I managed to write/edit all my weekly Before Breakfast scripts. I worked on podcast notes for Best of Both Worlds. I answered a few time log emails (I am now approximately halfway through the emails I received on January 17th, so I guess that’s progress?) I edited and turned in a book review. I worked with my TBT statistician on updating some numbers. My expectation was that I was going to get nothing done, so with that as the baseline, I kept thinking well, let’s see if I can do a little something. Several somethings add up to a bigger something. Not a full workday, but something.

And then to try to cheer myself up, I put a few little treats into the day. My teenager is taking finals, and only had one yesterday, which was done by 9:30. So we ordered lunch together from a local Asian fusion place (chicken dumplings and rice for him, sushi for me). I watched the sunset from my bedroom window. I took a short soak in my tub. I read in front of the fireplace at night (so nice to be able to turn on a fireplace with a remote control!)

And now today is another day. We have a wallpaper crew here, but they arrived exactly when they said they would, and there are no furniture delivery windows. Some day this house will be done. The kitchen is almost box free at this point! It helped the process when I declared something a “drawer for stuff that has no other home.” Maybe every room needs one of those…

Photo: A clock. I know I have used this before but I’m trying to get this posted before a call and so I am re-using art. 

 

4 thoughts on “The case for low expectations

  1. Absolutely, those drawers are called ‘orphan’ drawers then if they can gather enough ‘family’ of like things they can be moved to a designated space. Everything needs to ‘live’ somewhere. So in awe of how you are coping positively with your Massive Move.

  2. I’m a firm believer in the kitchen “junk” drawer for all of the bits and pieces that you know you will want but just don’t have a home.

    Glad you are slowly settling in. Moving is such a job!

  3. Congratulations on your new house, Laura. I’m doing some redecorating; any recommendations on best places to buy furniture? thanks

  4. My symapthies! I soooooo do not love the flakiness of most trades people! Also infuriating when they say they were at your house, and it’s an obvious… well, at best it’s a misunderstanding, and at worst an outright lie.

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