rhondasue2

I was working on organizing my studio space, and then the basement flooded. The good news is that there was less to clean up since I had been working on the space already, but the bad news is that there was still a lot of crap in the basement to deal with – soggy furniture, soggy boxes, mildew, ruined artwork. It is depressing as hell, to even go down there let alone create art in that environment. I did get major help from the kids, however, and it only cost me frozen pizza and all the change that came out of the soggy couch. This is definitely one of those times it feels overwhelming and lonely to be a single mom.
Another project that has taken forever is hanging cabinets in my studio. I went to home depot to rent a tool to drill holes in the cement wall, and they gave me a gun (!) complete with gunpowder charges to shoot nails in the wall. It was effectively intimidating and really quite cool, but it didn’t work.
The next tool that I rented was a percussive drill. Four hours and four holes later I gave up on the drill. I was imagining paying someone to drill a hole an hour, and decided that this was really not the tool that a professional hole driller would use!
The next tool I rented was a giant hammer drill with a bit at least a foot long. The tool rental guy (why is it always a guy?) said that the first tools were not the right ones.”That will never work for drilling into concrete…..You’ll burn out the motor using that!” He assured me that tool number three would work. What happened to “you can do it, we can help”? I thought I was going to cry at home depot, I was so frustrated. Maybe the “we can help” should refer to an in-store therapist specializing in construction issues! I needed one.
The final outcome is that though the basement smells pretty musty, there is a lot less stuff to contend with, tool number three worked, and I may have a somewhat workable space if I work at it diligently for another week.
Progress like a glacier – It doesn’t feel like you’re getting anywhere, but when you look back you actually are going somewhere, if only downhill!