Why is it I never remember that I said I am not going to do something again, until I am partway through doing what I said I wasn’t going to do again?
Over the weekend I began my flooring project in the basement. The analysis paralysis solved, I’ve purchased flooring and opened the first box. Crack. No that wasn’t the flooring, that was my joints as I attempted to put together floor pieces.
My brain thought back to when I completed the master bedroom flooring a couple years ago when (filtering out expleatives) I said “I’m never doing this again. I’ll hire someone next time.” Famous last words.
Installing flooring is a good distraction from stressful times. Years ago, a friend told me the best way to clear his head when the creative process was blocked was to mow the lawn.
There was an interview I heard on CBC Radio recently where a researcher said they were looking at how sleep or distracting work allows your brain to think more complicated problems through. That’s why the phrase “sleep on it” usually yields positive results. Good idea, but who needs sleep to know that there are some things your talents are better suited for?
I recently had to step my toes back into a former career in the IT world. The death of a friend in Montreal required his friends (myself included) to scramble to help fix some technical issues for his clients. Stressful indeed. I left (fled) this world of ones and zeros to the calm world of alpha-numeric characters about six years ago. As I left this career, running for the hills, I shouted “I’m not doing this again. I’ll hire someone next time.”
The “fascinating” world of domain names and IP-addresses, DNS servers and co-location is more fitting for an episode of The Big Bang Theory than this column. At least I think it would be. I’ve never watched the show. Suffice it to say that diving into ones and zeros again reaffirmed my return to the journalism profession.
Back to the flooring. I’ve been tackling a box per night at the pace of the Johnny Cash song “One piece at a time” except my wife won’t let me get away with a 22-year build on this floor.
Installing flooring is much like building Lego, except Lego fits together well, and flooring does not – at least not for me.
It doesn’t help that the room has an irregular shape. The great expressions of the English language can be heard from the basement of Casa del Blancher when I am crawling around tapping floor pieces into place. Okay maybe not great… colourful maybe?
To distract myself from the flooring project and the IT projects – in other words starting another project to never quite finish – I replaced the ceiling fan in our dining room. Or at least I tried to. I bought the model up from what I wanted: it had more bells and whistles like a remote. Great I thought, this should be easy.
I’m not sure if I wired something incorrectly or if I bought a dud. Either way, I have a very expensive night light, and no working fan. A call to the warranty department is in order.
It may be time to invest in some signs around the house to remind myself to not take on certain projects. The signs will read: “I’m not doing this again, I’ll hire someone next time.”