WHEN: Fall 2011
WHERE: Time & Space
It's a great time to be Cheeseheads!
We bought ourselves a house!
Owning a home obviously comes with its challenges and responsibilities but it has also afforded Stacie and I some luxuries that we have not been able to enjoy in previous places we have lived. One of my favorite things about owning our home - and a major reason for my blogging absence - is that I HAVE A GARAGE!! Sure, we lived in our house for a year before we bought it, but it was not OUR garage until September 8. Two weekends later I bought the lumber and began building my workshop out in the garage. Since then, I have been out there almost every Saturday, playing with power tools, making sawdust, and just enjoying being "outdoors". It's where I "get my creativity on" (rather than my blog) and it's much more enjoyable than spending another day indoors, staring at a computer screen.
WHERE: Time & Space
That's a question I have been asking myself quite often lately.
I have never been a real active blogger since I began this blog, but I did manage to write new posts at least once or twice a week. I maintained that pace for most of last year and even in to the beginning of 2011. Then summer hit, I got sidetracked, fell behind in my blogging, and....honestly...apathetic towards blogging.
*GASP!*
Apathetic? About blogging? Betrayer!
It's amazing how easily that can become the case. It's happened numerous times since I started this blog and lately apathy has taken over my creative and willful desires to blog. However, apathy is not entirely the reason why I have been so quiet in the blogosphere. Why HAVE I been so quiet as of late?
Is it because you don't take many pictures anymore?
Great question, inquisitive reader! Yes, it's true that I have been shamefully abandoning my camera over the past few months - and I didn't even notice it at first. You may have noticed that I haven't had a Picture of the Week since September. Sure, I haven't been blogging much to even get any POWs published, but even if I wanted to or made the time, I have taken so few pictures this fall that I wouldn't have any pictures for many of those weeks. But there are bigger reasons for my lack of blogging (and perhaps even for my lack of photography).
Is it because you are required to sit at a computer for 8+ hours each day?
Personally, sitting at a desk and staring at a computer for 8 hours each day definitely decreases much of my willpower for and interest in blogging. And it's not rare that I come home from work and sit on the computer for another hour or two doing other work. I spend many more hours a day sitting at a computer than laying in bed. I'd rather lay than sit, wouldn't you? I don't think laying at my desk would be accepted at work, so I spend more time laying at home now (and off my computer).
It takes a lot of willpower to come home, sit at another computer, and conceptualize, create and write a blog post. But I have been sitting at a computer for 8+ hours each day since before I started this blog - and that didn't slow me down before. Instead, like my lack of photography, there have been larger reasons for my blog inactivity.
It takes a lot of willpower to come home, sit at another computer, and conceptualize, create and write a blog post. But I have been sitting at a computer for 8+ hours each day since before I started this blog - and that didn't slow me down before. Instead, like my lack of photography, there have been larger reasons for my blog inactivity.
(The picture above was taken on my last day of work at my job in Norfolk, Virginia. That's why I was able to smile so big.) :)
So, before you go coming up with more excellent guesses for why I have been a blogging mute, how about I just give you the answers?
It's football season and we got ourselves cable!
It's only fitting that Christmas ("The Most Wonderful Time of the Year") occurs during football season. It is the most wonderful sport and if you are Packers fans, it's one of those most wonderful years to be a fan. We only had cable the second year we lived in North Carolina so it in itself is a treat (and a distraction to blogging). Add in the fact that we got service at the beginning of the season (on purpose), and it makes it all the better. Given the year that the Packers are having, it's easy to be distracted from blogging on the weekends.
Stace was beside herself during the NFL season opener on September 8 (Packers vs. Saints). To make it even more exciting, we had closed on our house that afternoon. She was a happy girl that night!
We got our TV the week before the Packers won the Superbowl in February. This year we have been able to watch the whole season in HD. After 8 hours of staring at a computer screen at work, it's been an easy decision on whether to go create a blog post or get lazy on a couch and watch the gridiron competitions.
We bought ourselves a house!
As I already mentioned, we closed on our first house in September. That fact in and of itself has not necessarily kept me from blogging, but it has created new avenues for me to be creative (other than blogging). I never even wrote a post about our first house! That's how bad my blogging has become.
One of my first home projects was installing pulls on all the cabinets in our kitchen. Stace and I picked out the pulls and then she made me do all the labor of installing them. While installing pulls is much harder than it may seem (and I knew going in it would be difficult), I did enjoy doing it and of course I was happy to see Stacie's excitement when they were all finished. It was also exciting and enjoyable because it meant I got to work in my new "workshop" in the garage.
Yep, I done built myself a workshop out in the garage!
Yep, I done built myself a workshop out in the garage!
Owning a home obviously comes with its challenges and responsibilities but it has also afforded Stacie and I some luxuries that we have not been able to enjoy in previous places we have lived. One of my favorite things about owning our home - and a major reason for my blogging absence - is that I HAVE A GARAGE!! Sure, we lived in our house for a year before we bought it, but it was not OUR garage until September 8. Two weekends later I bought the lumber and began building my workshop out in the garage. Since then, I have been out there almost every Saturday, playing with power tools, making sawdust, and just enjoying being "outdoors". It's where I "get my creativity on" (rather than my blog) and it's much more enjoyable than spending another day indoors, staring at a computer screen.
Since our house is a condo, we don't own the land. With landscaping and lawn care taken care of, I am not able/allowed to work on projects in "the yard". This leaves me the garage, and it is there that I am found, usually for a few hours, every Saturday. I have also found that owning a home offers the benefit of more easily convincing your wife that you need more tools. (Think she'll read this?) And with Lowe's less than a mile down the road, it's an overwhelming temptation to visit every Saturday morning and find more lumber and tools to buy. It's like a shoes/clothes/jewelry/chocolate/salon store all rolled into one, but for guys. Stacie has had her hands full keeping me (and my wallet) out of Lowe's this fall.
Supplies for my work bench
Building the frame
My Power Tools Playground
(complete with sawdust, oil stains, and fresh air - what men's dreams are made of)
Building one of my two saw horses
The essentials of a workshop: work bench, saw horses, and basic tools. This is the new medium within which I expend any creative inklings I have - all at the peril of this blog.
Not to mention that our house is directly under one of the main departure routes of Charleston Air Force Base/Airport. We're far enough away that the jet noise is not overbearing but close enough that - in between hammering, drilling and measuring - I can step out to watch a passing plane directly overhead. And in case it's a slow day at the airport, I have my model planes hanging above my work bench to pretend. Saturday mornings are when I trade the desk and computer for fresh air and hobbies.
Charleston Air Force base is home to over sixty C-17 military cargo jets, which are a common site flying over Charleston every day. Just another reason to be outside and away from a computer screen.
Charleston Air Force Base (Google Maps)
Even Stacie has joined me out in the garage, working on her own creative projects. This was a table she found off Craig's List, then painted and distressed. Everything looked great except for the table top. After we sanded and repainted it five times, we gave up and brought it inside.
Now it's front and center for all the football games!
Those are the reasons Jesse doesn't blog anymore. I haven't given up on blogging, but if the past few months are any sign, I probably won't be maintaining my blog as well as I have done in the past. My thighs are screaming at me now as I type this, "Go stand somewhere, fool! You've been sitting on us since 7:30 this morning!" My eyes and brain are not happy with me either. These are the battles I face with my body every time I think of sitting down to blog or do work on the computer. So far this fall, I have listened to my body more often then not. Tonight, however, I stopped listening. But that just means I'll pay for it tomorrow at work.
I will be back here on Saturday, unveiling my long-promised "Twelve Days of Christmas Songs". I'm still not revealing anymore details about it here but I will spill all the beans on Saturday. Then it's 12 straight days of intense blogging before we're off to Iowa for Christmas vacation and I, likely, will be done blogging for 2011. We will see what 2012 holds for Time & Space. For now, the time is late and the space is bed.
