You know back in the summer, when I told you our family had undertaken a big renovation project that involved knocking down two walls and switching the locations of a bedroom and kitchen?

There’s a reason I never showed you the final pictures. Because I never completely finished this project.

It was a very ambitious project and it became incredibly draining and overwhelming when I ended up with much less help than I anticipated. My backup plan had been to hire a handyman who was doing other work for us to finish whatever wasn’t done within three weeks, which I told him from the start and he agreed to. I knew starting out that I absolutely did not want a project that dragged on and on.

So starting off, I thought I had all the bases covered – a good schedule for work to be done and a good exit plan.

However, that didn’t work out either – we just couldn’t get the guy to come more than once every week or two for a very short period, even with repeated reminders and advance scheduling. He’s busy, and honestly, it’s not any more fun for him than for me to do all the smaller finishing stuff.

So it became obvious that the project would need to be completed by me. The details of what needed to be done seemed never ending, and it was mentally wearing to always have more to do.

Most of it was done. But not the final touches that make a project look done.

I was so utterly maxxed out by this project that I took a huge break from giving workshops, dramatically cut down on private sessions with clients, and from anything extra, actually. I was the definition of overextended and burnt out.

I went waaaay past my limitations for an extended period in a way that I hadn’t done for years.

As a result, I needed to consciously fill myself up after that extreme period of depletion. In large part that meant has been leaving a lot of margin in my schedule so that every moment wasn’t filled with potential activities and tasks. In trying to do this, I recognized how very full my regular life is without any extra projects!

After a very long break, I finally have some mental head space to get this finished now! It’s also vacation for my twenty year old son, who is always willing to help out as much as he can when he’s home. So things are starting to get done.

Last week I had new counters and sinks installed. This week I the faucets installed and last night I began tiling the backslash in the kitchen. A glass cabinet door cracked and I hope this morning they’ll be ready to be picked up from the glass repair place and then reinstalled. (I took them there three weeks ago!)

(Maybe one day I’ll write a post about the countertops we built and installed that ended up not being frugal at all. That’s what we had until now.)

Someone came by last night and I apologized for the mess in the kitchen. He said that’s what everyone’s kitchen looks like now! I think mine is more than usual, with the wall in the process of being tiled, dishes that couldn’t be washed (since the tile glue has to set and can’t be gotten wet) piled in the sink, the counter covered with pieces of newspaper for protection, a container of contact cement on the floor, pieces of cut laminate on another counter, tiles and the tile cutter piled on the floor…

Not to mention the mess of cleaning for Pesach – we’re at that stage when each room is getting cleaner but all the stuff people don’t want or need is getting moved out and some of that is in the living room. I don’t like visual clutter and there’s  lot of it right now.

BUT——–

It’s getting done! And for the first time in a long, long time, I have some energy for this project and am enjoying doing it.

In response to a reader question about bar mitzva costs, I’ll be sharing that with you in the coming week after we wrap up the celebrations here.

For now, we’re looking forward to hosting our entire immediate family for this Shabbos. My son will be reading the Torah on Shabbos morning at KSY, followd by a kiddush – for those in the area, please consider yourself invited – I would love to see you there!

Avivah