Cleaning out the studio

Days blend into each other and I often don't know for sure what day it is. And the date? Forget it.
I'm still reading, still working on the photo project between baby feedings. It seems the little ones are on opposite schedules now. One's awake and one's asleep, which works great for giving them individualized time, but it's lousy for getting anything around the house done. And time for extras like working on the photos or art, or blogging for that matter, is down to the minimum. I usually spend the few free seconds reading.

But here I am for a moment. Even now, after I put Babygirl down for her nap, I can hear Littleboy squirming around in his vibrating seat, getting ready to wake up and demand a bottle.

My oldest girl is thinking of moving back home. She's eighteen now and should want to leave and be on her own. Not my girl. She left at seventeen and has been with the boyfriend (not so much any more) for the last year. Now, with her two cats, she wants to come home. R and I decided she could live in the building in our back yard (the old garage/storage room/fantasized about art studio...we've always called it the studio. Five years now and the "studio" has yet to be more than a place to collect junk.). The condition is she has to live with my obnoxious screaming Amazon parrot, and she has to pay a meager rent after the first month free. No parties. No boys or men moving in and she has to get and keep a job. Unfortunately she has to come into the house to use the bathroom. And she will probably be eating with us. Laundry too. Maybe the rent will be adjustable. She agreed to these terms (Except the adjustable rent, which we won't really do) and is eager to get started. Of course it has to be cleaned out, which means the room in the basement must be finished so we have someplace to put this stuff. So there, my other possible studio space is being taken away too. Not that it was ever to be finished. I guess in either case, when my girl does finally save enough to get her own place, the "studio" building will be cleaned and ready for claiming. I hope I can act fast enough. Maybe I should leave a few artsy type things out there.

So, yesterday we began sorting and removing stuff from the studio. Exciting indeed. All the stuff I've kept to make sculptures out of, remarkable. I put a couple of my sculptures in the yard as yard art. They won't sell anyway and they bring some visual interest to the yard.

The building is about half cleaned out. At least we can get to the drywall for the basement now. Maybe tomorrow we can get back to this project. Hopefully it won't become some half finished thing that becomes forgotten in the day to day.

Ah, there's the little man now....

Those old family photos

A friend of mine stopped by today with her three little children. They played with Babygirl in the back yard. It was great fun seeing them all. I wish I had more time to go and visit my friends. I've been thinking a lot about old friends lately.

My oldest girl asked for some baby pictures of herself last week and when I dug those out it, only seemed natural to update the baby books and photos. What a nightmare. In the beginning of my life as an adult, I thought I would stay on top of it and label all of my photos right away with names, dates, events, etc. and that way, many years after I die, when someone comes across a box of old pictures, they might be able to figure out the history of my family. That which I know. My part. I still have old photos of relatives I don't know, people I can't recognize. It won't be that way for my children and their children. Or so I thought. When did time get away from me? That stack of photos that was waiting to be labeled became two or three stacks, a whole shoe box full of snapshots, and I have spent my free time in the last week (I know, I should be painting) trying to remember, trying to figure out how old my girls were in many pictures, not recalling the dates. I have lost a whole year. I can't for the life of me recall 1999. Are there any photos from this time frame? How can I know? My children are changing less and less every year. Which year is which? It's out of control. But, I won't give up. I refuse to give up. I want to redo my albums in a more orderly fashion. I want to tell my story.

But what parts of my story are relevant? Does it matter what friends I had in grade school? The skater boys downtown in 1987? What about snapshots of cars I thought were cool? And the pets? How about my toys? Those were favorite subjects for many rolls of film. Should I just include family members? So, I don't know for sure. I've eliminated most of the pet pictures, nearly all of the toy portraits, most of the old boyfriends, and repetitive scenery shots of the mountains. I kept anything that gave me good memories, even tucking some extra pictures behind the ones I chose for the album. I tried to keep at least one of each important man in my life. Some I wish I had more of.

So, as I relabel the mislabeled Christmas pictures and re-travel the well-worn path down memory lane (I live in the past, and often the future too. I'm working on that whole now thing.), I'm trying to put my life in perspective. I know my children grew up too fast, and I couldn't grow up fast enough (although I grew out quite rapidly), and I find I don't hate my sister quite so much now.

What pictures do I keep? The ones that mean something and the ones that show the history of my time. The ones with the people and the places that I love.

Oh, and, I'm still searching for 1999.