The 5 year Plan

I do hate my job. While there are many days where I don't mind being a corporate accountant, there are SOOOO many more days that I just hate it. I hate doing the same timeline month after month and the same entries too. What I really want to do is.....well..... something else.

Those who know me know that if I could dream of my perfect job it would be woodworking and teaching other woman/men how to use power tools and empower them to be able to do projects on their own as well. I love to build things, but honestly if I had to build for others all the time, it wouldn't be as much fun. But to teach others to do it themselves and just help them get started and watch that sparkle in their eye as they do their first project......wow.

A dear sweet wonderful woman I know named Tasha suggested that I take things slowly. If I hate being an accountant then I should make a 5 year plan. A plan to slowly build up the idea of teaching/empowering woman to build or repair things around their house. Start slowly by blogging and doing small projects. Get my name out there and perhaps do a little demo here or there on a weekend to get myself out there. I already have one planned with my lady friends in Seattle in a few months (we need it to be warm enough to work outside since nobody has the room in their garage for our group). I will show them about the tools, have them practice some of the skills by building something small like a kid's size picnic table or something simple like that.

Anyway, by the time the 5 years goes by I should be able to make it more of a full time thing instead of a weekend or evening thing. And along the way, I can try to get us in a financial position that can survive me doing it full time instead of the solid money in accounting.

So what do you think? Would woman and men want to come and have either 1 on 1 or super small group classes where its okay to know nothing about tools. Everyone is welcome to come and learn and find camaraderie. To empower themselves to take on those home improvement projects like moulding and laminate flooring without fears of failure? Can I do such a thing? Would people come?

Well, I have 5 years to find out right?

Working Mom

This time, I actually mean working mom. As in my "real" job. Life as an accountant means that come every Jan-Feb, I lose touch with life and end up working endless hours and barely get to see my husband and children. This also means I am away from my passion of woodworking. I get so restless and desperate to build something and I am denied.

This week add on a 2 year old with a cold which she shared with me (ahhh.....thanks). So my little sniffly miss was home from daycare and I was away from work during the busiest 2 weeks of the year. The 2 weeks leading up to our audit and where we have a million schedules to fill in and little time to complete it. I went to work at 12 yesterday since my husband and I split the day home with the kidlet. I worked until 8pm, came home and promptly crashed.

In my few moments every once in awhile at work I dream about my next project. I am working 9-12 hour days right now so I think I deserve a little break to think. Now if only I could remember to eat since tonight is the second night in a row I have forgotten to eat dinner.

I come up with so many little projects I want to make. Tonight while driving home (I have a 45 minute commute) I was thinking about how awesome it would be to own a vice and take a 4x4 piece of stock and use a hand planer to taper the legs. Is this odd? Perhaps. Given I do have a table saw and a new tapering jig I made with my Father In-Law, I have no reason to want to hand plane it. Other than the physical aspect of it. The part where I have to strain to lift the heavy wood and maneuver it. I love that feeling of strength when I lift something I build or spin it around.

Even tonight as I finally relaxed after a shower and a blissfully short 9.5 hour work day about building a super deep dresser with big chunky drawers and how silly that was because if we ever moved it would quite possibly not fit anywhere but here.

My mind wanders when tired, and this has been a long week. I have to work on Saturday and then clean my poor house, but somewhere in there I WILL find time to do something. Even if its just finishing a simple box I started for a friend. Bare with me during this slow time. Its feast of famine I guess. There will be times when work and family take me away from projects to showcase on here. Not to mention I am getting a bit away from redo-ing a whole room into doing just projects.

Speaking of rooms, which is better? A 5 bedroom house with a laundry closet in the hallway, or a 4 bedroom house with a laundry room? Yup, you can tell I am tired. Anyway, take care folks and soon I will be back at this.

---The Sawdustmomma, more commonly known as Tabitha or just Mommy

Long Day

I was going to be all wonderful and post this great blog post I wrote in my head. But then time flew through my hands and now I am too tired and its too late. This is what happens as an accountant. You work long hours during this time of year. I worked 8-6 today and then came home, played in the garage with my son (part of what I wanted to blog about) and then after putting him to bed, I went out to finish the work bench I am building. Came back into the house at 10 and grabbed a shower and went to get online. The usual FB related distractions happened and now its 11:15pm and its been a long day.

Perhaps tomorrow (if not, I promice an update on stuff this weekend) I can get everything written up. Happy Building Everyone!!

Night!

What do to next?

There are many options on the table right now as to where to go next. The whole plan is to redo one room at a time to update the house. Unfortunately I am super low on funds and I can't afford to take on a really large expensive project. Then again, I also apparently can't help myself and I really want to move on to another room. While I still want to build that dining room table and refinish the new little chairs I got from my sister-in-law, I WAS supposed to be doing whole rooms and not small individual projects.....

There are a few different rooms that need attention. There is the guest room. While I love how great the queen bed looks in there with the silky red comforter.....well, that's ALL there can be in the room. Its a small room and this leaves people having to walk around the perimeter of the room to get to the sides of the bed. The only people who use the room are my in-laws. They tend to not care if its 2 twins or 1 queen bed. So, I am thinking about selling the queen bed and building twin beds adjacent to each other so the are up against the 2 walls. This would leave a little bit of room to put in a desk, or a little "me" corner.

Onward, there is also my daughter's room. She is out of the crib and I would like to get rid of the changing table. I love her bed in front of the mural on the wall, but the other half of the room is sadly lacking in book storage and seating. It could use a small table and chairs for tea parties....I don't know. Its another option. Which would be the most fun? Most needed?

I would love to redo some things in the kitchen, but that MAY be just a hair out of my budget. In there I wanted to redo the laminate countertops. I mean, seriously, who puts WHITE countertops in a KITCHEN??? Eh, I think I could manage to redo a laminate countertop, or even figured out how to tile it and do a nice backsplash. I don't know. Its so easy for something like a little countertop change to snowball into new cabinets and THAT is not in my budget.

I would ALSO like to do something with MY room, but that would involve a lot of selling of old furniture to make room for the vision I have in my head. Wait, why am I selling furniture JUST to have an excuse to BUILD furniture? Hmm...at least selling the furniture would fund me building the furniture.....What a vicious circle this is!?!

So here I sit. Unable to decide what direction to take. Any suggestions?