Stay-cation

Like many of you, I look forward with anticipation to our family vacations. We like to get away, see something new, and have times we will never forget with family and friends. We had one of those earlier this summer, visiting my sister in Maine and celebrating time with Jaye and Karen.  Today I am coming to the end of a week that although very different, feels much the same in regards to how time was spent.  This week I had a stay-cation - a time off from work - and the farthest I got from home was the Toybox.  The week was great and although I got a lot of things done, I also discovered how many things there are needing to be completed.

I spent a great deal of time in the Toybox.  The number of projects I completed was incredible. Well, at least I was impressed.  I finished the maple and cherry four drawer chest I have been working on for Sara.  This is a piece to compliment the cherry and maple armoire in our master bedroom.  I used medium stained cherry and tiger maple for the drawer and door fronts and birds eye maple for the carcass.  There is a lot going on with this piece, but I really like the end result.  The other thing I like is that I can see that I have improved my woodworking skills since I finished the original piece.  Things just look better this time.  Some of that could also come from having my shop set up the way I want it, and having all of my equipment "zeroed," so that cuts are the same off any of the equipment.  Anyway, I was very pleased with the results.

Still in the category of work for others, I also finished a trivet for our friends in Kansas City that will be given as a host/hostess gift next weekend (B&V, if you are reading, act like it is a surprise), and I finished two shelves that my god daughter Kristin needs for her studio.  I still need to install them, but at least the construction is complete.

Not bad for a week.  But those are the things I completed for others. While working on those projects, I also completed a storage and charging station for the tools I use on the most regular basis (thanks to Wood Magazine for the idea) as well as a storage rack for my saw blades.

     

The saw blade storage station was built from scrap, so all of the dividers are not yet in place.  I will cut those when more left over pieces show up as I move forward.  So, all in all, I completed three projects for others and two for myself. I also managed to get in a couple of days of just being a sloth at home.  This activity is so-named when Andrew was so lethargic during a summer trip that his aunts compared him to a sloth.  Well, that was me for a day or so this week.  Not bad overall however for getting things done this week.

Maybe the most interesting part for me though was what I learned about myself.  I always believed that I worked most effectively in the shop if I started one project, work that project completely to the end, and then start on another.  I've worked that way for years, but it certainly wasn't what I did this week.  This week I worked on one project and thought about, or worked on parts of three or four other things.  This is typically the way that I function at work.  It seems obvious, but the best part of this is that when I got stuck on one project, as typically happens somewhere in the middle, rather than having the project languish and wait, I simply moved to something else while I cyphered on how to move the first project forward.  In the end, I am sure that I got more done during the week than I would have in any other typical week.  What a great stay-cation.

As the week comes to an end and I prepare to head back to work and discover things I should have been involved in that happened while I was gone, I find that even at a more mature age, I can continue to learn about how I think and how I approach that things that are ahead of me.  I have always said that I believe that we are life-time learners, learning every day of our lives, but this week truly pointed it out to me.  I learned this week that it is generally better for me to have several things to juggle, rather than just having one project in front of me.  At work I am much happier when busy than when things are slow, but it works better in my personal life as well.

Alright, stay-cation is over and now back to work. Do you take stay-cations? What things do you like to do?

Embrace the stay-cation.