Ohhhhh boy. In the next week, and the next 6 months, I’m going to be challenged. And it’s going to be tough. There will likely be tears, swear words, and lots of discomfort.
For the most part, I’m being dramatic. Maybe not so much about the tears and swear words though.
Sewing Caravan Couch Covers
It has been super, super wet in Australia for the last few months. There has been relentless rain and not too many dry days. As a result of the dampness, and the humidity on the rare sunny days where everything finally starts drying, mould is an issue right now. Not just for us – there are a lot of people on the community boards talking about it right now.
For us personally, we’ve found some mould on some cases holding torches/flashlights, on the windows, and some jackets and shoes. Our house is built on clay, so when it gets wet the house tends to shift a bit until everything dries up and it resettles. You can tell because some of the doors become harder to close (pressure on the door frames), and for the first time ever our floorboards lifted up slightly (we have timber boards that click together to lay flat). We put some heavy pieces of timber down to hold it flat. We’ve had about 4 – 5 sunny days now (albeit cold) and finally everything has resettled.
The caravan didn’t fare quite so well. We’ve been battling window leaks and had to get it resealed multiple times. So the constant wet days didn’t help when there was already water in the frame that was trying to dry up. Needless to say, we found more mould in there, mainly around the windows, but unfortunately the couch as well. I need to inspect the bed to make sure my husband didn’t miss anything there.
My son sleeps on that couch when we go camping. Granted it’s covered with a waterproof sheet (he still wears nappies overnight), regular sheets and his blanket, but as soon as the mould was spotted I knew we were throwing it out. I refuse to take any chance that he could be sleeping on, and inhaling, mould spores.
I’ve been wanting to redo the inside for a long time and started with a curtain that I still haven’t yet finished a year later. The couch was on the list somewhere, and now it’s been forced to the top. We’re planning on going camping soon so it needs to be done stat.
If anyone has ever done anything like this before I would love to hear your advice. The plan is to go to the local Clark Rubber, taking the existing couch pieces with us. They’ll be able to match the shape for the bases since we want to keep those shapes. The backs were originally two circular cushions stacked on top of each other and velcroed to the back, and I really didn’t like them. So they’re getting tossed, and we’ll cut a new piece to cover the same dimensions. Ideally, it means the back pieces could be placed on the floor and form another bed (should Luca have future sleepovers there). Clark Rubber can even cut the wadding pieces for us as well, so that’s easy.
I’ve never sewn a zip before, so this should be interesting. I plan to practice this weekend and sew a pillowcase with a zip so that I’ve got that skill down pat. But given the odd shape of these cushions, it might get interesting.
As I wrote that sentence I just thought to myself – why do we have to do the odd shapes? Why can’t I just do two rectangles? Ultimately it’ll still be the same in the corners.
DING! I’ve just made it easier for myself! Thanks, blog!
I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.
Open plan in the office
My work is moving to a new office space later this year, which is super exciting. We’ll have double the space now, a rooftop we can eat on, some decent views, and a funky new workspace.
Speaking of workspace….I’ll be moving into the open-plan area.
Right now I happily enjoy my own office. I don’t technically need it – I don’t work on anything confidential, and I don’t have private meetings. I was just lucky to score it really.
Over time it’s become a bit of a cave, and refuge. I added a cabinet that ultimately just stored a ton of unnecessary crap in it, and filled up my corner desk with even more junk. I hate the desk – it’s a corner one that has a curve in the middle so you sit facing the corner, with space on either side of you. Sounds great, except that the height is all wrong for me and the curve isn’t as pleasant as it sounds. It takes up way too much space in the room.
What I do love is having a huge big plant in my office. It makes me really happy, and I’ll be gutted to lose it. I love greenery, and really hope it becomes a feature of the new office.
From an eating disorder point of view, I’ve become super uncomfortable eating in the office around people. Mainly because it was the “scene of the crime” so to speak. I could hide in my office and binge eat without fearing the judgement of others. The idea of returning to a public space, even though I don’t binge eat anymore (as much….there are slip-ups), makes me anxious.
I also get social anxiety, and sometimes need a place to retreat. My anxiety and self-confidence issues kick in. I question myself, what I’m wearing….all of it. My office was my quiet place to hide.
Plus, I half wonder if I’ve become so attuned to being along at work that I’ve wondered if I burp or fart on my own and don’t even realise it half the time *grin*.
So with all that in mind, open-plan holds a lot of challenges for me. But I’m determined to embrace it, remembering one of the quotes from the trainers I follow (“get comfortable with being uncomfortable”).
So this week I started cleaning out my office of all the junk. I’m now left with minimal stuff on my desk, and the realisation that I don’t have a single photo of my family on there. That’s gotta change – time to print some off and bring them in.
I cleared out the cabinet and moved it out of the room. And my goodness, THE SPACE. It feels like the room is now massive. Here’s the before and after:
I figure with at least 4 months up my sleeve I can slowly start to work on my insecurities. I can start eating lunch in the kitchen area with my coworkers. I can occasionally take my laptop and sit in the main area. Or visit the Brisbane office, with people I don’t know in an open-plan space.
Most importantly, I can buy myself some noise-cancelling earphones.
It’s forcing me to deal with my issues instead of hiding away, and when I put that spin on it, I’m kinda looking forward to it.
Plus my work crew are pretty awesome people – that helps a lot.