It has been a busy week and a half in my household, and everything has been somewhat chaotic, including my mind. Let me start at the beginning. My husband and I made the decision to finally get rid of horrid old, scratchy sand coloured carpet we have in both our bedroom and the multipurpose room which is my writing area / office / home gym and gaming room (my husband likes his VR Gaming set up). It had been a long time coming, this carpet change. Largely due to the fact we were procrastinating having to move both the treadmill and bed, the only two objects in the rooms that are big and bulky and have electrical components for that extra little challenge.

We went out the other week and selected lovely plush carpet and then set about moving the furniture from those two rooms into our living room, figuring we could repaint the ceiling in the bedroom and ensuite before the new carpet was installed. It certainly saves on time laying down drop sheets when you don’t care about the carpet coping some dribbles of paint.  We used to have a lovely big tree overlooking that corner  of our unit, and although we both loved the tree, we didn’t like the wildlife that used it as a super highway into our ceiling space and who had decided that the best spot for a toilet was above our bed. The scratching in the ceiling at night was horrid, and the stains though rather minimal, were somehow worse than the scratching. It was after all, visible evidence of whatever was up in the ceiling cavity (I for one was never getting into the ceiling to see what is up there and will take my hubby’s word for how it looks).  The downstairs neighbours made the decision to cut down the tree, instead of trimming it back and I do miss the lovely shade the tree provided, especially in summer when that side of the unit now cops the full, unrelenting heat. I do not miss the aforementioned wildlife.

Sorry, I digress. Where was I? Oh, yes. We took the time to move all our furniture out into the living area, setting up the bed in front of the Television, which is not as comfortable as it sounds. Plus, it is also a little awkward to then have tradies in the house while having a bed in the living room. But that may just be me. As I work from home for two glorious days a week, I also needed to set up my computer area and so had a nice set up next to our Bearded Dragons house, where he could watch me work (Merlin seems fond of micromanaging and kept his beady eyes fixed on me for much of my work day, although he may have been trying to hypnotise me into giving him a blueberry).

As our little home was in a state of upheaval, my mind followed suit. I am generally a pretty organised person, but I found that I was instantly more forgetful, more emotional and worst of all, could not focus on my writing. My husband suggested I have a break from writing until we got the carpet sorted and our home back to normal, which seemed like a perfectly normal suggestion in principle. In practice, not being able to find that escape from my work week by strolling through the lovely town I have crafted and visiting with my characters, drove me insane. I will wholeheartedly admit that for me, writing is an addiction. One that I place in the “good” category although like everything, should be taken in some semblance of moderation so that other areas of life, like relationships, aren’t ignored. I found myself growing bitchier (I’ve been told that I am not actually bitchy externally and my wonderful husband, friends, and colleagues, laugh off my apologies – I don’t know how much I believe them). The work week, while always busy, seemed determined to push my buttons even more than usual. It was absolute hell.

Sleeping in the living room was interesting. I sometimes suffer from night terrors (usually when confronted by anything that will trigger my sleeping mind to think of spiders), so my husband slept on “my” side of the bed, so I had a relatively clear runway in case frights at night sent me leaping out of bed. He tried gently restraining me one night and nearly dislocated his shoulder, so now, on those odd occasions it occurs, he just hopes I won’t run into a wall if I seem determined to leap out of bed.  We didn’t play our cards that safely though and went to bed one night after watching a creepy Nicholas Cage movie called Long Legs, which doesn’t have spiders in it yet does have Mr Cage playing a rather disturbing individual. The handle of the deconstructed treadmill was on my husband’s side of the bed (usually my side) and that night, whenever I woke, I was certain for a few seconds each time, that there was someone standing beside the bed. Not the most restful sleep, I can assure you. I sheepishly admit to turning over, screwing my eyes shut, pulling the doona up around me although it was stifling hot, and basically sacrificing my beloved husband to this night-time entity. Funnily enough, the next morning, my hubby admitted he had also thought someone was standing beside the bed when he woke during the night.

The carpets were installed on Wednesday, and I will admit that listening to the men tear up the old carpet gave me a lot of satisfaction. I could just about hear the old carpet screaming and begging for mercy. No mercy was given. The underlay was basically non-existent and the carpet tacks in the doorway to the ensuite had stabbed into my unsuspecting heels for the final time. The sand-coloured carpet of scratchiness, which is quite common in any place that has been used as a rental, given its affordability and durability, was gone and in its place, a sea of comfort. Once the two lovely men who had installed the new carpet were gone and I’d given the rooms a vacuum, I will admit to running around on the carpet and making carpet angels, enjoying the lovely texture and excited to see that the colour choice had been the correct decision. It’s always hard to figure out correct shades when away from the actual environment.

That night, once my husband was home from work, we replaced the bedroom furniture and could finally have a good night sleep, with the added joy of sinking our toes into lovely new carpet each time we got out of bed. The return of our multipurpose room to its usefulness had to wait until Saturday. It was a busy day. Grocery shopping out of the way, we got home, and I cut up offcuts that we’d kept of our new carpet, and we started the laborious task of getting the treadmill back into position and operational. The treadmill is a heavy piece of equipment, and I am thankful that it has only required moving this once since it was installed. That done, I set up my desk area and plugged in the computer while my husband organised the TV unit that sits in front of the treadmill, and which his VR set up is also plugged into. I am not good with electronics. I can plug computers in and that is me pretty much at my limit, so seeing the jumble of cords that he had to deal with, I wished him luck and offered to make him a coffee.

The rest of the afternoon was spent enjoying the fact I had my writing space back and listening to the last of the audio book of “Odyssey” by Stephen Fry as I flopped on the couch in aircon.

Today is Sunday and I am happy to report that I’ve edited two chapters of ‘Murphy’s Bluff’ and feel lovely and cosy in my writing space. Having the new carpet in the room has certainly lifted the ambiance of the space. It is amazing how much the loss of my usual writing space threw me into a spin, given that I have been known to write while sitting on the couch, at the dining room table, while on a train as it sways about, during my lunch break at work… I guess I am just one of those people who needs my own space where I can tap into the source of my writing and relax, knowing I likely won’t be disturbed (my husband is wonderful at respecting my writing time, although I never mind if he wants to interrupt me for a hug). It has been a tumultuous week and a half, yet we are on the other side of it.