Recently, our house was more than a little disrupted.
It had been taken over by a bunch of rowdy folk musicians, led by our son, Jay and his husband, Jon, who are also known as award-winning folk duo, Ninebarrow.
The mini online festival was called “Live at Rose Cottage”, and it’s the second year they’ve taken over our living spaces and garden to stream a folk festival to their fans.
You wouldn’t believe the amount of disruption required to make a successful four- hour livestream happen.
They started taking the house apart on Friday lunchtime, and it wasn’t put back together again until late morning on Sunday.
That meant the only usable rooms over the weekend were the kitchen, the bedrooms and the toilets.
We couldn’t even use the annexe because it was full of folk singers!
Eddie was not impressed. He went around with a face like a wet weekend:
As much as we tried to give him extra love and attention amidst the turmoil, he was thoroughly pissed off that his beds weren’t in the right place and, although the visitors smelt interesting, they kept dashing about and making weird noises which interfered with his naps.
If I’d allowed myself to get frustrated with the fact that the only place I could comfortably sit down in a bit of peace and quiet was on the toilet, then I’d have had a face like Eddie’s.
But, I asked myself better questions than he was asking himself (he was asking “WHY ME?”, “What idiot thinks the porch is a good place for my bed?”and “When are these arseholes going to put my house together?”
I asked myself, “How can I make good use of this time?” and I ended up smashing out what I call a Switzerlizing session (my Switzerlizing mission this quarter is to declutter 100 drawers/cupboards/shelves in my home).
I went to my dressing room (which was thankfully free from folk singers and cables) and decluttered a total of 25 Switzerlization units, which took me past the half-way point to 51 in total!
I was only 3 weeks into the quarter at the time, so I felt like I was really winning!
I took my focus off the chaos and put it onto what I could make a positive difference to.
Having my house turned upside down also delivered the added benefit of the opportunity for a good spring clean before we returned the sofas and cabinets to their correct positions on Sunday.
The concert-chaos was the gift that just kept giving!
Now, I’m not saying I want this to happen again before next year (I’m an optimist not a masochist) but it was a really good exercise in making the most of a difficult situation.
There’s always an upside to every down.
(I can sense Eddie rolling his eyes right now…”Stoopid hoomans!”...)