Theraputic Stars

Last month I discovered a new sport (lol)...folding origami Lucky Stars.  I ordered some of the special origami paper strips and learned how to fold the stars, then after I ran out I found out about cutting my own paper strips using unwanted catalogs or magazines.

I sliced up several pages of a Cabela's catalog and folded Lucky Stars to my heart's content.

After I was finished folding all those Stars I had had enough, and didn't have an urge to fold any more.

Then, last week (or maybe the week before, I can't remember, my days run together) I had my mind/heart set on a project for my kitchen.
For several reasons, I need J to help me with these projects that I want to do. Mostly, the saw noise make me nervous.

It shouldn't have been such an ordeal. I showed him a couple of examples from Pinterest and some other websites of what I was looking for, and told him, "Like it was in your Grandmother's house". He grew up in old farmhouses, too, so he knew what I was talking about.

And with all the scrap and freecycle wood we've stocked up on, we should have (and do have) everything we needed to complete the project without having to buy anything.

First, we needed a cubed box. Build a frame from 1x2's and cover the insides and the back with plywood, I suggested.
No, he sliced up some old trim and built two squares then covered the insides and back with plywood. Okay, it worked, whatever.

Then we need two side column-like things. 12 inches wide and deep, and 4.6 feet tall. He cuts 12' x 4.6' plywood panels, and tries to connect them with the scrap wood trim pieces about 6 inches long, using a brad nailer. Well, they were flimsy as heck and not staying together (imagine that).

I asked him why he refused to do it right, because basically that's what it boiled down to. He was scabbing together this slip-shoddy piece of crap that wasn't going to be good and sturdy or last any amount of time.
He told me, he didn't want to use the good wood.

In other words, say you decided to remodel your bathroom, and you have a two bathtubs sitting outside in your carport. One is a rusted, chipped piece of crap, and the other is nice, white, shiny clean. You decide to use the old, ugly, rusted chipped-up one in your remodel job, and save the nice, clean shiny one for....what?

This project is a sort of a remodel, even though it's "new" construction (being made to look old), I intend for it stay indefinitely and be a nice addition to the house.
But he don't want to use the "good" wood for it.  If he doesn't want to use the "good" wood to fix up the house, then what does he want to use it for?

By the time he dicked around and wasted most of the day doing a shitty worthless job before finally giving in and doing what I wanted, it was getting dark and cold outside.
He had to work at the fire dept. the next day, and on the ambulance the day after that.
The day after that, he came home and went to bed and slept all day.

I was really aggrivated that we'd made so little progress on my project. This is typical of us (HIM) that it takes weeks or months or years to do a project that really shouldn't take more than a day or two, because he always, always wants to do something the hardest, most ridiculous way possible.

Then I was really angry when he came home and slept all day.
I don't care that he worked on the ambulance all night. I wasn't the one that wanted him to quit the day job at the urgent care, making almost $4.00 an hour more, to go back to work almost fulltime on the ambulance - which he had quit doing years ago because he hated it so much.

And my computer is here in our bedroom, so I can't type or listen to videos or anything that makes noise that wakes him up.
So I went in the livingroom on the coffee table and cut paper strips for some more Stars to fold.

I wasn't loving the Cabela's stars as much as I had thought, and I had seen where someone had made them using pages from a book. I didn't have a book handy I wanted to destroy, but I saw some telephone books on the recycle pile so I used those.

They were kind of interesting at first, but kind of plain and boring after awhile.

But the point was, cutting the strips and folding the Stars helped me keep my sanity that day.
I can't explain it, don't know why or how, but it eased my anger and anxiety, that day, and the next couple of days while he wasn't at home and there was no progress being made on my project.

Then there was Wednesday morning, with storms and severe weather threats, tornadoes hitting near us, not knowing if or when the next one might get us. Or even without tornadoes, the wind doing terrible damage.
 Those kind of days are tense and scary.

The storms come from the front of the house, the west. Our livingroom is on the front side of the house, the bedroom is in the back.
I like to be where I can see and know what's going on so I sat in the livingroom with front door open (it was 73* outside then), and cut paper strips like crazy.
(The colorful ones are from a Publix (grocery store) magazine I had gotten in the mail and had pretty, pastel-colored pictures in it.)

I ended up cutting piles and piles of strips, without even really thinking about it.  But at the same time, I wasn't as nervous and fretting over the weather while I was focused on cutting the paper strips.

Then I discovered a third thing these Stars help me with is Patience. I've been trying to earn more "swagbucks" to cash in for Amazon gift cards or Paypal cash, and one of the tasks they have for you to be able to do is to watch TV clips or movie trailers.

Sometimes I run the clips and listen to them while I catch up on Facebook, but sometimes there's not really anything else to do but sit and play them. They don't last very long, so by the time I go to another website and start to try to read or do anything I have to go back and play another video clip.

I figured out that I can sit here and let he videos play and I can occupy myself folding the Stars, and I don't get all antsy and anxious like I tend to do when I've lost interest in something.

Kinda crazy these simple little Stars have turned out to be theraputic for me.