It’s a little late for me to be spring cleaning. I mean, really late. But Chalida and her family are in town, and on Saturday they are coming here for several days to take care of the animals while DH and I take a scouting trip to North Kohala to plan a family reunion there for 2012.
Chalida, the daughter of my good friend Linda, lives and teaches in San Francisco. She, her hubby, also an educator, and two children ages 3 and 3 months are an adventurous family. A bicycle family. I think they may not even own a car and manage quite well, thank you, on two wheelers. They love to travel.
After a couple of nights at the Hilton Hawaiian Village that has a pool and lots of visitor diversions, they’ll drive here over the mountain. I’m happy to return the hospitality. Chalida and her sister Lisa picked me up (Lisa drove) from SFO and put me up one whirlwind weekend when I flew over to surprise Linda for her big birthday party. (Note: A great way to avoid jet lag, HNL to SFO. Take the red-eye flight on Friday night, party on Saturday, fly home Sunday, arrive for dinner.)
Mugshot, literally. From left, Chalida, me, and Lisa. A souvenir, with patina from the dishwasher, from Linda's birthday. We're modeling lipstick for Lisa's upcoming wedding.
The last time Chalida was here was for my and DH’s wedding, and she was just a tot. It will be great for her son to meet Miss Marvelous, I’m thinking.
Today I am still in the process of converting the studio to a guest suite for four. As you can imagine, all of you who have been here, it is a monumental task. It will be a transformation! I decided to do this for myself as much as for our friends.
Why did I wait so long? I won’t try to make excuses. Just trying to “talk” it out here to uncover some reasons and then promise not to do it again. Sort of like the promise I made when I said I would never move again. Because it’s so hard.
First, I’m part Chinese. What I consider messiness and clutter is just the Chinese way, at least from my parents’ generation, and I found this to be true when I visited Chinese homes in China. What a revelation! It’s a cultural carry-over. Like, it’s in our genes!
Next, I’m an artist/writer/producer, and there are ideas on the back of envelops, leftovers from an earlier project that got buried when I started the next one, all of that paper that I want to read some day. Even DH, who has looked down his nose at my things, my precious things like my beloved mug in the photo, finally admitted, “It’s hard.” We both crave the Zen look. (But do you know that in Japan people have separate “store houses”? I saw on TV.) In reality, our style is Eclectic.
Anyway, my intention is to toss, toss, toss. I believe when Nature appears with its disasters It spares those who have cleaned house. So I’m working on it. For a time I allowed www.flylady.com to be my coach. She says rearranged clutter is still clutter. (If you have CHAOS, Can’t Have Anybody Over Syndrome, you may want FlyLady to help you, but a word of warning, she sends you a lot of emails.) So I know the drill. I just have to put it into action. By tomorrow. I better get busy!
Rebekah’s Studio 
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