This year, when Bryanna moved out, I took over her room. I repaired the walls, painted them, and didn’t bother with a drop cloth because I knew the next step was ripping it all out and replacing it with laminate flooring. The project took a bit of time, money, and effort, but ultimately increased my happiness by orders of magnitude. I have a bright, happy place that is climate controlled and comfortable to work and play in. It honestly made the whole house feel better.

Today, I took the first step in doing the same thing to our bedroom. I moved our bed into the living room. Once we clear out all of the rest of the stuff, I’ll do the same thing: repair the walls, paint, rip out the carpet, and put in laminate.

That project is going to be going on in November.

This is the 26th blog post of October, an exercise I do every year that I want to succeed at NaNoWriMo. I’m dedicating myself to writing 50,000 words in 30 days.

NaNoWriMo takes place in November.

Work continues to be busy, and I’m trying to be as productive as possible. Then there’s the side projects, such as the next keyboards I’m building, including the one I’m going to finish for a family member. I’ll have to build it in November if I want to have it delivered by Christmas.

November is going to be really full.

I think that’s okay, though. I seem happier when I’m busy. I don’t think it’s just a matter of distracting me from dealing with my emotional issues. That’s likely a part of it, but I think staying busy, working on projects and making things, gives me feelings of worthiness and accomplishment that nothing else manages to imitate.

One of the reasons my room brings me so much joy is I can look at it and know that I did this. I’m sitting in a happy, comfortable place that exists because I made it so. It makes it extra special. It’s the same thing when I type on one of the keyboards I’ve built.

We are made to be makers, I think. Creativity is a part of being human, and I think a lot of people that struggle simply haven’t found their creative path yet. Not all of my November will be creating, but a lot of it will be, so when I say that November is going to be really busy, I think I’m also saying that it’s going to be very satisfying.

Hopefully NaNoWriMo won’t stress me out too much.