Yes, it’s true. I have reached the Age of Post-Employment.

After decades of proposal management for high tech companies, I’ve packed it in. No more deadlines. No more herding cats. I could go on listing the things I will not miss, but it would quickly turn into a rant. What I will miss are the in-the-trenches comradery; the energy and off the wall ideas of all the mad inventors; seeing technologies evolve in real time; and the thrill of visiting, viewing, or reading about the final projects that came from the bids on which I have worked.

Still, I’m happy to walk away from it, noting that the average span of tenure in proposal pursuit is something under 5 years. Very few people make it a lifelong career as I did. And even fewer can boast that they survived ulcer-free, and never missed a deadline in 41 years.

To celebrate my new freedom, The Resident Male, a specialist in surprise rather than programmed gift-giving, has presented me with a Wonderous Treasure Box: a tabletop jewelry armoire, shown here on the dining room sideboard, but destined for my dresser.

The drawers are fitted out with small compartments, both sides open up to reveal hooks for necklaces and bracelets, and the top hinges up with a mirror on the inside, and another storage bin beneath. I will add some canvas inserts to the side door inside panels, so I have mesh on which to hang hook-style earrings. The wood and build of this piece are magnificent. I adore it, and have showered him with copious thanks.

What will I do with myself besides organizing my slovenly dresser and precariously piled bling-midden? Well, there’s plenty going on here, and I will be in the thick of it.

We are at the cusp of a major basement renovation project, with the goal of updating a smelly, always-damp, slightly moldy cavern of 1960s vintage cheap paneling and suspended ceiling tiles into a comfortable, clean and usable space. This includes the area where my desk sat, the kids’ old TV area (including a ramshackle home bar, repurposed into shelving for my needlework library); the craft/sewing room; a strange “leftover” alcove at the back of the house; and what can be described as a bathroom only in the most generous terms (right now it’s just closet hiding a fitfully inoperative toilet and a population of house spiders).

The goal is to make a great room with a comfortable TV/sitting area at one end, that can also be used as guest space,plus an exercise area at the other end; a true half-bath with a sink and working fixtures; a functional storage/pantry alcove to house our freezer; and a craft/sewing room with actual useful and accessible storage and organization space. My office area and needlework library will go upstairs to one of the spawns’ former bedrooms, now that those are no longer tenanted year-round. Demolition should be beginning on the project by the end of April.

In addition to that, there are all my own projects. I can (gasp) STITCH DURING THE DAYTIME on a weekday! A strange concept for sure, and one I am still getting used to. It still feels wrong, like ducking out of class, or skipping an appointment – but I suspect that feeling will eventually pass.

One problem I have to solve is with Big Green. Remember that worn area I noted a few posts ago? When I unmounted the thing to try to capture the ground above the abrasion, it gave way before I put any stress on it – falling to pieces and making an enormous hole. The hole is beneath the “keeper bar” that holds the fabric in the frame’s roller, and is clearly seen here. I’ve flipped the thing – this is the right side, but it’s on the frame with the rollers on top rather than behind, in an effort to make the largest possible area accessible for stitching.

See that narrow border that’s part of the [grapes, hops, berries] strip? I have just enough room to complete it below, with about an inch left over. Obviously when I go to finish this piece I will need to trim it out with a border strip of fabric, and do it hanging scroll style. But that’s in the future. Right now the problem is that I don’t have enough room in the frame to stitch that narrow bit. Once I am done with the main body of the current panel I will have to take the sampler off the big frame and figure out how best to work on it in my sit-upon hoop frame – how to avoid abrasion and distortion of the established stitching as I relocate the hoop, and how not to stress the already-fragile threads of the weave itself. I may even end up having to work in hand, something I dread doing.

And yes – I brought this on myself, both for letting the piece languish so long and suffer such abuse that it weakened in the first place, and for choosing an overly wide and ambitious border to finish. I should have picked my second choice, one that was about an inch less tall. Live and learn…

Oh. Folk will also be happy to hear that I’m diving back into T2CM – updating some of the blurbs to synch with scholarship that has evolved since I started the project (museums have revisited the dating and provenance of many of their fragments in the past 15 years); and with nothing to stop me, I hope to have it buffed, re-proofed, and ready for publication later this year.