Where I work work, we frequently encounter rabbit holes. No, I do not work at a bunny day care. A rabbit hole, in the common vernacular, is a series of investigations or activities which lead one to the other in a disorienting fashion, without ever returning to the original question or starting point. For example, the question might be “Why are the totals wrong in my calculations?” You look at the numbers in the calculation and find that they come from a document. You check the document and find the wrong one has been attached. So where is the right one? You find it attached to another table, but now you find that the second table is a duplicate of the first. So you have to fix that. But it’s already been included in a report. So you have to pull out the report and check that. You see where I am going with this? It’s a long time before you are able to circle back around and actually correct those original calculations.
The process of decluttering my house is full of rabbit holes. Examples? The Great Coat Closet Remodel Project! Now don’t get me wrong – the closet is a much needed addition to our home and is going to be totally awesome when I am done. However, it is a huge rabbit hole. The project was started to deal with this giant mess:
This is the corner of my dining room, as it looked in March. It looks a tiny bit better now as I have cleared out a couple of boxes of files that were stacked there. That corner is a catch-all for coats, shoes, and sports equipment, all of which have no home within our home. And thus, The Great Coat Closet Remodel Project was hatched.
Nearly eight months have passed since I conceived of the project, and six months have passed since we started the work. In the meantime, the tools which were previously stored in the closet have become a fixture in the living room:
And the dining room has been taken over by drywall and lumber:
A more skilled DIYer than I could have most likely finished this project in a couple of weekends. My goal at the beginning of this month was to finish the project by Thanksgiving, so that we could have a nice Thanksgiving meal at our dining room table. That is still my goal, but a couple of weekends laid up by pneumonia have made it seem a bit unlikely.
However, I have not given up! Today, I will have the house to myself for a couple of hours. And even though I would usually use the time to practice my bass with the amp turned up to 11, I am going to instead seize the opportunity to cut the power to the living room circuit and splice in the new closet branch circuit. After that, it’s just drywall, mudding, painting, installing new trim, and reinstalling the door. Once I get through this last challenge with the wiring, I can finally start climbing out of this rabbit hole! To emphasize the joy I will feel when the project is completed, here is another picture of a bunny, frolicking on the grass:
Aaawwww!