Phew. After having breakfast with a friend this morning, I spent the entire day, about eight hours, wrapping up at my friends Todd and Bonnie’s house. For the last three days I’ve been cleaning antique hardware–removing paint (with chemicals and elbow grease), then either polishing or repainting what’s underneath. I’ve been to Lowe’s four times, Walmart twice, and Walgreen’s once. I’ve been up and down more steps than I can count, working feverishly because the painters are coming back tomorrow to rehang doors and need the hardware to do it. Thankfully, I think, everything is ready.

Here’s a picture of some of the polished brass. I’ll spare you photos of the rest, but in terms of volume, each door  (on average) has 2 large plates, 1 small plate, 2 knobs, 2 hinges, and one lock (small plates and hinges are shown in yesterday’s blog)–and there were seventeen doors (I think).

Here’s a video of in inner workings of one of the locks. I took it apart because the bolt was sticking out, tilted like a drunken sailor. I had to open up another lock to figure out how to fix it. As it turns out, a small piece of metal had popped out that was supposed to hold the bolt in place (I hammered it back in). I don’t narrate the video, but notice that a small, bent wire pushes the latch out. The bolt itself works via two levers–one that pushes the bolt in or out (and moves horizontally), and another that “locks” it in the lock position (and moves vertically). The small piece of broken metal I hold up at the end of the video is what I found when I took the lock apart. It’s the broken-off end of a skeleton key, which would have been used to 1) lift the vertical-moving lever and then 2) slide the horizontal-moving lever, thus locking or unlocking the door.

After a full day of manual labor, about nine, I sat down on Todd and Bonnie’s porch with a cup of coffee and intentions of resting. My thought was that I’d drink my Joe, take a shower, then hang around to blog. However, while scrolling on my phone I learned that two of the three bridges from Fort Smith to Van Buren were going to be closed at ten due to the recent flooding of the Arkansas River. (We’ve either already have or are about to break a record for this area. It’s not pretty.) So rather than be stranded in Fort Smith, I threw all my stuff in Tom Collins (my car), and booked it across the bridge.

When I got home (safe and sound) I was apparently still in “get shit done” mode. (It’s hard to turn it off once it’s on.) First I changed a florescent lightbulb in the laundry room (Dad’s been asking me to for weeks), then I repaired a shelf that fell down in my bathroom WELL OVER a year ago. The wall anchors had come loose and left big holes in the wall. And whereas I’d been thinking I’d have to patch the wall (and that wouldn’t work because I don’t think we have that paint anymore), I came up with another solution during one of my many trips to Lowe’s. (It’s tough to explain, and I didn’t take a picture of it.) Anyway, the shelf is up now. It didn’t hang flat against the wall initially (the top was farther out that the bottom), so I shoved a thin bar of cheap motel soap between the wall and the bottom of the shelf to fix it.

Glad to know that soap’s good for something.

After I hung the shelf, I felt compelled to decorate it. See the above photo. The tin next to the dinosaur–ironically–says Fossil. Anyway, because I used a lot of stuff from the shelf on the opposite wall to decorate the just-fixed shelf, I then felt compelled to decorate that one. Since I’m picky as shit, this took a while. Nonetheless, I settled on displaying a few of my favorite handwritten cards along with a small collection of tins I have. I use them to store jewelry, pins, and USB drives. Fun fact–the duck in the ABOVE photo is a USB drive. It’s from The Peabody Hotel in Memphis.

Don’t see a duck? Time to see your eye doctor.

Since I stole the cards in the above photo from a shelf in my bedroom, I then “had” to redecorate the shelf. (I’m sick, I know.) Thankfully, this was easy, since a fellow writing friend of mine recently sent me a couple post cards (thanks, friend!). I just needed to find a way to stand them up, since they don’t stand up on their own. Finally I thought of it–binder clips, turned upside down. The perfect thing!

Now I’m ready for a break. For real this time. I’ve already showered, and all my projects, except this blog, are completed for the day. If there’s a lesson for today, it’s that once you get going on something, it’s easy to keep going. This applies to cleaning antique hardware, decorating your home, writing, and even paying your bills. It also applies to creativity. That is, while working at Todd and Bonnie’s this week, I had to get into “creative problem solving” mode. How can I clean this brass? How can I fix this lock? Well, ask your mind to do something, and it will. What’s more, it will often go above and beyond simply because it’s in the mood. And we can fix this, and we can fix this. What’s the skeleton key for unlocking your mind’s creativity or getting it into problem solving mode? How do you get your mind in the mood? Curiosity. Wonder. I wonder if there’s a way to–I wonder what would happen if. In other words, you have to gently ask, and then your mind will go to work.

Ask (nicely) and it is given.