for yurt's sake

Q: What is a weekend?

A: A time to work on one’s yurt.

Honestly, I don’t know what normal people do on the weekend any more. That’s not quite true. Exhaustion forced me to a restful Saturday after all. I had Thursday off for the holiday – Veterans Day – and then took Friday as well, so it was a very long weekend. Let’s break it down:

Thursday

To the tune of “Row, row, row your boat”:

Sew, sew, sew your yurt
One stitch at a time
Tuck and fold, pull and hold,
Flat-felled is but a seam.

(Thanks for coming with me on that one.) 

I spent seven hours Thursday convincing 40 pounds of canvas to go through a sewing machine. As a result we have four wall panels the correct height and have turned sixteen ceiling panels into eight larger ceiling panels. Everything still needs joined and will also need some tailoring once we have a yurt frame to compare to.

Friday

On Friday I got myself thoroughly confused. Since Thursday felt so much like a Saturday, being off from work already, Friday felt like a Sunday and I backed that up by getting a massage (it was SO. GOOD. And much needed) and taking a jaunt to Paper Source, the mecca for people who drool a little bit in the notebook aisle of the Target. I bought supplies for a project that may or may not come to life in December, post yurt move-in.

On Friday afternoon, in the name of the yurt, I found myself driving an ancient diesel GMC work van (with no back side windows, read: blinded blind spots) 25 minutes down the highway only to then navigate my partner’s place of work (a large lumber mill) by myself to find and bring back our 58 roof rafters, which were at that point still 12 foot pieces that just barely fit in the van. I suppose I should be grateful that it was this van instead of the alternative: a 1-ton manual transmission flatbed pickup that, including side mirrors, takes up all the available space in the lane. Eek.

Accidents were avoided and all went well (except for that one truck I may have cut off and to whom I have endless gratitude/apologies) and I returned the rafters to the cabinet shop and myself to home with only one small outburst of tired agitation (some well-deserved tears as I sat at a stoplight on the way home).

Saturday

On Saturday we had grand plans to finish sewing the canvas together. My partner tried his best to be helpful but I eventually convinced him that no matter how much help, I was going to proceed at the pace of a turtle and he ought to head down and work on the rafters. When he left, I succumbed to my stomachache and tiredness and, in turn, called my mother, watched Seinfeld, had a good cry, and took a 90 minute nap.

Saturday afternoon is the lowest point so far. It was a mental Pit of Despair, beginning with “We will not get the yurt finished in time” and passing through “This was a terrible, awful, no good, very bad idea” all the way to “I will never be able to raise children because I’m 25 and don’t know how to house myself.” Seriously. I won’t say it won’t get lower – I feel I should know better than that – but after the progress we made on Sunday and a return of energy, I am feeling, thankfully, much more optimistic. 

Sunday

We decided a couple of things this weekend: The first is to push our move-in date to after Thanksgiving. This, yes, only gives us one weekend day and two weekdays to move ourselves, but it lets the pressure off and, for the moment, makes this scheme seem possible. This reformed schedule allowed the second decision, which was to push several to-do items off to the weeknights this week.

We relegated finishing the canvas to this week and decided to focus our efforts Sunday on carpentry. As a result we shaped and sanded and drilled and varnished the rafters, drilled and varnished the roof wheel, finished putting together (finally) the wall lattice, and built a door. I am incredibly impressed and proud of my partner’s woodworking abilities. As he says cockily, “Ma’am, don’t you know you hired a professional?” This project would absolutely not be happening – at least not anywhere close to this time scale – without his expertise and get-it-done mentality.

We have almost an entire yurt skeleton! This week Edward will piece together a door frame, we will paint both the door and frame, and then we will be able to put it all together and fit the inner canvas. We have a loose timeline in mind, but I’m trying to not nail too much down and to hold the individual tasks loosely. We will have a new place to live in two weeks!