Day 177: Optimizing my apartment for business

After my flatmate has moved out two weeks ago, I started to prepare her room for my photo & design studio. It took one week for me and the landlord just to work on the repainting of the room. Then I had to decide what to do with all of the furniture that has been completely moved from the room to the back yard before the painting. It took me several days before I decided about the final placement of the closets and tables. What I knew was that I need to move the big office desk with computer and printers from my current bedroom to the new studio. However, all the rest of the furniture that has so far been in my bedroom and in the bedroom of my ex-flatmate I could place it in any of the rooms. I experimented a lot with many different compositions and moved some pieces of furniture from one to another room even three times. That was mentally and especially physically exhausting since I did most of the movements by myself and some closets were very heavy.

The final placement was such that two closets from my bedroom were moved to the studio and three of those that were in the toom of my ex-roommate were placed into my bedroom. It all looked fine however when I went to sleep, I experienced such a disturbing smell from the newly placed closets that I could not sleep. So I moved two of the closets out of the room and the smell became bearable again. The next day I was focused to remove for the smell so I spent a lot of time searching online for the solutions. I prepared the shopping list and went to the shopping mall where I purchased the necessary products for the smell removal. Then I prepared a mixture of hot water, alcoholic vinegar, baking soda, and a Lavander essential oil. With that liquid, I wiped all the sides and insides of the problematic closets. And that was also quite a physically exhausting task. I left the closets to dry overnight and the next day I placed them in their final position.

The odor removal procedure has been effective and I was able to sleep in my bedroom just fine after that. I planned to in the same way process also several other closets with minor odor however I have become so physically tired that I decided to wait for a couple of days. Yesterday I also went shopping at the hardware store to buy some accessories to enhance my living experience even more. I purchased adhesive textile to stick it on the bottom of the closet so that I can slide it easier and with less possibility of scratching the floor, new handles for one of the closets that broke off, and a mesh for the windows to prevent insects from entering my apartment, and some other accessories that I need for my photo studio. So today I plan to continue with the cleaning of the closets, sticking textile pads, replacing handles and mounting of the mesh.

In the last days, I have been also thinking about how to make the room with a kitchen more appropriate as the reception room. Initially, I considered the presence of the kitchen not appropriate at all so I wanted to remove it from the view of my visitors. I went to a curtains shop and asked how much would it cost and how long would it take to make a curtain that would span from the floor up to the ceiling and cover all of my kitchens. After I found out the price and that it would take at least 3 weeks to deliver it decided that this is not something that I am going to invest into at the moment. And after I got some friends invited to look at my new studio they said that having a kitchen in the reception room is even an advantage since it makes it more homely. So I decided to leave it to be visible and will just clean it and replace the objects on the shelves so that they will be more harmonious and pleasant to the eye.

One of bigger undertakings was also a detailed cleaning and flipping of the refrigerator. The insides were very dirty, with stains of food and the walls of the freezer were encased in ice. So the first step was to remove all the food from it. And I asked my neighbor if can store the frozen food in her freezer for a while. After all the ice melted down, I removed the water and all the small movable parts from within the refrigerator. I followed with the washing of all the interior and exterior and vacuuming of the appliance at the back. Next, I placed the fridge on the floor, turned it upside down and moved the hinges and handles from one side to another. That made the opening of the doors on the fridge much more convenient for me considering its position in the kitchen. And finally, I placed it back to its place, mounted back all the cleaned shelves, turned it on and filled it with the food again.

The landlord also replaced the kitchen faucet with a new one because it leaked water slowly for many months. So far I have been tolerating this malfunction and had a piece of cloth wrapped around it so that the water did not spread around and was redirected into the sink. However, that was not a permanent solution and I am glad that the landlord finally considered my complaint and done something about it. The problem with water is also on the wall before the bathroom. The moist is somehow entering the wall and making the plaster to fall off and this has been the problem for years. The landlord also tried to replaster the wall a week ago however the top layer started to peel off already the next day. He was frustrated with the situation and said that he will fix it someday later. I guess he will have to completely replace the shower ceramic tiles which will cost him a lot.

Besides all these big tasks there are also smaller ones that I plan to do. Some of the clothes from one closet became a bit smelly due to mold and I need to was them. Then there are a lot of items in the closets that I do not need them anymore. Some are part of my wardrobe and some are office and business items that became obsolete in time and due to recent change of my business path. All the physical and mental effort contributed to by lower back pain to being increased. So I have to be careful not to overwhelm myself too much and to take enough rest. And also to plan the task so that I can execute them in small enough steps. Luckily I had some sales in a recent period that suffices for all my increased monthly expenses so I am quite satisfied with my current movement. In the following days, I plan to make my apartment more fluent and then I will only seriously start with the advertising of my new business services.

Some attention will need also the files on my computer. Usually, after I finish a design or photography project, I delete the obsolete files, rename and code them and move them in the client designated folder. I also file any related paper documents and other client-related items. Thus I make sure that my desk, my computer workspace, and my email inbox are always clean. However several weeks ago I stopped with this practice and the clutter began to accumulate, mostly in terms of my computer files. I now have thousands of files, especially photos, to review, process and store them. It will take me a lot of time and butt pain to fix this but it has to be done. I work best if I can fully focus on my new projects when I am completely done with my previous ones. So I will slow down and take it to step by step, regardless of how much time it will take.

Here are some supportive audios that assisted me a lot in regards to this blog post:
Lower Back Pain
Can't This Go Any Faster
Internal & External Process
Space, Environment, Routine, & Self Definition
Moving Your Staff and Your Business Forward

Day 176: My difficult flatmate finally moved out

For 2 years I have been living with a female flatmate in a 50 square meters large apartment. We shared the dining room with a kitchen and a bathroom and each of us had our own living room with a bed. She initially moved in with her ex-boyfriends and before that, they both lived in a very small room within the apartment next to mine. Before they moved into our apartment building with a shared backyard and a garden I have met her a couple of times personally. It was she who initially contacted me via Facebook after finding my self-support vlogs on my YouTube channel. She was seeking support due to her emotional and mental state. So when she and her boyfriend moved into our building, I had an expectation that she will be open to my support and will begin the intensive process of self-transformation. However, she had big resistance, had intensive emotional episodes and almost never came out out of her room.

Initially, that girl had a very strong attachment to physical intimacy and was not able to fall asleep if at least one person did not sleep near her bed. In times when her boyfriend was away for a couple of days, she asked a friend or a neighbor to come sleeping in her room or she asked them if she can sleep on a floor in near their bed. I found out that that was because she was used to living with her parents in a very small apartment where she did not have her own room so she basically slept with her parents to her quite high age. Her parents were very possessive, they did not want her to ever leave them and wanted her to remain their child forever. Consequently, she did not develop proper social skills and to be able to function in this society independently. Eventually, she resisted their parents, left home and was so far in a couple of unsatisfying relationships with boys. She also told me how her parents fought a lot and were in conflict with basically all of the neighbors in the village. 

When she initially contacted me I found her very cute and did not know if she was in a relationship or not. Then when I met her in person at an event I asked her about that and she told me that she is with a boy however I should ask him about the nature of their relationship. So I did speak to that boy and he explained that they are in some sort of uncommitted relationship. Despite that, I decided not to interfere in their relationship since did not want to be responsible for a breakup. Also when they moved into our building, I respected that and supported her only with friendly conversations. However, after her boyfriend broke up with her, she asked me if I would be fine with her sleeping in my bedroom and I gave her permission. Overtime her desire for physical closeness increased and that was the stage where we had to look at the point of sexuality.

Regardless of how much she craved for the physical intimacy, she did not want to treat it as anything sexual. The reason for that was that she was terrified of getting pregnant and having a child because she considered herself as being only a child. Her level of emotional and psychological development was so low that she never had a job and lived only form social support money. She had very low self-esteem, also due to her problems with digestion and some other health problems. In the past 3 years, she made some steps forward since I supported her in getting used to sleeping alone in her bedroom and she started to go out more. A couple of months back she found herself a new boyfriend and he started to visit her in her room. When she moved out he also assisted her to pack her belongings and to move the furniture out so that the room could be repainted.

The reason for her moving out was because her basic communication pattern was only to complain about the problems in her life and this world. She also has been accusing me and all the neighbors for how she felt about herself and also committed some minor physical attacks. Usually the day after her outburst she apologized to those that she hurt, however, after some time the pattern repeated. Due to complaints, the landlord gave her a deadline for moving out. It is now a week since she moved out from the time I am writing this post and I feel massive relief since I no longer have to worry about someone attacking me on a daily basis. However, I have not been taking everything that I experienced with my ex-flatmate as one of her own faults. Sure she had her part of the responsibility and she did change quite a bit however I do understand that it takes time to change own behavior patterns.

I can say that we both learned a lot from our relationship. She learned from my own example of how to maintain a clear and orderly style of living and how to support self with writing. And I learned how deeply the traumatic experiences from childhood can be rooted and how the change in behavior takes a lot of time despite a very supportive environment. Thus despite some girl looking attractive to me visually, she can be holding past experiences that create conflicts in a life partnership. In the past, I have been attracted to girls that displayed problematic behavior and I desired to be in a relationship with them in order to fix and save them. But I have learned that such relationships are very compromising in terms of my mental state, health, and business success. So now I would rather live alone and enjoy the peace that suffering conflicts just to be in a relationship with someone.

Suggested related supportive educational audios:

Family and Friends
A Mother's Love of Guilt
The Crazy Mother
Who's Responsible for the Enslavement of Mankind
Life Review of a Dependent Personality
Releasing Trauma