Structural Changes

A year and a half ago (or two years, depending on the time you start counting), when it became clear One Life to Live was dying, our ideas of renovating our apartment pretty much died too.  No pass-through kitchen, no carving out better spaces for my kids, no putting protective walls around my husband's desk, no built-in shelving for our various collections.
 
Now, it turns out, One Life to Live is not dead after all.  And, since I will be joining the show in Stamford in less than two weeks (yes, I will be ADing there), there is now an urgency to get as much done at home as I can, before every hour of my energy starts going into this new venture.
 
Am I saying I am renovating our apartment? Heavens, no. We all know that takes way longer than two weeks.  Why, then, the talk of what we would have done?  Well, I realized today that if I was to accomplish all the things on my to-do list, I was going to have to work on a few things at the same time.  So, in order to watch Emmy submission DVDs while making eggplant Parmesan, I turned my dining table into the pass through kitchen counter I never built. Instead of holing up in our narrow, closed off kitchen, unable to do anything but cook, I was suddenly able to accomplish two things at once. A "structural change" in the absence of a structural change.
 
I have a feeling my traveling to Stamford will require a great many of these "structural changes." While we won't be moving or anything that extreme, we--all of us--will need to do things a little bit differently to make it work.
 
Today's experience, which really just required an open mind and a willingness to carry a few ingredients to the table, was, oddly, a rather eye-opening one. Often we think major structural changes are required to fix the difficulties in our lives. Sometimes, that's true. But sometimes, a few minor tweaks and a slightly different approach are all the "structural change" that we need.
 
So, in the next two weeks, I will be working on some of those different approaches, and I feel sure that the "structural changes" will continue for a long time before we ever get around to hiring a contractor.  Perhaps by that time, we will have made so many adjustments to our own structures that not much demolition will be required.