I bought a house. It’s just a charming little mill house in an area in Greensboro that has old mills being revitalized and close to downtown. I’m so in love with my own little piece of the world.
it’s coming up on a year since I purchased it and I’m slowly making updates to make it perfect for me.
If you are on instagram, you can follow me. I’ve been busy…
I’ve been reading these books by Glennon Doyle; The latest one being love warrior a memoir by her. I find her insight and personal growth fascinating. I don’t think I have ever met somebody who dissects their inner feelings as much as she does overcome so many struggles that she has had. I am envious.
If you haven’t checked it out, i’d really recommend it.
Yeah, so a few months goes by rather quickly. Â Surgery / recovery / more bandage changes / casts and time out of work, but as of August 6th, I’ve been ok to go back to work and after going back gradually, I’ve been now full time for a month. Â It feels great to have a life again. Â One more trip to the doc for my foot and I should be cleared.
and here are my xrays… Â 
I’m screwed… and what’s cool is that you can see the hardware from my ankle surgery in 2009!
I’m hoping I get full mobility back and my therapy will help with that…
So, while I continue to heal and be stubborn because I’m not 100% yet and want to do everything at 100% super-hero power, I’m alive and my Tinker and I are doing perfect together.
“if you stay rooted in your inward awareness and enduring core sensibility, you will be tapped as a vessel for what is to be, and that is all you need to know.”
I needed to hear this song today, as I’m feeling a bit vulnerable, isolated and alone. It’s not because I have a lack of people in my life. I’m just a bit overwhelmed with my upcoming surgery on Tuesday, but mostly I really think I’m suffering from a depression from the accident. Each time I see a car coming from the opposite direction, I cringe and when I’m a passenger in a car, I’m on edge and aware of my heightened anxiety whenever the simplest touch of the break happens. Mostly, I’m suffering from such incredible guilt over the loss of my Krypto. God, I miss that little boy so much and it tears me up each second of the day. If I had only held onto him tighter; if I had him restrained in a seatbelt;
if I…. if I…..
If I loved him more, maybe that would have saved him…
I loved that boy more than words come close to expressing, and yet it was not enough – I did not have the power to save him and I just wanted to. I would have done anything to save him… I am trying to stay aware of every emotion I’m feeling right now and work through it. “work through it instead of around it”. wise words from my friend Jaymie. The last few days have been extra hard to “work through it”, but I’m trying. I desperately want to step outside of these feelings and just not feel them and I know I have to feel them, to grieve them and him and everything that’s happened that’s been out of my control since. When you try really hard to keep it together, it’s tiring and my brain hurts and my eyes are tired of crying. I’ve needed the past few days to just sleep and be alone and hobble around my apartment with my stupid foot in a boot and also just love on my little Tinker, because there is not a moment I’m not grateful to still have her in my life. She has been my salvation during this time and I don’t know what I’d do without her…
So as I continue to cry, I will also cry happy tears because seeing her prance around this apartment, throwing around and playing with her stuffed animals, snuggling with me and peeking out the living room window when I come home and smiling – these things bring me the greatest joy right now and I need her probably more than she needs me.
In keeping with my goal of purging items I’ve collected and don’t need, I come across my final submittal project one of my favorite classes; Construction Materials and Methods. I took this class at Central Piedmont Community College in charlotte during the fall of ’08. When I completed this class, I got accepted to UNCG’s Interior Architecture program in Greensboro and when Professor Braswell, an architect, found out, he was devastated I wasn’t going to go on to become an architect. He’d often said i had the eye for it. Many years later, while studying architecture in Scotland, I realized i made the right choice as a career, but it was quite an honor for me to have him believe in me the way he did. Not all liked him, he was a hard ass, but he reminded me of my Grandpa Volpi and could relate to him and I enjoyed all of his classes immensely.
In this class, we took many field trips to construction sites and factories to see how things were made. I got to go to the top of the NASCAR Hall of Fame office tower as it was being built and it was a class that fueled my love for joinery and construction.
This is a hard one to purge because it holds so much memories for me and it was a class I was proud of and a time of renewal for me. Ten years later, I’m finding myself in the same position… a-little older and a-little wiser, but yet still a-little fragile and insecure.
Yes, this is a hard one, but I’m ready. 
This wiring shit is fun!! I know what an RJ-45 cable crimping tool is and I’m good at it. I’ve also realized that I need to run more cable to reception… But I know how to do that and make the cable. it’s like a puzzle. 🙂
The morning started off with a really stellar cup of coffee. I mean it was so good, I filled a tall superman glass with half the pot of coffee and took it with me to work. I even finished snaking all the wiring through the attic and got the ends (which I labeled) into the mechanical room.
Now, many may not know this, but I’m pretty scared of heights and for the past few days of doing this wiring, I’ve climbed 10′ tall ladders and just worked through my fear because that’s what I do. I need to get shit done and no ladder is going to control me.
So, It was all going well… I was finishing up snaking the last wire in and.. 
You can call it a stunt, but it was a fall. I was on this stupid wobbly step ladder about 5′ in the air, thinking I’d be ok with the wall next to me, when it suddenly started to tip. By the grace of Dog, I didn’t break a hip or a neck, so I figured I was ok. I threw that mother-flipping step ladder out and reluctantly got the bigger ladder to finish what I was doing.
So after surviving that fall, thinking I was ok and now laying in bed, I realize that I bruised and messed up my elbow and back. I’m glad I’m ok but for petes sake!!!! I’m usually positive and easygoing but I’m just ready for things to work the way they should, people to do the things they say they would do and I’m ready for this now.
Today I’m learning what it means to be proficient in computer networking. Or at least run wires. More of the later, honestly… I’m just a helper to someone who knows what they are doing. 😉
Ahh. Attic and insulation. I’m afraid of heights, so getting up 10′ into this attic is a pretty big deal for me.
Miles and miles of this stuff but after today, the business wiring for phones and computers will be done and working.
It’s been over two years since I graduated from uncg, and as I lay here on a Friday trying to have a few minutes of downtime, I decided to revisit some of my previous design ideas.
Its remarkable the transformation I took over the course of four years in the Interior Architecture program at UNCG. I don’t miss being a sleep deprived student spending overnights in studio, but I do miss some of the people I went to school with AND many of the amazing teachers that I came in contact with. It was quite a community of talented designers and the collaboration and team work was one of my favorite parts.
I feel a desire to blog again and depending on how long it lasts, I will be updating here. There is so much of myself invested in this blog and it feels like home. My posts will vary in topics, based on how I feel at the time.
I hope you will join me on this new journey.
audra volpi 