Okay, I finally stopped long enough yesterday to ask myself one simple question: Is it ever really going to be finished? Referring, of course, to the house. And the first answer that hit me was, Absolutely Not. And it came to me quickly, like an electrically propelled Magic 8-Ball answer. Absolutely Not.

And so I stopped and sat down. I surveyed the garage (which is where I spent roughly 36 of the last 48 hours of my life). All around me was work. And on Saturday, my intention had been to finish it all before this morning. The impossibility of finishing by Sunday night was so much less troublesome than the realization that I’ve been trying too hard all along. This house is not going to be “finished” overnight. We’ve been working on it pretty steadily over the last month and a half or so, but we’ve also got a 3-and-a-half year old boy, two jobs, and regular life duties to attend to.

And so I came to the peaceful conclusion that I need to stop trying so hard. And everything felt much better after that.