Day #60: Clearing a Place for Myself
When we bought this house, we were expecting James. We weren't expecting him quite so soon...he arrived 7 weeks early and about 6 weeks after we moved into our house, so we didn't have a lot of time to prepare our nest before we were dealing with the ups and downs of new parenthood.
This house was a huge upgrade for us. We moved from a 3 bedroom 1 bath Craftsman that had a bedroom that barely qualified legally to be a bedroom, a little attic room that could only be access by what I used to refer to as "the suicide stairs." You also could only get to said stairs by going through the laundry room, which didn't have heat and was freezing in winter. The whole house was heated with baseboards and was ridiculously expensive to heat.
Now, I know big houses are an American thing and a privilege. I can remember washing dishes with my great aunt in what she used to call her "one butt" kitchen and she'd look around and say I don't know how I ever raised three kids in this house. It was one of those 1920s houses with the one car detached garage, built in clothesline out back, 3 bedrooms, 1 bath. I don't know how she did either.
When we found out James was happening, we had already started looking for a new place for ourselves. My husband is a person with hobbies, to put it mildly, so we always were down a bedroom, so we had the one we slept in and the one under the eaves which was my little office. I liked it up there. I had a little desk with a typewriter and a little window with a view of our huge backyard. But it was never going to be our family home.
Our current house is mid-century, built in the 1950s. It's a rambler with a daylight basement that was finished in the 1980s, wood panelling, drop ceilings, and all. We were never really midcentury type people before we looked at this house but we've come to love it. It's not all that dissimilar to the house I grew up in which was 20 years newer. It has a galley kitchen with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths upstairs, including a master, but it's the basement that makes it us. There's two huge rec rooms, one almost completely unfinished that my husband immediately adopted as his work room, and one with the wood panelling that makes a perfect media room. There's also a nice sized bedroom and powder room.
So much space was a luxury coming from our Craftsman and believe me we filled it. Even though James arrived early so it took months to finally put the baby room together...in the early days it had a rocker that I could sit in and nurse him, the breast pump, a changing table, and a lot of gift bags and baby things that just got stuck in there after the shower, an event that ended up happening 4 days after he was born. We had a nursery with great built-ins, a real master although it's kinda small, a guest room upstairs with a closet for storage, a giant work room for Josh, a living room that wasn't full of video games and a TV room downstairs...and a little office for me!
I was excited to get the basement bedroom for my very own, although after my little room under the eaves I was worried about being stuck in the basement. I put my desk right in front of the window which looks out on the backyard, which faces due west, so that ended up not being the best of ideas. But I had a closet for craft supply storage and a little twin bed as guest room overflow and plenty of space to set up a writers area. In 2015 when I started podcasting I moved my desk to a corner so I have the wood paneling behind me and face into the room. With all that sound dampening, it was great acoustics and I liked the layout a lot. And then we upgraded James to a twin bed...and discovered Max was going to be a thing.
Suddenly I was faced with the challenge of mashing together two rooms...my basement office and guest room. There was room to put the full size bed in and keep my desk setup, but a lot of stuff from both rooms was going to have to go. I shredded mounds of paperwork, threw a lot of stuff away, and revisioned what wall hangings went where many times. I'm honestly still working on that. I liked the room when it was done. The bed doesn't bother me, it's an antique and there's room for it. The rest of the room still feels very much like me. There's even a little cupboard under the stairs that the kids can play in. But I didn't have a lot of leisure time when Max was a newborn so I didn't spend a ton of time in the room and stuff just started to pile up in it. Then, late last year, my husband suggested a desk swap. We moved one of the desks upstairs (I had 2 in an L-shape for a work station,) Josh put in a work bench, and I got his desk so I had more surface area to work with. He took care of moving things around and such. He set it up for me and plugged my computer in. All I had to do was come downstairs, clean off my desk surfaces, and claim my space.
That was about five months ago. Maybe more. Every now and then he'd say to me, hey, you should go clean out your room. It will make you feel better to have a space. He'd see me with my laptop set up on the bed complaining that my back hurt from sitting that way and say, hey, go clean out your room. I'd tell him that I missed my typewriters, ideal things for a writer to noodle on. He'd say, just go clean out your room.
I woke up yesterday morning and...things were not awesome. The kids have been getting up SO early, I was NOT ready to be awake at all, Josh and I argued about I don't even know what...it was just a rough start. Some days are like that. We are holding up okay, but honestly, this whole thing is starting to wear on all of us...for sure.
Then, without really thinking about it, I grabbed some pictures in frames that I had stashed in the top of my closet after we set up Max's room and said I'm going to work in my room today. I want to have my own space set up.
It's weird, this guilt thing we do as moms. I know how much cleaning and sorting and organizing needs to be done in my house. I can see the clutter. In the kitchen, in my bedroom, in Max's room. Clutter is the demon I fight. It is everywhere and it is stressful. But somehow you feel like you have to tackle public spaces first. You have to do the kitchen because people will see it. You have to do the living room because what if someone comes over. And so even though you spend a ton of time in your bedroom, your home office, your laundry room, your fill in the blank, you don't take the time to declutter those spaces. It's almost like you say to yourself, on a regular basis, I'm not worth it.
Well, there are still plenty of messes left, but yesterday, despite the kids crawling all over me and Max getting stressed out and crying at one point because he wanted mama and didn't know where I was (a sure sign that I haven't spent nearly enough time in my office,) I went through things and cleared a lot of the clutter out of the way, hung things on the walls, and otherwise reclaimed my space. And today I got to sit in it and do some genealogy which I honestly haven't done in a very long time and some writing and not kill my back even though Lord knows I could use a new office chair.
I think it might have been Instagram envy that made me do it. Being stuck at home for such an extended period of time is making a lot of people rethink or invent home office spaces and it's kind of fun to watch. And again, I don't always feel like I'm worth it because I don't have a paying job that allows me to work from home so technically I don't need this space.
And let's be real. The kids were in here with me for a good portion of the time and even though they have their little room that they like and a little rocking chair and such it's hard to get them to not mess with me and my stuff. Max has figured out how to crawl up and into my chair behind me so he can crawl like a monkey up my back, it's kind of impressive.
But to have a desk! To look around and see my family photos and little knick knacks I've collected and have a place to display them. To feel like I have a home base that isn't the dining room table or my bed! Oh, it feels so nice. My husband has been saying for MONTHS to do this, you'll feel so much better. He's such a smart guy. If we are going to be home so much, we need and deserve to do more of this, to carve out the spaces to be in and make them feel good for us. And, honestly, once you sit down to really do that work, it doesn't take long and it feels amazing when done. Now...next step...to break out the typewriters!
Today was a better day than yesterday. We went on a little mini road trip...I promised a friend who lives 40 minutes down the road I'd bring her some books and we took the whole family along just to get us out of the house. It wasn't a real nap for Max but it was nice. The weather wasn't bad, either. So I got to spend some time in my room and get out of the house and feel the sun on my face.
We drove past a cemetery and the sign reminding people that gatherings of more than 10 are prohibited was sobering. So many deaths and you can't have a funeral. There are always little reminders of that. But there are reminders of other things, too. The flowers are blooming, it is spring for sure. Life is moving on and forward and so will we.
Media consumption today: I opened up my order of poetry books from the bookshop I wanted to visit on Seattle Indie bookstore day, and I started reading one of them, a book of prose poems by a mom about her journey called Letdown. I was the one who entered it into Goodreads which makes me feel like I'm the first person on earth to read it. I've *barely* started it, so no thoughts yet but I'm sure there will be. I'm still reading Flora and Ulysses, I've slowed down on it, I should be further, it is so short, but still hilarious...such a great voice. And I'm still listening to Anne of Avonlea. No real TV watching today unless you count falling asleep for an episode of The Dick van Dyke Show after I sent the kids down to see their dad this morning. I didn't let James watch TV at all today and man, he was not pleased. But it's good for him. There's no TV in my office, another reason to like it here. James and I are still reading Pippi Longstocking, he's not as into it as Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle but I think he's enjoying it. And Max is IN LOVE with being read to right now, I even read him some of Flora and Ulysses and that was great.
Today I'm grateful for my own space, video chatting with my sister and my nephews, reading to my kids, poetry, sunshine, that my headache finally went away, genealogy, time to sit and breathe, an extra clicky keyboard, and continued health for me and mine.
This house was a huge upgrade for us. We moved from a 3 bedroom 1 bath Craftsman that had a bedroom that barely qualified legally to be a bedroom, a little attic room that could only be access by what I used to refer to as "the suicide stairs." You also could only get to said stairs by going through the laundry room, which didn't have heat and was freezing in winter. The whole house was heated with baseboards and was ridiculously expensive to heat.
Now, I know big houses are an American thing and a privilege. I can remember washing dishes with my great aunt in what she used to call her "one butt" kitchen and she'd look around and say I don't know how I ever raised three kids in this house. It was one of those 1920s houses with the one car detached garage, built in clothesline out back, 3 bedrooms, 1 bath. I don't know how she did either.
When we found out James was happening, we had already started looking for a new place for ourselves. My husband is a person with hobbies, to put it mildly, so we always were down a bedroom, so we had the one we slept in and the one under the eaves which was my little office. I liked it up there. I had a little desk with a typewriter and a little window with a view of our huge backyard. But it was never going to be our family home.
Our current house is mid-century, built in the 1950s. It's a rambler with a daylight basement that was finished in the 1980s, wood panelling, drop ceilings, and all. We were never really midcentury type people before we looked at this house but we've come to love it. It's not all that dissimilar to the house I grew up in which was 20 years newer. It has a galley kitchen with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths upstairs, including a master, but it's the basement that makes it us. There's two huge rec rooms, one almost completely unfinished that my husband immediately adopted as his work room, and one with the wood panelling that makes a perfect media room. There's also a nice sized bedroom and powder room.
So much space was a luxury coming from our Craftsman and believe me we filled it. Even though James arrived early so it took months to finally put the baby room together...in the early days it had a rocker that I could sit in and nurse him, the breast pump, a changing table, and a lot of gift bags and baby things that just got stuck in there after the shower, an event that ended up happening 4 days after he was born. We had a nursery with great built-ins, a real master although it's kinda small, a guest room upstairs with a closet for storage, a giant work room for Josh, a living room that wasn't full of video games and a TV room downstairs...and a little office for me!
I was excited to get the basement bedroom for my very own, although after my little room under the eaves I was worried about being stuck in the basement. I put my desk right in front of the window which looks out on the backyard, which faces due west, so that ended up not being the best of ideas. But I had a closet for craft supply storage and a little twin bed as guest room overflow and plenty of space to set up a writers area. In 2015 when I started podcasting I moved my desk to a corner so I have the wood paneling behind me and face into the room. With all that sound dampening, it was great acoustics and I liked the layout a lot. And then we upgraded James to a twin bed...and discovered Max was going to be a thing.
Suddenly I was faced with the challenge of mashing together two rooms...my basement office and guest room. There was room to put the full size bed in and keep my desk setup, but a lot of stuff from both rooms was going to have to go. I shredded mounds of paperwork, threw a lot of stuff away, and revisioned what wall hangings went where many times. I'm honestly still working on that. I liked the room when it was done. The bed doesn't bother me, it's an antique and there's room for it. The rest of the room still feels very much like me. There's even a little cupboard under the stairs that the kids can play in. But I didn't have a lot of leisure time when Max was a newborn so I didn't spend a ton of time in the room and stuff just started to pile up in it. Then, late last year, my husband suggested a desk swap. We moved one of the desks upstairs (I had 2 in an L-shape for a work station,) Josh put in a work bench, and I got his desk so I had more surface area to work with. He took care of moving things around and such. He set it up for me and plugged my computer in. All I had to do was come downstairs, clean off my desk surfaces, and claim my space.
That was about five months ago. Maybe more. Every now and then he'd say to me, hey, you should go clean out your room. It will make you feel better to have a space. He'd see me with my laptop set up on the bed complaining that my back hurt from sitting that way and say, hey, go clean out your room. I'd tell him that I missed my typewriters, ideal things for a writer to noodle on. He'd say, just go clean out your room.
I woke up yesterday morning and...things were not awesome. The kids have been getting up SO early, I was NOT ready to be awake at all, Josh and I argued about I don't even know what...it was just a rough start. Some days are like that. We are holding up okay, but honestly, this whole thing is starting to wear on all of us...for sure.
Then, without really thinking about it, I grabbed some pictures in frames that I had stashed in the top of my closet after we set up Max's room and said I'm going to work in my room today. I want to have my own space set up.
It's weird, this guilt thing we do as moms. I know how much cleaning and sorting and organizing needs to be done in my house. I can see the clutter. In the kitchen, in my bedroom, in Max's room. Clutter is the demon I fight. It is everywhere and it is stressful. But somehow you feel like you have to tackle public spaces first. You have to do the kitchen because people will see it. You have to do the living room because what if someone comes over. And so even though you spend a ton of time in your bedroom, your home office, your laundry room, your fill in the blank, you don't take the time to declutter those spaces. It's almost like you say to yourself, on a regular basis, I'm not worth it.
Well, there are still plenty of messes left, but yesterday, despite the kids crawling all over me and Max getting stressed out and crying at one point because he wanted mama and didn't know where I was (a sure sign that I haven't spent nearly enough time in my office,) I went through things and cleared a lot of the clutter out of the way, hung things on the walls, and otherwise reclaimed my space. And today I got to sit in it and do some genealogy which I honestly haven't done in a very long time and some writing and not kill my back even though Lord knows I could use a new office chair.
I think it might have been Instagram envy that made me do it. Being stuck at home for such an extended period of time is making a lot of people rethink or invent home office spaces and it's kind of fun to watch. And again, I don't always feel like I'm worth it because I don't have a paying job that allows me to work from home so technically I don't need this space.
And let's be real. The kids were in here with me for a good portion of the time and even though they have their little room that they like and a little rocking chair and such it's hard to get them to not mess with me and my stuff. Max has figured out how to crawl up and into my chair behind me so he can crawl like a monkey up my back, it's kind of impressive.
But to have a desk! To look around and see my family photos and little knick knacks I've collected and have a place to display them. To feel like I have a home base that isn't the dining room table or my bed! Oh, it feels so nice. My husband has been saying for MONTHS to do this, you'll feel so much better. He's such a smart guy. If we are going to be home so much, we need and deserve to do more of this, to carve out the spaces to be in and make them feel good for us. And, honestly, once you sit down to really do that work, it doesn't take long and it feels amazing when done. Now...next step...to break out the typewriters!
Today was a better day than yesterday. We went on a little mini road trip...I promised a friend who lives 40 minutes down the road I'd bring her some books and we took the whole family along just to get us out of the house. It wasn't a real nap for Max but it was nice. The weather wasn't bad, either. So I got to spend some time in my room and get out of the house and feel the sun on my face.
We drove past a cemetery and the sign reminding people that gatherings of more than 10 are prohibited was sobering. So many deaths and you can't have a funeral. There are always little reminders of that. But there are reminders of other things, too. The flowers are blooming, it is spring for sure. Life is moving on and forward and so will we.
Media consumption today: I opened up my order of poetry books from the bookshop I wanted to visit on Seattle Indie bookstore day, and I started reading one of them, a book of prose poems by a mom about her journey called Letdown. I was the one who entered it into Goodreads which makes me feel like I'm the first person on earth to read it. I've *barely* started it, so no thoughts yet but I'm sure there will be. I'm still reading Flora and Ulysses, I've slowed down on it, I should be further, it is so short, but still hilarious...such a great voice. And I'm still listening to Anne of Avonlea. No real TV watching today unless you count falling asleep for an episode of The Dick van Dyke Show after I sent the kids down to see their dad this morning. I didn't let James watch TV at all today and man, he was not pleased. But it's good for him. There's no TV in my office, another reason to like it here. James and I are still reading Pippi Longstocking, he's not as into it as Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle but I think he's enjoying it. And Max is IN LOVE with being read to right now, I even read him some of Flora and Ulysses and that was great.
Today I'm grateful for my own space, video chatting with my sister and my nephews, reading to my kids, poetry, sunshine, that my headache finally went away, genealogy, time to sit and breathe, an extra clicky keyboard, and continued health for me and mine.
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