I'm Dreaming of A Home Office...

My house has turned into one big office this week. My son is visiting, and he works from home all the time, while Jim and I both work at home at least 50% of the time, so my little house is bursting with business. This has set me dreaming about setting up a real home office, as opposed to the dining room table, kitchen table, and small desk shoved in the corner of the guest room. So, in between writing my medical reports, I cyber trekked over to Furniture From Home office department. Within two seconds I had picked out the perfect credenza desk for Jim, one I would love to prop my feet up on as well.

Of course I couldn't resist shopping for some living room and bedroom furniture on this site, which offers a world of lovely pieces organized in nicely appointed virtual rooms.

Now, if I could only get a raise...

Home Again

Sigh. It's a little quiet around my house tonight. No soft hum of conversation from the guest room, no click-click of the keys on the computer, no sudden giggles or hearty guffaws at something comical on TV or the web, no late night kitchen raids for a bowl of cereal or some cookies and milk. My son left home today. Well, to be fair, he really left home eight years ago when he moved to Florida to go to college. Fresh out of high school, he packed up virtually everything he owned, rented his own apartment, and proceeded to set up housekeeping for himself. He did a fine job of it too, but, like his ancient ancestor Adam, found himself a little lonely. So within a couple of years he found the perfect partner. She too was living all alone - in Australia, and far away from her family in Thailand. So now they have a home and life of their own in Florida. And lucky for us, they've been visiting with us for the past 10 days.

It's interesting when grown children come home. So many old habits remain - the way he stopped by our room on his way to bed to call out "Good Night," just like he did every night when he was a child. The way he stays up late, typing away at his keyboard and listening to music on his headphones, as he so often did as a teenager. But now he's often working when he's typing away at the computer, and he takes conference calls from places like Kansas and China. And when he goes to bed at night, he sleeps with his wife, and not with an array of stuffed toys.

I think if you do your job as a parent (and you have a little bit of good luck on your side) your children will establish independent lives, relationships, and homes. They will pursue their passions, and follow their dreams. But in fulfilling your duty as a parent, and supporting your children in pursuit of their dreams, it actually means causing yourself great pain. The thing we most want to do, from the minute our babies are born, is to keep them close to us. And the thing we have to start doing, from the minute they're born, is learning how to let them go.

So, I waved goodbye at the airport again this afternoon-I've gotten really good at doing that. And once again I came home to a very empty room, and a very quiet house.

Sigh.

Cleaning House

I'm clearing the decks around here. Yep, I went on a bender in my basement today, and toted whole loads of stuff out to the curb for the trash man. I do this periodically, even though it barely makes a dent in the years and years worth of stuff that's heaped down there. There have been three generations of our family who've lived in this house, so there's everything from my father-in-law's 78 records of Franklin Roosevelt (I kid you not) to my husband's model cars and my son's outdated computers. The history of an American family, in artifact form, right in my basement. I, however, can be really merciless when it comes to tossing to the curb. I just need to be in the right mood. An ancient broken computer and monitor - gone. Some ugly tattered throw pillows and scruffy bric-a-brac - gone. Batches of cassette and VHS tapes - useless. Three ring binders filled with copies of meeting minutes from one of my musical groups going back 20 years - outta here!

So now I'm hot and sweaty, with a huge embarrasing pile of stuff lined up on my lawn. Nevertheless, I'm feeling pretty satisfied with myself. I've cleared some space, provided a little breathing room so I can set up my ironing board (very!) occasionally, or even retreat down there to read or write in a cool, quiet place should the fancy strike me.

Somehow I feel like I've cleared a corner of my mind as well. Once in a while I think we all need to do some housecleaning in our brains. Mine gets so cluttered up with my lists of "have to do's" and "should be doings" and "wish I could's." It gets so crowded up there in my mind that it's like my basement - there's no room to do anything productive because of all the junk that's cluttering up your thoughts. It's amazing how all that clearing out seems to have triggered a mental sorting out as well. I actually feel as if there's a nice corner of my brain that's now all neat and tidy, waiting for me to fill it with some really interesting ideas!

So tomorrow (assuming I can drag my aching bones out of bed), I'll be ready to tackle a whole new project, and who knows what it will be!

Homesick

You would probably call me an incredibly lucky person, and deep in my heart I know that's true. After all, I was just able to escape the midwester midwinter doldrums, and spend five days at my house in Naples, Florida. No matter that I spent a lot of time sitting at my computer, struggling with a couple of very lengthy reports from my office job. At least that computer was parked on the glass topped lanai table, with the warm southern Florida breeze rustling my hair (and my papers). Also got to spend some time catching up with my son and daughter in law, admiring the way they've crafted such a nice life for themselves at such a young age. The boy's got it "goin' on" as they say, and frankly, I'm sometimes envious. But that's fodder for another post... The real thing I want to talk about is how whenever I'm there, I am both dreading and wishing to come back here. Dreading, because, let's face it, my house here is old and outdated and grungy with age, while my house there is new, posh, and clean. My neighborhood here pretty much matches my house, and suffice it to say, my life here just trails right along in those same decrepit lines. However, this life here seems to still call out home to me. This old house and neighborhood has sheltered me from my first days as a young wife and mother, through raising my child and watching him fly far from here into his own life. My friends are all here, the things I do that enrich my life are here - in other words, everything that is real resides in this weatherbeaten, slightly run down place. In Naples, life is almost too good to be true. As beautiful as that is for a while, it leaves something to be desired, somthing gritty and unpolished, something that you can work to clean up and rejuvenate. Something that makes life worth a little more in the end.

Smellin' the Roses

Today was one of those days when my hectic life came to a dead stop- no running to Target or to the grocery store, no stopping for a cafe mocha (minus the whipped cream), no running into the office to finish off one last report or pick up work for next week, no taking the dogs to the vet or even the park. All because I had to stay home and wait for a delivery. A flower delivery, no less. Today I was living the adage about stopping to smell the roses - or at least I was waiting to smell them as soon as they arrived. You see, yesterday was my birthday. And it's typcial of my life right now that I had so many places to be yesterday that I couldn't even be home long enough to get the fabulously large and extravagant bouquet of red roses my favorite aunt and uncle always send me on my birthday. I had to call the florist this morning and beg them to deliver them today.

"I'm so sorry we missed you yesterday," the lovely lady at Kristi's flowers told me cheerily. "We'll be happy to bring them by this afternoon!"

So, I happily started pottering around the house, clearing up some of the detritius that has accululated over the past couple of weeks when I've been consumed with a large writing project at my office job, a weekend handbell festival in Ohio, and rehearsals at the high school for choral competition and muscial. Not to mention a sick dog the other night that required a late night run in the pouring rain to the nearest veterinary emergency room (he's fine now, thank you)! There were grungy socks and jeans to launder, some mysterious sticky substance to scrub off the kitchen floor, scattered piles of mail from which the multitude of credit card offers and catalogs must be sifted, and bills with due dates absolutely screaming "time is running out!"

I found myself taking great pleasure in chugging my way through these homely little tasks. It helped immensely that today was one of those teasing March days when the sun comes out, the wind blows briskly but not menacingly, and you can be pretty comfortable outside in a turtleneck and polar fleece hoodie. The doggies took advantage of the rugs I was airing on the back porch, and basked lazily and comfortably in the sun. I even cracked open a few windows to let some of that marvelous fresh air whisk through the house, dispersing the staleness of winter with a brisk coolness.

It was nearly 5:00 when the roses finally arrived. I was relaxing happily in my favorite chair, cushions newly turned and plumped, a chilled glass of wine at my side. I had cleared a spot for them on my cedar chest, dusted and polished it's surface to a fare thee well, and was looking forward to the richness their scent would add to my freshly cleaned house.

"So, you are home!" said the lovely delivery lady, whom I could barely see behind the huge bounty of the vase and opulent red shimmery bow tied around it's neck.

"I am indeed!" I answered proudly, taking her burden of beauty from her.

Such a gift those roses were today.