In My Home This Week: The Great Unknown

In my home this week, I...

have altered two of our main living areas.  I don't know...I just plain don't know.  The truth is that I was perfectly happy with the arrangement of things and the house felt peaceful and calm.  People obviously felt at home here.  All we wanted to do was put down new flooring.  When that first quote was so extremely high over what we had planned to pay, we were caught up in this cycle of change that just keeps on going.  This past week, I emptied the living room of most of the things that gave it some sort of personality.  I emptied the bookcases and when we vacuumed under them and went to put them back, they wouldn't go back exactly as they had been.  Not mind you because they didn't fit but they no longer looked right.  We ended up spacing the three evenly along the wall.  And that meant moving the toy box and John was enamored with the new placement of it and said that was where he really wanted it to stay.  Friday, Mama came by for coffee and I sat in the dining room looking at the toy box on the entry way wall and you know what?  It's perfect.  It needs to be right there.  Darn it.  It doesn't fit in with my plans at all but it's so obviously right that I won't be moving it.

I brought home a quilt from Mama's last week.  Not an antique but a pretty new cotton one.  I put it on the guest bed and then found myself changing out curtains.  Now I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose at least one piece of furniture in that room;  perhaps I'll swap it with one in an another room...Changes just keep presenting themselves.



For some reason this past week, John got this notion to hang the TV on the wall.  It's not something I ever thought he'd want to do.  He researched mounts, looked at prices, sizes, etc.  We had an appointment on Wednesday afternoon and he said after we'd go buy the mount.  Honestly?  I thought he'd choose not to do so.  When we got in the store and the price was higher than he'd anticipated and the one he wanted was stupid crazy priced, I thought we'd end going home without it.  No.  He found an alternative that was higher than he'd planned to pay but was an acceptable price.  And he wasted no time at all in going about hanging it on the wall. 

The old entertainment center was now obsolete.  So we moved it from the room.  What we were left with was a messy tangle of cables and cords.  Obviously we'd made a change that wasn't quite finished.  John looked at the tangle all evening and rued the mess of it.  When I rose the next morning he was on the floor winding cables and tucking them here and there and still they looked a mess.  John asked me to look for a corner cabinet of some sort.  I went online but what we found was so obviously not going to work that I gave up.  We looked at the space a bit longer.  I really wanted to expand the seating in the living room and had hoped we'd fit two chairs in the space.  A cabinet was surely needed with the DVD player, the satellite receivers, the router.  The DVDs would have to go somewhere...Was my dream of extra seating going to go bust?

"What if we moved that short bookcase there?  You know, the one in my closet"  "I think it's too low...What if we moved the cabinet from the bathroom into the living room?", I replied.  John didn't answer.  He just got up and went and moved the cabinet into the living room.  Wow.  We got cables sorted out, realized this choice would allow us to hook up the DVD player Samuel and Bess bought us when they moved out.  Fewer cables were visible.  I looked at the space and said to John, "Come move my chair to that corner..."  He walked into the kitchen sitting and looked at the chair.  He knows how very much I've enjoyed that seating in that kitchen each morning.  It's my first stop on our usual mornings at home, with a cup of coffee, my Bible, my journals, my devotional.  "Won't you miss it?"  I answered truthfully, "Yes, I will...but it needs to move to that space in the living room."  We set the chair in it's new place and stood back and looked.  It was perfect.  Darn.

So now the kitchen sitting area is empty, the living room is very altered, the guest room is changing again, and the front entry is not what it was.  I've only cleared one set of books from a shelf in the bedroom but I have to wonder just what is going to happen in that room when we start moving things out in earnest.

I don't know what this house is going to end up being.  I don't know anything at all.  I'm just the energy that moves things to where they want to be.  And apparently John is a designer of sorts in his own right.  I've a funny feeling we aren't done, yet.  He's jokingly said we should move the dresser...or maybe he was perfectly serious.  Perhaps we should.  Oh dear.

...I plan meals:

Brats in Bakery Buns, Caramelized onions,  German Potato Salad, Green Salad, Soft Baked Pretzels, Beer Cheese and Horseradish Mustard,  Dutch Apple Pie with Vanilla Ice cream  and family and grandbabies joined us.  The menu was a huge hit even though I'd never made the beer cheese or the pretzels before and I wasn't crazy over the particular potato salad recipe I chose.  What was fun was hearing Josh say "C'mon Tay..." and her giggling as she ran behind him, the multiple conversations between family, the roar of football game in the background and just the usual chaos and wonder of it all.  Bliss.

two days on my own, one of those out with Mama

Chicken with Lemon BBQ sauce, Waldorf Salad, Brussels Sprouts, Roasted Butter Nut Squash

Salisbury Steaks, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans (never made this one last week)

Leftover Brats and Potato Salad, Steamed Cabbage, Apple Pie

Chicken and Rice Soup, Camparini Tomatoes with Pesto, Whole Grain Crackers

...I plan my work week:

I'd like to finish cleaning the back porch this week.

Get boxes and box up the books in my bedroom.  Box up the contents of the filing cabinet as well.

Seek a new cabinet or linen tower to house our towels in the master bath.

Take up the carpet in the kitchen sitting area and clean that floor very well.

Take the rug outdoors and try to clean it if it's to be sunny so it will dry.

Whatever else presents itself...and gracious knows a lot has presented itself of late!

Finish the book I am meant to review.  Post said review.

Definitely going to be mopping the kitchen.  You've no idea how many spills occurred with the two littles running about...or maybe you do...

...I plan my leisure:

Yes, I really do mean to play with the genealogy stuff once more because this past week I had one of those lovely unexpected things happen.  Three individuals had uploaded information to a site that tied into my family tree there and some of this information was elusive stuff that only a close family member would have...Hooray!  A breakthrough!  I mean to do plenty of work in this area this week.

Continue reading the Elizabeth Goudge autobiography I am currently reading slowly.

Enjoy my family visits.  I'm writing this post ahead of time because I'll be busy from Friday evening possibly through Sunday morning with family coming in. Italics comments are footnotes of today.   This day together is Bess' brainchild, to get the little cousins together at least once a quarter.  We're all pretty pleased that it's come together and we've already started discussions  for the next visit.  We've set the date...Now to start planning and  buying ahead since this next visit will be our family holiday together.