Settling In

Let's see. This was a monumental week. We finally got our Internet connected (for real!) and a home phone number (which reminds me, I need to give that to people). We purchased a wireless router so that Ethan can have access to the Internet in his study (a room off of the detached garage). We mailed off two baker's dozens of my favorite chocolate chip cookies to two male church members who had birthdays, and I knitted up a dishcloth for the one female with a birthday this week.

       

And we had people over.

     

This was the most monumental of all. This meant all partially opened boxes, floors full of clothing, and tables full of remnants of many half-eaten meals had to be emptied, put away, and cleaned.

  

One of our goals is to have people over regularly. In the past, this has been a challenge because of family circumstances (morning sickness, new baby, Ethan's night classes), housing arrangements, and/or general fatigue. But no more! (Well, the fatigue lingers, but not as an excuse. Just as a lifestyle.)

  

So we scurryfunged and ran around the house. Some of us unscurryfunged and ran into those of us who were scurryfunging. But somehow, it got done.

  

And now we have a home. It's no longer just walls and doors and windows with all of our junk *somewhere*. It is an organized, defined living space. (But if you want to chance the schoolroom/cat room/I-don't-know-what-that-is-just-put-it-in-there room, that's on you.)

  

Yes, it needs the constant pick-up, and I would be embarrassed if I didn't have ten minutes' heads-up before a neighbor dropped in. But it's only ten minutes from respectable, not ten (or more) hours, like it was before.

  

We're still waiting to run into the perfect large inexpensive kitchen table and chairs, so our dining room is a little .. . . Montessori-like (sewing table for the adults, child-sized craft tables and chairs for the children).

  

And there are Christmas presents on the mantle, awaiting boxes, to be mailed to various family members in various states.

   

But aaaah, the peacefulness of a place to put your feet up that doesn't involve rearranging hair things, dog bones, and cookbooks that used to occupy the coffee table.

   

Doesn't everyone use his coffee table to put his feet up?