Here Come the Kids!

The year was 2014, the month of May. The conversion of a bedroom and bathroom into a suite was complete. ED, eager to collect rent on her house was ready to move to the family home. It must have been a traumatic day, because I remember nothing about it. Here is what I do remember: shock. For about a year after the move, I felt like a zombie. Any movement was labored. Sitting down led shortly to sleep.

Many moves have taught me that furniture acquired for one residence doesn’t fit quite right in others. After a few weeks of use, our dining room table was swapped out for ED’s kitchen table, and the hutch was removed from the buffet to open up the eating area. The use of the kitchen desk was abandoned when I realized there would be no quiet time for creativity in the midst of family chaos. My private desk, in use as a sewing table, eventually replaced Blue Boy’s small student desk, benefiting a neighbor who was looking for that exact piece of furniture for her family.

Our former kitchen table became a game table in the bonus room, an abandoned shelf was adapted for my sewing table. The living room was filled with a mash up of furniture earning the house the not endearing nickname “Group Home.” The patio was not much better, mixing plastic, stone, metal, and screening of as many colors. Much furniture was donated while the remaining pieces continue to be moved to and fro as function dictates.

ED and I sorted, tossed, donated and sorted again all our belongings. Some were easy: how many egg separators does one kitchen need? Others more difficult: how many saucepans? Which set of flatware should we use? When we split the house in a few years, we will need that second set.

Decisions continue to haunt us: the food processor died. Darn, we gave the other one away! ED, shopping at the Goodwill for items for her place of work, almost purchased back some of our donations.

The lifestyle change was an even bigger jolt requiring its own post.

Five years later we are physically settled other than the changes required by growing boys, jobs, aging parents. I look around and realize, though, that Mike and I could get all our possessions into a two or three-bedroom home. We truly have downsized.