A house, a Home
As winter is holding its grip on us I think that all of this time spent in of doors has been making me consider what is contained within them. The house itself has become the focus of my critical eye. I look around and feel a need for a change. Nothing huge. I'm not considering major changes I haven't the time for another large project. The things contained inside are drawing my attention for many reasons. I think our house is far too full of belongings leaving little room for our activities. Consideration of this has become consuming. The constant time inside has given me moments to let my thoughts focus far too much on the imperfections of our house. That is both good for motivating me to come up with solutions and bad for motivating me to feel downtrodden about the house. Maybe I'm being too dramatic. I attribute that to my obsession with Masterpiece.
So that is where my spring cleaning devotion is going to lay. Altering our house slightly to find a way to gain extra space for us to work. I have been pouring over ideas from various places from websites to magazines to places I've been. In that time of observing my mindset began to divert on the incorrect path. I have been filling my head full of what my house needs to look like. I need some of this and more of that less of those and to finish that over there. Comparing my house with those I have seen has been the inspiration for failure. I understand that now especially after reading this quote:
Mid pleasures and places though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there's no place like Home.
-T. Howard Payne
Reading it I began to reconsider my plans. I asked myself again what was my goal in achieving those changes. Was it to improve our family's daily life? Assist our flow of activities? What do we need?
The truth is in my attempt to seek ideas I began trying to achieve some sort of beauty within the house not inspired by need. That only delayed my brainstorming process. Making things pretty does not solve the problem of using our space better. I decided that it's fine to want our house to look good but that does not matter when it comes down to our daily life. We need to feel comfortable with places to sit and relax. We also need dedicated places for the things we use to go. Permanent places are required not like our current set up of all those shoes and backpacks scattered on the floor in front of the doors. Sounds like every family!
It's all about change. Changing in anticipation of our future needs. I'm a planner so this sort of process is just the thing I need to do.
The change happening that is motivating my desire pertains to the girls and schooling. The littlest girl is coming up on pre-school age this fall. I'm already planning for her and I to begin a homeschool program. I've been collecting the tools we'll need to achieve the education goals I have in mind. I plan on going with a Montessori based program so that means we'll need some space set aside for our teaching area. Adelynn's teaching space is the minor focus. I can work with her just about any where in our house so that classroom can wait. It's the big girls who need a dedicated space to work on projects where they can get help from me and Dad. They have desks in their rooms where they may go to get independent work complete. It's just a space they do not take advantage of using it as often as we had imagined. The reality is that for some odd reason, which I love, the girls tend to gravitate to where we all are at the moment. It's fantastic I love that we all gravitate to each other but I can see that as our hurdle. Where to carve out that space is my puzzle. Unfortunately I don't have an answer yet. I need to find my figurative first piece. I'm giving myself time to think about the change. There is plenty to do before any shifting can occur. That said I plan to take advantage of the indoor time to sort out some things.
So that is where my spring cleaning devotion is going to lay. Altering our house slightly to find a way to gain extra space for us to work. I have been pouring over ideas from various places from websites to magazines to places I've been. In that time of observing my mindset began to divert on the incorrect path. I have been filling my head full of what my house needs to look like. I need some of this and more of that less of those and to finish that over there. Comparing my house with those I have seen has been the inspiration for failure. I understand that now especially after reading this quote:
Mid pleasures and places though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there's no place like Home.
-T. Howard Payne
Reading it I began to reconsider my plans. I asked myself again what was my goal in achieving those changes. Was it to improve our family's daily life? Assist our flow of activities? What do we need?
The truth is in my attempt to seek ideas I began trying to achieve some sort of beauty within the house not inspired by need. That only delayed my brainstorming process. Making things pretty does not solve the problem of using our space better. I decided that it's fine to want our house to look good but that does not matter when it comes down to our daily life. We need to feel comfortable with places to sit and relax. We also need dedicated places for the things we use to go. Permanent places are required not like our current set up of all those shoes and backpacks scattered on the floor in front of the doors. Sounds like every family!
It's all about change. Changing in anticipation of our future needs. I'm a planner so this sort of process is just the thing I need to do.
The change happening that is motivating my desire pertains to the girls and schooling. The littlest girl is coming up on pre-school age this fall. I'm already planning for her and I to begin a homeschool program. I've been collecting the tools we'll need to achieve the education goals I have in mind. I plan on going with a Montessori based program so that means we'll need some space set aside for our teaching area. Adelynn's teaching space is the minor focus. I can work with her just about any where in our house so that classroom can wait. It's the big girls who need a dedicated space to work on projects where they can get help from me and Dad. They have desks in their rooms where they may go to get independent work complete. It's just a space they do not take advantage of using it as often as we had imagined. The reality is that for some odd reason, which I love, the girls tend to gravitate to where we all are at the moment. It's fantastic I love that we all gravitate to each other but I can see that as our hurdle. Where to carve out that space is my puzzle. Unfortunately I don't have an answer yet. I need to find my figurative first piece. I'm giving myself time to think about the change. There is plenty to do before any shifting can occur. That said I plan to take advantage of the indoor time to sort out some things.
Comments