A Bit About Gratitude And Also How Not To Feel Bad About A Messy House. It's Meaningful Rationalizing.

My desk is in what our homebuilder calls the 'bonus room.'  That name makes it sound like something we won or as if it were a gift with purchase.  It wasn't.  We paid for this room just like we paid (and continue to pay) for the rest of the house.  The bonus room is upstairs and has no door - you enter through a wide open archway - by no means a private space where you can work in solitude.  I try to keep my desk somewhat tidy and loosely arranged according to what I read in a book about Feng Shui for your office.  The jury is still out on the effectiveness, but a really supportive message from a fortune cookie on a piece of antique silver in the prosperity section of my desktop at least makes me feel like I'm covering my bases.

I love working from home.  I've worked in offices and I get the allure, but it's just not for me.  This setting makes me happy and I feel most creative when I'm in my personal space.  I also think working from home makes it easier for me to really feel grateful for my life.  The kids use this bonus room to watch TV when the main TV downstairs is being used by someone with opposing tastes in programming.  When I look around I see scattered bits of homework, a complicated graphing calculator, a laptop covered in stickers, and Eliza's vast nail polish supply.  JD also plays the latest Madden game regularly in this room with his friend from down the street and I see the couch pillows messed up from their Monday Night Football session and both game controls on the floor.  A baseball mitt and a warm ice pack are also in the mix.

It's a mess.  Not in a disgusting way, but it's messy.  The couch is slipcovered in this room by choice.  I washed the slipcover recently, but  haven't found the motivation to reapply it because it's like wrestling an alligator so the slipcover is sitting in a wad next to a chair.  I think I'll put it on today.  And as usual I'll tidy up the room afterward, but it won't last.  As much as I'd like everything to look perfectly arranged, I'm really trying to embrace the mess.  I know the day will come when our entire home will remain pristine because the kids will have moved on to different places and I will miss them with all my heart.  So the messes surrounding my desk (and 98% of the rest of our house) don't bother me so much.  I'm so grateful to have my kids here and the associated decor imperfections are just reminders to be joyful for this messy wonderful time in life.

I'm wearing this today.

I'm headed to Ikea to pick up some furniture for a staging job and it just occurred to me that this outfit has the Ikea colors in it.  Impressive and disturbing.

gratitude:  extended deadlines, Jon Stewart, lighting candles in the evening, leaves that turn red in the fall

thanks and love.