Time for a change (or two or three)
Good Monday morning to you all! Summer took a brief hiatus around here, with comfortable morning lows and temperate afternoon highs for a few days, but in recent days Mother Nature reminded us who's in charge, as we had one of those stiflingly hot and humid days yesterday. Oh, well, it IS August, after all...
Given the time of year, no surprise that the most significant change is that our grandchildren have gone back to school, at least the four that are school age. Our Colorado branch did so from a new home that was purchased in mid-summer, so I'm sure there were some adjustments associated with that, yet the kids both attend the schools where they already were. Local kids went back to their school, too. And our son returned to his night classes in law school last week.
Part of the local school dynamic is that I pick up the kids a couple of days a week, when my schedule and whereabouts allow it. Fun for them, more fun for me, since they're a couple of little comedians. I was relating to someone recently that in the short trip from their school to their house (where my wife is keeping their little sister, who'll be nine months old soon) they usually entertain me so completely that I barely remember who I am, let alone more specific things than that. Luckily I haven't received any important phone calls during this trip to their house!
Also, I'm writing this from a new office location. No, my wife and I didn't also move to a new home, but rather I've relocated my office space from the dining room, the FIRST room you see when you enter our house, to a part of an upstairs bedroom. I've been thinking about this for a long time, as we so easily run out of dining space when our entire gang is here for a meal. Recently I came to agreement to sell my massive office furniture (desk, credenza, hutch) to a former military doctor who's setting up a private practice, this after some months of concerted effort to do so. She and her fiancee looked at the furniture one afternoon a couple of weeks ago, even going to the extent of paying a deposit of about 40% of their total purchase price. They still haven't arranged for the furniture to be moved to the new office, but by mutual agreement they'll pay the balance (which they communicated that they have in hand) when they collect it.
So the offshoot is that my wife and I made a couple of trips to Cincinnati over the past few weeks, the first being our semi-annual shopping and leisure trip (a day trip this time) and the followup for purchases at IKEA. If you have an IKEA location within a comfortable distance, I highly recommend a trip there, if only to see how others might furnish a room or a home. I've long been fascinated by the IKEA ethic of good space utilization, modest construction and cost (you put their furniture together, if you're not familiar) and contemporary design.
Anyway, our return trip produced a desk and a drawer unit, and I have both set up in the room where our grandchildren sleep, as a niche there yielded exactly the right amount of space for the furniture needed for the job. Last week I moved everything out of my old office furniture, which was quite a job (thirteen years of accumulation) and found new homes for everything, whether I use it frequently or not! Still making adjustments to little things, like where to put the bills that need to go to my office to be paid, but overall I'm pleased with the result.
So what's the plan behind these room changes at the Smith house? Well, we have always lamented how small our kitchen is, but never used our dining room space as, well, a dining room. That will likely change, as our kitchen table is a nice casual set that will look good in the other room, and our plan is to buy a SMALL set for the kitchen, large enough for two or three people but no more. We'll see how this evolves.
I'm also going to be experiencing a change of one kind or another in my job status. As is my custom, I won't be sharing any specifics, but I'll just say that in the next sixty days my working life is going to change. For the better, either way!
You know what they say, that change is the only constant. Seems so true, especially at this stage of my life.
Given the time of year, no surprise that the most significant change is that our grandchildren have gone back to school, at least the four that are school age. Our Colorado branch did so from a new home that was purchased in mid-summer, so I'm sure there were some adjustments associated with that, yet the kids both attend the schools where they already were. Local kids went back to their school, too. And our son returned to his night classes in law school last week.
Part of the local school dynamic is that I pick up the kids a couple of days a week, when my schedule and whereabouts allow it. Fun for them, more fun for me, since they're a couple of little comedians. I was relating to someone recently that in the short trip from their school to their house (where my wife is keeping their little sister, who'll be nine months old soon) they usually entertain me so completely that I barely remember who I am, let alone more specific things than that. Luckily I haven't received any important phone calls during this trip to their house!
Also, I'm writing this from a new office location. No, my wife and I didn't also move to a new home, but rather I've relocated my office space from the dining room, the FIRST room you see when you enter our house, to a part of an upstairs bedroom. I've been thinking about this for a long time, as we so easily run out of dining space when our entire gang is here for a meal. Recently I came to agreement to sell my massive office furniture (desk, credenza, hutch) to a former military doctor who's setting up a private practice, this after some months of concerted effort to do so. She and her fiancee looked at the furniture one afternoon a couple of weeks ago, even going to the extent of paying a deposit of about 40% of their total purchase price. They still haven't arranged for the furniture to be moved to the new office, but by mutual agreement they'll pay the balance (which they communicated that they have in hand) when they collect it.
So the offshoot is that my wife and I made a couple of trips to Cincinnati over the past few weeks, the first being our semi-annual shopping and leisure trip (a day trip this time) and the followup for purchases at IKEA. If you have an IKEA location within a comfortable distance, I highly recommend a trip there, if only to see how others might furnish a room or a home. I've long been fascinated by the IKEA ethic of good space utilization, modest construction and cost (you put their furniture together, if you're not familiar) and contemporary design.
Anyway, our return trip produced a desk and a drawer unit, and I have both set up in the room where our grandchildren sleep, as a niche there yielded exactly the right amount of space for the furniture needed for the job. Last week I moved everything out of my old office furniture, which was quite a job (thirteen years of accumulation) and found new homes for everything, whether I use it frequently or not! Still making adjustments to little things, like where to put the bills that need to go to my office to be paid, but overall I'm pleased with the result.
So what's the plan behind these room changes at the Smith house? Well, we have always lamented how small our kitchen is, but never used our dining room space as, well, a dining room. That will likely change, as our kitchen table is a nice casual set that will look good in the other room, and our plan is to buy a SMALL set for the kitchen, large enough for two or three people but no more. We'll see how this evolves.
I'm also going to be experiencing a change of one kind or another in my job status. As is my custom, I won't be sharing any specifics, but I'll just say that in the next sixty days my working life is going to change. For the better, either way!
You know what they say, that change is the only constant. Seems so true, especially at this stage of my life.
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