I am having a hard time with this art. Instead of saying how blessed we are, and truly we are, I focus on what I would like to have to make my life better. From little things like a new scarf to bigger things like a total main floor re-model or a real bedroom set, like an adult would have. One of my goals for this blog is to give thanks for the things I have. For example, we are a family of 4 and we are down to 2 i-pods. I have a touch (refurbished) and my daughter is the only one with a functional nano. At one point everyone had one, but the wheel discontinued being functional on my husband’s and son’s. On a long trip my son get’s my touch, my daughter uses her nano and my husband talks on his phone…so I sit in silence. I forget that we also have 2 laptops. These can be anything you want on a long trip. Movie player, Juke box, game player, Why do we not put these into use more on long trips? Because I didn’t think of it until I was prayer walking today. I consider it giving God my problems and him whispering solutions to me, and this was it. Use the laptops silly! How lucky are we that we have 2 laptops between the household computers and my husbands?
And back to the bedroom. My bedroom, which I share with my husband, consists of a dresser that was a hand me down from my husband’s Grandmother, a chair and a half, with ottoman, a hand me down from our purchase of new furniture for the living room 4 years ago, side tables that were purchased for us as a wedding present from my Oma, and a cedar chest that was my husband’s aunt’s. I painted the cedar chest brown, I had to glue a dresser drawer front on because it came right off in my hand one day…total particle board, and two years ago my husband spilled a bottle of heel ink on our cream colored Berber in our bedroom in a manner that covered around a five feet radius. I had a lovely green/mauve Pottery Barn rug that covered it quite well. I now, of course want to paint the bedroom a restful blue instead of the builder cream it is right now (with the exception of the brown “headboard” behind my bed, painted with some leftover paint to make it SEEM like we had a real bed.) It is a wreck. However, When it’s clean (and that is a rarity) it looks fine and who sees the master bedroom anyway? Plus we are lucky to have a king size bed, the chair and a half is the perfect place for the kids to sleep when they are scared or lonely in their rooms, and we each have a walk in closet. Plus we have an en-suite bathroom! In our first house I would have killed to just have a closet for each of us. I don’t remember, but I am pretty sure we used milk crates because we didn’t have a dresser. We have never had a bed with a headboard/footboard, but when I go to bed at night and climb into my soft clean sheets, my heated mattress pad and my down pillows I don’t say to myself “Man I wish I had a nice bedroom set”, I say “ahhh! I love my bed” I have seen where others sleep and I have to say that I am lucky to have a nice warm bed in a safe, secure house.
This leads me to my next point which is; perhaps I would be happier with what I had if I de-cluttered and cleaned it so it can be enjoyed. I am not a tidy person. I worked part time every day last year as an aid at our school and I fell way behind on the little things that add up to a clean house. Perhaps the reason I hate my appliances isn’t that they are old, but that they are dirty (and to be fair, I am pretty sure my microwave will never be fully white again, no matter what I do). You will note in my last paragraph that I said “when it’s clean (and that is a rarity). Tomorrow I hope to explore this more and figure out a plan for 2012.
My last point is that perhaps if I didn’t care what others thought I would be more comfortable with what I have. I don’t avoid having people over because my counter tops are chipped, I have (gasp) laminant floor, I don’t have a formal dining room and my kitchen table wobbles, but I don’t invite certain people over. I work hard, for the most part, to be presentable in public because I easily feel judged. When someone comes into my house there is so much more stuff to worry about. I need to chill out and present my home with pride. We make choices as a family that may be different than the choices other families make. I would rather put money into my IRA, pay off our mortgages early, have fun experiences with my husband, family or with my girlfriends without worry. These are our priorities. I try not to judge others when they choose to have new cars, expensive electronics and nice furniture in their bedrooms. I have to have faith that they will offer me the same courtesy. And if they can’t then they probably won’t be back.
No comments:
Post a Comment