Thursday, September 20, 2007

Moving right along...

I haven’t posted anything for awhile because I’ve been moving. No, not to a new house, that won’t happen for a long time, we haven’t begun building yet…still waiting…and waiting…actually I don’t let myself dream about my new house anymore, it’s just counterproductive, I get depressed and then don’t accomplish anything.

Why do they make master bedrooms so big nowdays? The master bedroom in this house is the size of two and a half of the other bedrooms in this house. I could have used an extra bedroom.
I have six kids, three boys and three girls. Yes, like the Brady Bunch, only we are not like the Brady Bunch. For one thing, I lack Alice. I need an Alice. The other difference is, they are all ours, together. Nice big Mormon family. My mom had nine and her mom had nine. They both had six boys and three girls, all in the same order except the first two. I could not do nine. Somedays I cannot do six. But here they all are so somehow I must.

The order of my family is: girl, boy, girl, girl, boy, boy. It’s been a challenge on how to cohabitate with this brood, the bedroom arrangements have changed over the years as we’ve moved and moved and as boys and girls got too big to be roommates. This house has five bedrooms, so when we moved here we started out with the older two having their own rooms, and the two middle girls sharing, and the two little boys sharing. The master bedroom became the master bedroom, the office and the sewing room. That worked for awhile, until the older/middle girl turned 11 going on 16 and decided that she didn’t want to share with the younger/middle girl and consequently made all our lives miserable for a while. What do you do? Anyone else have a tweenager? So we moved the boys into the master bedroom…with us… remember how big it is. I had a chaise lounge in there and we threw a mattress on the floor and made them their own little corner. Then the tweenager had her own room and life became peaceful again, sort of… the master bedroom was now, the master bedroom, the office, the sewing room and the two little boys’ room. Let’s just say that I know how Ma and Pa Ingalls felt in their little one room cabin!

Anyone sew? If so, or if you do any other crafty thing, like scrapbooking you know what kind of a mess that generates. How about an office, you know how messy they can become too, all that paper etc. not to mention, the computer was in my room, so people came and went as they pleased, and there was no door to my bathroom, so if I happened to be undressing for the shower and someone needed to use the computer (which was all the time 24/7…ok 16/7), anyway, you get the picture. CAN I HAVE SOME PRIVACY HERE PEOPLE?!?!?!!!!!

My husband grew up in a family of four. Mom, Dad, big brother, span of five years, husband. He’s had a hard time adjusting. His home was always spotless. His mother taught school, no one was home to mess up the house. I teach school, only I do it at home, so my kids are always here, so my house is always spotless, because they are such good cleaners…. hahahahahahahahahahahaha…(sorry, insanity moment there).

Anyhoo, he would get upset with the master bedroom…the whole house actually, but we’ll just concentrate on this area. He would tell me it needed to be cleaned up. He was looking at it as our bedroom… “You need to clean the bedroom.” I would translate it into, “You need to clean the office, sewing room, bedroom, bedroom and bathroom.” (remember, there was no door between the bedroom and bathroom). I could not keep up with it. Something had to give. I longed for my own little room, my own little haven. I hit upon a hairbrained idea. I would move. (I thought about Hawaii, somewhere far away, and warm and tropical….....ok back to reality.) I decided that the three girls could all move into the master bedroom, husband and I would take the back bedroom by the other upstairs bathroom, the little boys would get their own room and older son would get the other bedroom (he already had his own, but I wanted the one he was in, so he would have to move) and the downstairs would become the office/sewing room. Geat plan, just a few glitches. One: convince husband. Two: convince older daughter and tweenager. Three: Convince husband. Four: convince tweenager.

I started on husband first, just planting the idea into his head. Then I brought it up to the older daughter. She wanted a laptop in exchange. I agreed. I was desperate. (Actually, I wouldn’t have agreed had she been any younger, but she would be needing one as she will be starting online college classes next semester, so it was convenient to agree!) I waited awhile before I brought it up to the tweenager. I waited until she was in a really good mood. My shameless ploy worked. She said, and I quote, “I’d do it in a heartbeat!” ( I will remind her of it when she starts complaining later!) Was this really her talking? Yes, it was. She was excited at the prospect of inhabiting the master bedroom! Go figure. Actually the master bedroom has two ginormous walk-in closets. She would get one and older daughter would get one. Youngest has an armoire and doesn’t really care about her own space yet. She was just happy to be sharing with her older sisters. She’s my cheerful little sunshiny girl (who does whine a bit much, but is still easy to please). In the meantime I kept bringing it up to the husband, promising all sorts of things if he would agree. Finally, after two months, I got the go ahead.

So, that’s what has been happening this last week, the upstairs has been in an upheaval. So has the downstairs as all the unwanted from upstairs has been piled up downstairs. But, I have my own room! The last three mornings I have read my scriptures in my room uninterrupted! Life is sweet! My room is…my room, and it is clean! Actually there’s no room for anything except the bed, it takes up three/fourths of the room! But I love it. And by the end of the week I should have an office/sewing room. I will have a place for all the school stuff that is strewn around the downstairs. And, I can sew! I haven’t sewn forever. It was just too much trouble and stress to worry about cleaning it up after each session. Any sewer knows that you can’t really put a project away in the middle of it. I have a couple of quilts waiting to be finished and three or four waiting to be made.

So life is looking up. There is sunshine in my soul today!

Back to the moving, got to get finished so I can get sewing! Just wanted to let you know why I haven’t posted lately.

Have a great day!

8 comments:

Maine Mom said...

Sounds like a great plan to me...I'm glad everyone else was convinced, too. I can relate to being in a bedroom that pretty much only fits a bed because I am in one!
Good luck with the rest of the moving/organizing.

Calamity Jane said...

Hooray for your own room!!! Way to take charge. If any one has a problem after all of the hard work you have done I would pass out tents.

Elizabeth said...

Wow. I don't know if I could give up the master bedroom, but then again, I couldn't live with a kid in my room, and you did it with two! But of course I could deal with having a smaller bedroom in exchange for a second bedroom too. That's pretty genious.

mindyluwho said...

Thanks MM, we're on the home stretch with the packing and moving. Hopefully we'll be done by this weekend

Hi CJ! Actually my little guys love to set up tents, of course they are not the ones I'm worried about complaining! (I did put it into their head to set up a tent in the family room when they were my roommates and I wanted a little extra privacy!) I'll keep it in mind for the tweenager and older daughter!

Thanks Mamita for the complement on being a genious! You know me best!

The Practicalist said...

Wow! That wore me out...

Dedee said...

My girl wanted her own room so we moved all three boys in the master, the girl in the boys room and we took over the whole downstairs. It's awesome. The huge master closet? A toy room. My cleanlness has improved a ton!

PJ said...

When we lived the the two bedroom "love shack" with a family of five, we gave the girls the big room and we squeezed our bed into the tiny room. It worked.

Congrats on your sewing room, I'm glad you will be sewing again soon...you have such a talent!

mindyluwho said...

I'm glad I'm not the only one to say goodbye to the master bedroom, I think they are overrated! I love my little tiny room now, it's so cozy, when I kneel for my prayers my feet touch the wall!