I have shown you pictures of my friend Susan's beautiful craft room. Setting up my craft room has been an ongoing project--one undertaken with no small amount of guilty feelings. It seems like such a luxury, and I guess I have more than a little distrust of those things I find luxurious for myself.
I have thought long and hard about this issue--it has been such a worry to me. But I have come to think that it is OK for me to have my little haven. For years any extra room we had was dedicated to homeschooling and all its paraphenalia. Plus scouting. Plus church stuff. Plus toy space for the McKid's things. Plus. Plus. Plus.
This is a new season of life for me. One that LaMa and the Smock can't even see from where they are. I am no longer responsible, on a daily basis, for the care, feeding, teaching, raising of young 'uns. In some senses, this is almost unbearably sad to me. It was something that I really enjoyed!!!
But in all normal cases, it is a season that is bound to come to an end. Kids grow up. They become independent. And that is how it is supposed to be. And I think that maybe my hesitance about the "luxury" of my craft room is, in a way, a stumbling block toward my moving forward joyfully into this new season of my life.
And there is joy here, you know. It is liberating, in its own way, to be able to care for PapaC for awhile. In those years of heavy-duty parenting, my care for him was often put on the back burner--along with any care for myself. And it is wonderful to watch my kids start their own lives and make progress there. To see the Zman and TBC start making their lives together. To see Suz and the McKid buy their first home and start settling in there.
So, I am using the development of my craft room as an act of faith--that there are good, fun, beautiful, creative times still ahead for me. And that I can enjoy them in a pretty space.
Well, that was a long way around to get to a picture, wasn't it?
I told you when I posted pictures of Susan's room that my own would be far less cohesive. I like odd little things. I like, as my friend Jo would say, "bits and bobs." And where I can, I like to save things to use for storage etc. So, here's the corner of my desk--the corner where I store my desk supplies. It doesn't look like Susan's, does it? But it looks just like ME. A lot random. A little odd.
My pencils and pens are in the creamer from my grandmother's dish set. My rubber band ball sits in a silver plated small goblet given to me by my friend Jo. The rulers and scissors sit in a funky shaped tin box that sat in my mother's bathroom all my childhood years. The other two things are things my mother bought, and packed away, just because "they're so pretty".
Anyway, I see this little vignette all the time I am sitting at my desk. And it is beautiful to me. And it makes me happy. And it was, in its own way, inspiration for the rest of my room.
Have a beautiful Thursday, ya'll!
How nice to see the silver (plate !) goblet on your desk!I was touched by the words 'my friend Jo'
I have several of your mother's things around my house and give thanks for her every time I look at them.
My sewing room is a nasty mess at the moment as I have managed to rescue a little marmalade mommy cat who has had too many kittens over the last few years.
I was able to catch her and her last remaining kitten when they escaped a nasty fate at the hands of a neighbor. Trauma is sometimes a mercy as it enabled me to rescue her.
I had always wondered why so many feral kittens and cats went missing here - unfortunately now I know.
A good friend is going to take them for me - and their loyal brother - who comes every night to see his sister through the sewing room window.
Mommy and baby live in my recliner and I will be glad to get my sewing room back - but I will miss them. It will be a real relief to know they are safe and in the country where they can live in relative safety.Please pray that I can manage to keep them - and trap big brother until my friend comes for them in July.