Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Let's Call It What It Is

Somewhere in the middle of the mess I called my life this past year, there were a few lessons along the way.  Those will all be the subject of a multi-part series that will probably  make its debut later this month.  But one thing I would like to surface address today....

I have tried so hard to make things into something they are not.  The ole square peg into the round hole.  It just doesn't work.  I can push, twist, ram and jam....and it just is going to fight back.

It reminds me of a line from the movie Keeping the Faith.  When Ben Stiller's character is tutoring a boy for his upcoming Bar Mitzvah, and the poor boy just sucks.  And Stiller tells him he needs to embrace the sucky-ness.  "I love that I suck!" is the war-cry!

Which brings me to my point (yes, I really do have one).  My home office.  Sharon over at Musings of a Midlife Mom just cleaned hers up.  My home office is in the room we call the playroom.  It really is the dining room if you were to sell the house...but we have never used it as a dining room.  It has always had kid stuff in here, and now, the home office.

My home office is completely lacking in a few key areas.  One of which....REAL organization.  I have the calendar in the kitchen.  The bills go in a binder on a shelf in the kitchen.  Miscellaneous papers end up in a few other areas.  The file cabinet is over crowded, and I would guess at least half of the stuff in there can be pitched.

So I am going to quit fighting it.  My dining room is NOT a dining room...it is a craft room and a home office.  And it needs to look like it.  And work like it.  I found a template for some wall folder on Pintrest.   And a way of covering the file cabinet with paper to make it more attractive (the rust just doesn't scream vintage....it screams OLD).  The 2012 calendar will get posted near the computer.  And for once....I am just going to embrace what I have instead of denying its true destiny.

Pictures will go along with this project....don't worry!  But I owe you other pictures first.  And this project will wait until after Christmas.  Probably during the week the kids are off in December.

Anyone else have something in their house that they just can't admit what it REALLY is?

13 comments:

  1. My dinning room didnt become a dining room until about 5 years ago. So roll with what works best for you now...

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  2. My dining room is just a pile of our clothes on top of the table. We need to change this.

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  3. our eat in kitchen area is our home office and our "formal" dining area is our everyday dining area. You have to make the home you live in work for you and your family. No reason to fight it. I LOVE our home office right in the kitchen--super convenient. Other people probably think it's weird, but I don't worry about them. I worry about what works for us. Yay to you!!

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  4. Neither are really in my house, but... My parents' diningroom is a dust collector. Nobody's allowed in it, and it just sits pretty all year long, tediously collecting and breeding dust. It's the natural preserve area for dust bunnies. At work, we have an extra upstairs bathroom (full bathroom) which is our supply storage closet.

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  5. Right now the spare bedroom/bath which is torn up but working on it a little everyday. Slow and steady. You would be surprised at what a little every day can do.

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  6. @Judy - considering I don't even have a dining room set...I am not really missing much. Someday.

    @Michelle - so your dining room is the laundry room! Or fancy it up and make it the Dressing room. ;)

    @Jadell - I think I was trying to have my "office" in the kitchen, and it just didn't work since my computer wasn't there. Like you said, you do what works for you. At least you eat in your dining room, and not in your living room!

    @Tanner - the dining room in my parents house is where dust bunnies go to die as well.

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  7. @Kim - yes, a little each day. My desk really isn't that bad, but I just need to get it all together!

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  8. We have a "living room", which is actually the kids play area. We've toyed around with actually making it an official play room, or moving the play room downstairs & reclaiming this room as the living room. So far, we're undecided. :-) Our kids are just on the edge of being able to play downstairs in our basement, so maybe then we'll switch things around.

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  9. We went through this earlier this year. It felt great to get the home office organized.

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  10. Our second bedroom has all of my husband's army equipment. It was supposed to be our office. I'm thinking about renaming it the armory. :)

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  11. @Hawaii - if we had a usable basement, THAT would have been the playroom! I am just lucky that at this point I have reclaimed the living room (other than the Wii!).

    @Rhitter - Organization makes the world go round.

    @Sorority Girl - You can get a little sign to post outside the door. Embrace it!

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  12. My dining room is my eBay packing room part of the year and my sewing cutting room at other parts of the year.lol We sqeeze in eating in there a few times a yr.
    I don't have a home office. We have a file cabinet in the bedroom with old files(tax returns, house documents, etc.) and a file cabinet in the spare room/hubs library/oldest son's ex-bedroom with currentx year files. I keep bills to be paid on my computer desk which is in the den since this is where I sit when I pay bills. After being paid, the bills go upstairs and get filed. Even tho it's spread out all over it works for us. Embrace what you have! ;-)

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  13. Hah! My dining room is my office, my dining room is in the living room and my bedroom upstairs is the CAT's room and my daughter's TV room and the former family room in the basement is MY bedroom. Nothing is as it appears in this house...sigh...

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