Changing Rooms


"Beautiful things come in small packages," they say and so do I, writing this post from the tiny box that recently became our bedroom. A room we needed our architectural thinking caps to make work.

I'm always hunting for treasure. Coveting the home down the block with three-bedrooms and its office space in the back (with a skylight! How modern!) Daydreaming over bigger and better cars and homes, new clothing, shoes, furniture et al.

Because shiny new things sparkle and glow. No scratches from being repeatedly dropped on their faces. No stains.

We live in a world blessed with riches and a society that bribes us with new boxes. It's box cars and box homes and box television sets. And sometimes it's impossible to turn our heads because new cars always smell better. So do new homes, built on the wood of freshly cut trees, with their new bedrooms and clean slate of design ideas.

Same goes for people so we fantasize about shiny, new, carefully constructed bodies. Men seemingly cut from stone and women, pure, unused, even untouched.

We are told from ages young to dream of new life and new homes, to fantasize about the virgin in all her unattainable forms. Because wouldn't it be nice to be the first? The first family to live in the house. To own the car. To leave footprints in the sand. To steer the boat on her maiden voyage before her paint chips and her body belongs to the sea.

To feel what has never been touched.

... ... ... ... ... ...

Last night Hal and I stayed up until 2am talking. I had made a comment in passing that upset us both. I had embarrassed myself on accident, bragging about past exploits, grasping at the peacock feathers of my past - before there was a family or even an us. Desperate to clarify to all with ears open that wild things never forget the open field.

Sometimes I catch myself saying things I don't want to be remembered by. Or maybe I do?
But why? Because people take great offense to the truth. Because the things most exciting to talk about are most often the things left unsaid.

Sometimes I find myself publicly dipping my toes into the pools of my past. Hard not to when for many years, I defined myself solely as one who stood in the center of my own puddles, completely submerged from the neck down.


I'm a married mother of two, now. I write about food and how to get my child to eat it, post photographs where my nursing bra shows and people praise the biology of it all - the beauty and bonding of mother and child. But sometimes I want to be more than that. I want to be looked at and talked to and treated like a piece of meat. Like someone not afraid to open her mind and her mouth and yes, even her legs. Someone empowered by her inner "slut," frustrated by the virgin and how she is placed on a pedestal for crossing her legs and closing her mouth and talking only of safe things.

Last night I felt the need to apologize to Hal for being a used car with mileage, a woman in a stained dress who burps and farts and squeezes her friend's boobs in photographs. For revealing too much with the lights on. For speaking publicly about private parts without blushing. Because I'm supposed to blush. And cross my legs. And keep my voice down as not to wake the neighbors, spook, embarrass, shame.

"I'm sorry I'm not the kind of woman who dabs the sides of her mouth with linen napkins."

"You think we'd be together if you were?"

Touche.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Before we moved into the small bedroom this past weekend, I thought, maybe we should just find a new place and live there instead.

"If we're going to move we might as well just move homes. This place is stale. We've outgrown it. I'm ready for a change."

But just like a marriage, a body, a home, old can become new. And better than fantasy reality can be. Truth like sugar in the raw.


The first night we spent in our new bedroom, I told Hal, "this is my dream room."

"But it's so small," he said.

"Exactly."

There's a direct correlation between changing identities and switching bedrooms overnight -- rearranging the same old items in a new and different space. I carry my past with me in my back pocket and every now and then, walk into the wrong room, expecting to find my bed when, Wait! Where did everything go? Oh, wait! That's right. That's not my room anymore.

This is my room:



Full of old things new and new things old, everything differently placed and rearranged and mirrors fresh out of their plastic wrap.

They say that airplanes aren't safe to fly unless they've flown a thousand miles. And ships are more likely to sink their first day at sea. They say that people can change if they want to. But changing will never change the past and thank God because what a ride that was. So many memories made in old bedrooms, sprawled across dirty sheets.

They say that beautiful things come in small, unassuming packages. Like the old room that came new when we finally rearranged the furniture. Like peacock feathers* folding inward toward the body.


*Nevertheless, always there.

GGC

86 comments:

Bea | 1:19 AM

you're not the only one hankering for something bigger, brighter. i also dream of big houses, bathrooms, kitchens, offices that are not meant to be bedrooms. but then, snuggled up together in our room, it wouldn't matter how big or small the room was as long as it could hold us both.

Krystal | 1:23 AM

Your new room is beautiful!

And I have yet to meet a man who loves a ladie that dab at the corners of their mouth all the time. Most of them like it when you can do and say dirty, dirty things! Grrr baby!

To all things old and new, new and old!

Abby Johns | 1:40 AM

This post REALLY spoke to me.

For the past 2.5 years I have been allowing myself to live in the past, as if I could change it so as to make the present something new. I had convinced myself that we would never have a car again, never live without a room mate, and surely I would NEVER be able to go back to school.

Well, we have a car, we are getting ready to move into our own 2 bedroom, AND I will be going back to school to complete my bachelors and then go for my masters in the fall of 2010.

I didn't need to change the past for a new present. I needed a new MINDSET for a new present.

I feel like I am living in a different room of an old house.

P.S. Looks like the swap was successful, your room looks gorgeous and cozy.

Erin | 4:13 AM

Great post! I LOVE starting my day with your words!!
We just bought our first house.
And when we were looking, I knew I wanted a smallish home.
Who needs all that space??
I was scared we wouldn't be able to find or even hear eachother!!
So instead of the 2 story largish home, we are here, in our smallish ranch, and I LOVE it.

mommymae | 5:01 AM

i don't reveal too much about my past to anyone in case they want to put on their judgey pants, or their oh-you-hurt-my-feelings-with-something-that-has-nothing-to-do-with-me hat. i think some things are nobody's business.

Ava | 5:04 AM

I am a married mom of two delicious children. My oldest (a boy) is 4 and my youngest ( a girl) is 1.

I have been waiting for my life to start (resume?) for the past 4 years. I am struggling to live in the present and hope for the future, but I am longing for the past when things were exciting, fresh and NEW.

I was so happy to read your post because I know somewhere in this great big world someone else feels just like me.

Your blog is inspiring.

Lia | 5:07 AM

Great post as always!

It's my birthday today and this morning I got my birthday present from my hubby and it's your book! I'm so excited to read it!

lia

Marie-Ève | 5:22 AM

Great post, which totally hits home (no pun intended).

You make rooms, places, relationships, and lives, anyway. Have fun in your "new" digs. Your beautiful/funky/creative/smart persona oozes into your interior.

Sarah | 5:36 AM

A recent fan. And I love your writing, especially this. A good way to start my day...

All the best,
Sarah

p.s. love the "stop thinking about sex" photo!

Femi Ford | 6:07 AM

great post. i too am struggling with the smallness / staleness of our current apartment. must be time for me to rearrange again :) your bedspread & gramophone are killer!

L | 6:31 AM

America is obsessed with size... I've lived in London now for 3 years and have started to get used to the fact that if you can fit anything bigger than a single bed in a room - it's considered to be a LARGE bedroom :)

Anonymous | 6:34 AM

"I'm a married mother of two...touche." All of that...I feel you.
I really enjoyed these words. A little change is good for my soul, a lot of change makes me giddy. Sometimes giddy is good!

Mrs. Cline | 6:34 AM

Your new room looks like home.

And I love this post to pieces.

xoxo,
Natalie

Dee | 6:53 AM

Great post! I don't own linen napkins or keep my voice down but my brain cringes at the thought of saying anything "sexy", and I can count on two fingers the number of times I have broke wind in the presence of my husband. Even after 3 kids and 13 years of marriage I am still virgin-like in many ways. I wish that I could be more open like you. I wish I could break out and be free of all the hang ups locked in my head.

Anonymous | 7:03 AM

Love this post... it's so real - not that all the posts that are solely about how rewarding and fantastic motherhood is blah blah blah aren't -but this is different. Makes you seem more like a real person - THANK YOU! (PS - just finished your book and thought it was great!)

Babing at High Altitude | 7:34 AM

Very relieving to hear that relationships become new again. It is so easy to become so used to someone that you put the relationship on autopilot, and bypass the excitement and spontaneity of the past. Your post has definitely inspired me to rearrange, make old things new again.

Jolie | 7:40 AM

This is the "raw sugar" that a women feels....even if they are too embarassed to admit it. I love your writing...sometimes too mushy for me....but I've been waiting for you to get down, dirty and feathers on display. I knew you could do it! I've enjoyed this relateable post because you gave voice to a lot of women's inner pasts screeming to get out. You rock!

Unknown | 7:46 AM

I need to read this over, and over, and over.

This post really speaks to me. Beautiful writing, beautifully said.

Thank you.

Meg | 7:56 AM

I love the way you described yourself because I often feel that way. I want my husband's friends to be envious of him, like they once were. And then I'm sorry. Sorry that I often don't fix my hair or wear makeup. Sorry that I pee with the door open or discuss poop. Sorry that the "mystery" is gone.

But, like Hal, my husband loves me and supports me and doesn't want a "sophisticated and classy" woman. He wants ME. And that feels damn good.

Courtney | 8:15 AM

This is a beautifully written expression of something I have definitely been feeling lately.

I heard an arctic monkeys' song in passing that said "you used to get it in your fishnets, now you only get it in your nightdress, discarded all the naughty nights for niceness" and it made me cry for what I have lost. That I am not that dangerous, sexy, wild woman any more. I am someone's wife.

And it's not that I don't love my husband or what we have but a part of me misses the girl who stole other girl's boyfriends and got down and dirty in the high school auditorium during free period.

It's just so nice to feel less alone and it somehow makes it feel ok. Because Hal's right, my husband is with me because I was that girl and I am who she's become. He wouldn't have it any other way. And when you look at it that way, aren't we just so damn lucky?

Sandy | 8:35 AM

You always say it so beautifully.

I long for a bathroom with a bathtub. Sometimes I long for myself before I was a mother, sometimes I don't.

Karina | 8:40 AM

The room looks beautiful, it is really eclectic and full of character.

I can really relate to how you describe sharing too much of yourself. I think I remembered you mentioning you're a gemini, so am i, and i think telling-all may be a side effect. I find myself indulging others in gross detail on topics and things most people would dare say to their closest companion. I have been doing this for as long as i can remember, and i've also been notoriously known, amongst my friends, of talking about sex and anything related very casually.
It's in my blood!

Anonymous | 8:42 AM

I read this, then scrolled up and read it again. Beautiful.

Accidental Olympian | 8:51 AM

I know too well the itch for new, better, bigger, and different you’re talking about. This year I bought my first home. A home, that was mine, all mine. I couldn’t have been happier. Until on a walk through the neighborhood I saw a bigger, better, cleaner, shinier house. Then I wanted that. I wanted a remodel and the paint in my new bedroom wasn’t even dry…

Society teaches us to never be happy with what we have. So to recognize the impulse, and then stop it can enable us to have fuller lives than the person down the street with his new car every two years. Your new bedroom is perfect in every way.

foodiemama | 9:14 AM

awesome! p.s- who wants a fairy tale maiden with no ammunition in her brain... keep on farting!

Amanda | 9:15 AM

This may be long and for that I apologize.

We are moving to a two bedroom apartment that is roughly 825sqft. When we went to look at it, I tried to hide the distaste on my face. I had dreams of us moving into an old bungalow in my beloved downtown and now I was being plucked from my natural habitat, away from wood floors and historic buildings and told that we'd have to live in this tiny apartment on the northwest side of Tucson. To save money. To save for our future.

I cried on the way home. I cursed my present that was keeping me from the things I loved. I said horrible things and screamed. All because of a fucking apartment.

I have been bewitched by the houses I can not have, and sometimes I feel ashamed about it. I justify it by saying "at least it's not a McMansion. It's a nice bungalow with character." Character in the nice neighborhoods down here will cost you well over what you'd imagine.

I still bargain with myself in my head. Say that it will only be for a bit so we CAN save money, so we CAN afford the types of houses that I love. But reading this, I feel comforted. I will make something new out of the old and the small. Silence the girl that wants, wants, want, wants. And maybe, I'll come back downtown with new eyes.

Thank you for this.

Angie | 9:23 AM

I think your blog is one of my favorites. I love reading your words, you have a great talent.

Your "new" room is beautiful. I think I would like that room as well.

Amy | 9:28 AM

I think I'm in that camp of women who lives in my past without a doubt...I don't wish to apologize for it, but I sure as hell don't need to see everything that way. Love your new room, new mindset. This post is amazing.

Jasie VanGesen | 9:40 AM

freakishly well put.

Christaface | 9:57 AM

I relate. I had my son (now 4) at 25, unplanned, and wound up staying with, and marrying his wonderful dad. But? I mourn for the 20s I thought I was going to have, you know? I'd wanted kids eventually, but felt like a teenaged mom, having one at 25. It's been an adjustment. There's a lot of joy in my life, and we're trying to get pregnant -on purpose- again, and I feel content in family life, but? Sometimes I fantasize about the 5-10 years more that I thought I'd have to figure myself out before actually planning a family, and torture myself with the grass on the other side of the fence.

Renee | 10:12 AM

Thank you for writing this. I've been mired in a slump with my house falling down around me. I've been looking at the bad things, the broken things, the oh my god how much will it cost to fix this things. Maybe I just need to change somethings around to see the beauty in what I have.

Unknown | 10:23 AM

When I was little my Mom would say, "Love grows best in a little house."

She said that to me again this past weekend when she came to visit and I was going on and on about the "someday in a bigger house" future I want; but after she said that, I looked around at my little house and the love that fills it and decided to embrace our little house life :)

Great post, I LOVE your comforter!

Girlbert | 10:25 AM

Everyone else said this before me, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE your writing. You have written so many beautiful things this week, and I haven't taken the time to comment.

Thanks for sharing this story - proof that everything - relationships, homes, ourselves - needs a little reinventing or a new perspective to stay fresh. I really like the metaphor, it reminds me to keep working at my relationship, despite the fact that it still feels too good to be true. Thanks!
XOXOXO

Anonymous | 10:25 AM

Amazing Post.

Amazing.

Honey, I can relate; and I'm sorry it was me who posted with typos last post. Sorry about that.

My six kids were running around underfoot while I wrote it.

I feel guilty for still wanting sex when everyone around me is tapping me on the shoulder for a new excuse to try. I feel guilty for being the initiator, the one who flirts, the one who talks.

But Hal is right- they wouldn't have married us if were were proper ladies. I still want to be a lady when I grow up, and I do practice using my napkin, but I've come to the point where I'm redefining what being a lady is. It means different things on different days, but I will always be me. I will always want more.

As for the rooms, we have had three children in six hundred square feet of space and now have six in twelve hundred. We are in the process of redesigning spaces- we always are. Purging, recycling, trying to make do. It's what makes a life, a home, grown into rather than concocted.

I think my life is more real for the way I've had to do things- organic, artistic, and suited to me as a human being.

Ray | 10:40 AM

Leave it to you to take something like writing about switching rooms and write it so beautifully. Your writing is astoundingly awesome and I wish I had your gift. Because it truly is a gift. Nice, "new-old" room you got there. ;o)

L.A. Stylist Mom | 11:18 AM

You make me feel proud to live with my giant dog, two boys, and my husband in our tiny L.A. home...thank you!

Industrialsparkle | 11:26 AM

Every time I read a new entry in your blog I say "this is the best thing I have ever read". But I think that this particular entry will be forever etched into my mind. It encompasses so many things that have been running through my mind but I could not form into a cohesive idea like you have.

Our country is a mess because so many of us have fallen for the shiny and new and big trap. Thank you so much for reminding us that the old and the used has added value and sometimes just needs a little rearranging.

Anonymous | 11:56 AM

I just love the way you write. It is so real, and raw, and without fear.

Loved this so much, I had to read it twice. So much content, in so little words.

Anonymous | 12:13 PM

I think this is my favorite post of yours so far. I had my first baby almost a year ago, and since then, hand-in-hand with the love I feel for my child, is a painful sense of loss of self. That feeling in my youth that anything was *possible*, even if nothing actually happened? That's replaced by, "Well, maybe, if I can get a sitter..." And of course I knew, rationally, that that was what I was signing up for. But what I didn't sign up for was the way society puts women in the Mommy Box the minute they give birth, and I am no longer supposed to be the Wild Woman Who Ran With Wolves and Inappropriate Men, but some sort of chaste, sexless mommy who is happy with being sleep deprived and unkempt. I admit I have put a great deal of time and energy into "MILF"-dom. And I don't apologize for it, because no one expects my husband to put his virility on a shelf, damn it.

AndreaB | 12:24 PM

All of us city dwellers could have the big new house if we moved miles away to a place where the cost of the living was less. Instead, we live in charming, adorable shoeboxes, in the city.

I often curse my shoebox. When Im struggling to squeeze one more box in the closet. Or rearranging an entire cabinet like it is a gave of Tetris - all because of the new salad bowl I bought. Currently, my shoebox looks like a baby casino - full of too many blinking, singing toys - And then there's the sand&water table in the bathroom. Oh how I wouldnt be tripping over toys, if I had a garage and backyard.

But deep down, I know that my shoebox comes with many more pluses than minuses.

It's affordable enough that I have extra money for a babysitter 3 days a week. And the occasional manicure. And the occasional vacation.

My husband doesnt face an hour+ commute everyday. He comes home a little less late, and little less exhausted.

I can go next door to get a latte.

My weekends arent spent pulling weeds and mowing the lawn. Instead, we are strolling at the Farmer's Market, and the museum around the corner.

My shoebox is old, tiny, and worn. But, it affords me so many freedoms, so many wonderful moments, and so many opportunities to explore.

Plus, it's cute.
And so is your's.

Stacy | 1:25 PM

I love this post. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I've been feeling very...I guess wistful lately. I have a great husband, an adorable two-year-old son, and life is good (we just purchased four rental properties that pretty much guarantee I can always be a stay-at-home mom, we're in the process of building a new house, and my small photography side business is really taking off). But I guess I'm just wanting things that I don't have, or things that I feel like I should have.

Getting married at 20 and having a baby at 21 was everything I ever wanted. I've wanted to be a mother since forever. It's not all that unusual to marry young in the small town I grew up in, so I met my husband, fell in love, and that was that. And I love it. At 23, I love my wife, mommy, mortgage-paying, potty-training life. Most of the time.

But lately...I dunno. I've been missing the going out and making out and making mistakes and just not being so damn responsible all the time. I feel like that period of my life was SO short (I was a super fundamentalist Southern Baptist throughout my childhood and high school, so I really only had about two "crazy years" of college before I settled down).

So anyway, this ridiculously long comment is just my way of saying thank you. It's nice to know that other moms feel the same way, while still recognizing that their lives are awesome and they have so much to be thankful for. I wouldn't really change anything, but still...there's another side of me that I feel the need to indulge sometimes. I like that other moms get that too.

SO | 2:12 PM

What a beautiful post. We are in the middle of a move-in (that has been underway for six some odd weeks now) we got my daughter's room more or less squared away, but we are still sleeping on a bed in the playroom. I can't quite see the way out of it yet, but seeing your photos with pictures on the walls makes me want to run home and get on with it.

pamela | 3:34 PM

i seriously fucking love you. i've said it before and i'll say it again, it's as if you are speaking my mind for me!

Amber | 3:57 PM

I seriously fucking love you too! I relate to this SO FUCKING MUCH. Every word. Wow. And your writing, as usual, has broken my heart and reassembled it. <3 <3 <3

Anonymous | 4:08 PM

love ur post, as usual. ur bedroom is perfect and cozy. the upside: less to clean! :-) xoxo

HennyBeeMama | 4:26 PM

LOVE this post!
i feel you.
i too am a young (29) mother of 2 and sometimes feel that pull toward the past. i don't really ever talk to anyone about it, but it is a sort of mourning. sometimes i feel like nobody will ever honestly look at me as a sexual being again. and that is SAD. it's something i want to work through, get my groove back. because that is sexy!
thanks, as always, for your inspiring and thoughtful words.

BonJoey | 5:03 PM

Super inspiring. Even though I don't really "know" you, I can say without a doubt you're the most down-to-earth yet fabulously awesomely kick-ass cool mom I've ever known. You find amazing ways to view your life, always taking your glass half full of lemonade. I can relate to you so often, and I am indebted to you for your wisdom - thank you!

Relate | 5:37 PM

Really, really great post!

Desiree | 6:00 PM

So often, your words are EXACTLY what I need to hear.

Anonymous | 6:11 PM

I really enjoy, ok LOVE, telling old school stories of back in the day. As much as someone wants a virgin, I want someone, something, with experience. I love a friend with great stories, a piece of furniture with a past, and a man that knows how to work it. Trail and error is a great thing ;)


Brandy S

Anonymous | 6:37 PM

We are always a mix of the life we currently live, the life we have lived, and the life we hope to live.

The best we can do is just get all that furniture in the life we have now.

This post was particularly beautiful, as is your "new/old" room. Well done, as always.

Liz | 6:42 PM

This is perhaps my favorite post I've read of yours, and I can really relate. I am also not the woman with the perfect hair who can relate normally to other moms or who wants to be prim and proper and defined by motherhood alone, but I feel like I should all the same.

You are an inspiration.

She Likes Purple | 6:45 PM

Do you know how to write anything NOT good? I think not.

I watch "House Hunters" obsessively and more often than not (99% of the eps, I'd say) people are "looking for more space," "wanting to upgrade," "have grown out of their current places." No one says, "I'm going to get rid of some of my stuff and downsize. I'm going to focus on the important things and shed a few layers of artificial skin." People focus on the new, shiny, pretty things, and there's no life to be found there. Just good photo ops. Life comes in character and history and places and people with stories to tell.

My husband and I are moving into our dream home this weekend. It's 500 sq feet smaller than the rental we're in now.

Thanks for writing this.

Lindsay | 6:58 PM

Fresh & raw, enjoyed!

Liz Aguerre | 7:01 PM

Your posts always leave me inspired and quite awed.

Jackie | 7:30 PM

I have to share one of my favourite quotes, "good things come in small packages...but so does poison" ;) I'm a "small package" myself, so this one has stuck in my head as a reminder that small can be mighty!

None | 7:56 PM
This comment has been removed by the author.
None | 7:58 PM

I really appreciated your post. Sometimes I revel in the past, it feeds me somehow. I guess it comes from the wild girl in my heart that I forced into dormancy the moment I gave birth.

I realized through reading your post, that I can wake myself up, and be wild and free now today, in my present. And I don't have to replay wild moments, of past experinces over and over in my head.

I don't have to live in the past, I can create wild new, and crazy moments right now, today!

Thanks, I love this blog!!

Anonymous | 4:13 AM

great post. you really bring up something essential that lots of women don't discuss, but really should!

i think it's important, if not critical, that we have those moments where we revel in our pasts, especially outside of our roles as mother/partner/devoted lover/wife/daughter. we need to remember and even invoke that risky side of us. obviously, i'm not suggesting doing anything crazy, but as a recent mother of twin boys, i have to say, there's been this weird part of me lately that wants to just go out to bars in the city with my friends,get drunk, grab ass and be reckless again, with no thought of poopy diapers/pediatrician appointments/"date nights" with my husband...

and this is not to say that i don't absolutely love all of those things. just that i can't and won't forget my past, my adventures, my fuck-ups and my misguided steps in life. and that past is a spirit within me that really shouldn't distinguish, no matter what the circumstances of my life are or will be.
because without those, i really wouldn't be the mother/wife/daughter that i've been and am today.

thanks again for this post. it gave me some validation!

Carrie | 6:17 AM

Good timing on your post. We've been working on our master bath suite for the past three months, with still a ways to go. It has taken a lot of money, a lot of time, and even my husbands health to a degree. Of course I'm excited about the new shiny bathroom, BUT in the mean time I've been completely content sharing the old, dated, small, hall "kids" bathroom with my husband, son, and company. Makes you wonder if we should have done it at all...

Anne | 10:37 AM

Wow, definitely know the feeling about the bigger space. Had that talk recently with my husband. It is true though... new things area always exciting, no matter where you live. I am sure if we all lived in palaces we would still have the same inklings.

messyfunmommylife | 10:54 AM

This was an amazing post. So beautiful. I think every mother and wife wants to be that girl sometimes. That one that was free to wallow in her own stuff. Stuff that was hers and now theirs. beautiful.

Anonymous | 11:13 AM

perfect timing. i have been compulsively scouring the internet for new houses in our price range in our area that are bigger. and you know what? we're broke as a fucking joke. the things we want don't exsist in our price range.

i feel like i've been so negative and bitter because i hate this house. but you have inspired me to just stop looking beyond what we have and focus on the here and now. making this house better, fresher, a feeling of newness. we have all we need here. at least we can say that. :)

Anonymous | 2:29 PM

I love the pictures of your "new room", and as always, the beautiful and thought-provoking words along with them. I'm curious though-how'd the kids' room turn out? I would love to see pics of that too! :)

-Emily

Anonymous | 2:30 PM

ack...i meant "new" room, not "new room". oops.

Alyxherself | 4:13 PM

You just keep rocking that way you have about you.

mfk | 5:06 PM

I have a smaller "number" than most people, but a bit larger than my boyfriend, who has ... just me. We met at 18, first few months of college, and have been together ever since (about 7 years) and probably will get married as soon as we have some money. And sometimes I feel guilty about my somewhat sketchy high school past, and I know that he sometimes gets a little jealous or angry that he doesn't get to have those experiences. To be honest I thought I would have more years of that... but we met early and I'm thankful that we did meet, and that I have found someone who is worth settling down for. But every once in a while... you do get the urge to air those feathers. I feel a little bad reminiscing about my wilder days (though it's all relative and I certainly wasn't as crazy as I could have been)... but it's nice to have something to look back on. The challenge is moving ahead without feeling wistful... and like you say, appreciating what you have.

blessings counted. thanks for the reminder.

Alex | 5:31 PM

I love your Victrola, and I love the mess that is humanity. Thanks for reminding me of that second part with this post. Rock on.

amyinbc | 7:45 PM

We too will be moving into the smallest bedroom in the house within days. Just makes the most sense, we only sleep there (and have been known to fool around a bit) and most of the time hubby is off at work anyway.

So my 'office' will be bigger and our sleeping room smaller. Hope mine looks as great as yours. (Mine will be smaller!)

korn | 7:23 AM

We have many products on children try to find สิ view.

JJ | 8:10 AM

I'm not sure if it's appropriate that I comment here: I'm a single, childless young woman who's staring down twenty-three. I'm a regular reader who coos over your kids and wows over your words, and I've never thought I had much to say before this post.

Speaking as one of the untouched, the Last Girl, the virgin, I envy you deeply. I don't want the pedestal or the pats on the head for keeping my mouth shut. Believe me, us virgins do not feel prized or privileged: we feel scrutinized, judged. "What's with her? Frigid? Damaged?" I want what you have: sex and life and messiness.

I'll be the first to admit that it's my own fear that keeps my legs together as much as any societal conditioning, so maybe this is a moot point. In any case, I thought it would be comforting for you to hear that I'm here, staring back at you from across the line, wishing I was where you are right now. Peace and love to you.

amie | 9:06 AM

Being ridiculously short, the saying good things come in small packages has always been a fav of mine. Enjoy your new space with all your familiar things.

Jasmine | 12:06 PM

I just love all of your art!

Alana | 12:35 PM

I bought Rockabye last weekend and expected it to last me a week because I made a place in my budget for books and they have to last me a week or else I end up buying another book and going over. Rockabye lasted me about 2 days. And that was even when I was trying really hard to just put it down. Telling myself "You don't need another cigarette. You can read more next time you need a nicotine fix." So I would basically just sit outside and go through half a pack READING YOUR BOOK.

Anyway, I finished it and it is still my book of choice for smoke breaks. Every time I walk outside and open it to a random page, I'm like I DONT REMEMBER READING THIS! And its amazing v2.0.

I love the book and your blog and I am excited to someday feel that kind of love (in 5-7 years, hopefully)

Elizabeth @claritychaos | 4:49 PM

"rearranging the same old items in a new and different space"

Yes. This resonates with me. Your writing tends to do that. Thanks.

amyinbc | 10:24 PM

Bigger, better, NEWER!

I am 43 and have a great hubby and 3 fabulously loved kids. Hubby makes a great income and I make my bit artistically, full time mom otherwise. We live within our means and it is the way to live, for us. Our debt is low (mortgage) and we have money for travel a few times a year.

Sometimes you just have to juggle priorities and find what makes YOU and yours happy.

Do we have a big ass tv? No. Could we buy one with cash? Yep. Do we want one? Nope. Currently our living room houses a 70's model tv in a cabinet. Works for us :) And so on...

Sometimes I wish our old house were bigger. But then I wonder if it would be as homey as this house is. We live in an old character home with 4 (smallish) bedrooms and ONE bathroom. I know! The horror!

But works for us and we never do without.

Studio222 Photography | 6:46 AM

we just moved this week. And I often apologize to Nate for the way I used to be. I think I could have written this post had I been as eloquent as you. ;)

Anonymous | 4:02 PM

I really loved this.

Anonymous | 6:16 AM

Thanks for giving my husband and me a good laugh.
I emailed him from work: "There's this woman who blogs who wrote, "i want to be looked at and talked to like a piece of meat."
He emailed back, "WTF? Who would say that?"
I replied, "Your mother."
And we were off to the races, texting and giggling on our respective trains home from work.
We had dinner with another couple and we told them about the "piece of meat" quote. We started talking to our entrees (filet mignon for the ladies and T-bone steaks for the guys.)
"Hey you sexy thing! You hot piece of meat! Come over here. I'm gonna EAT you!"
Snickers and guffaws.
You gave four very childish attorneys a chuck-a-licious evening.
Piece of meat!

jodifur | 7:57 AM

Jennie of she like purple sent me this post.

I'm having a little bit of a nervous breakdown trying to sell my house to move to something bigger and better.

thanks for bringing me back down to earth.

Brittany | 6:58 PM

Wow. I always come to your site first when I am boppin around. Today it was late because I have been trying to post everyday as I start my blog and I had a tough day with jealousy today and it took me a bit to figure out if I should tell the world I felt it. And felt it for something ridiculous. And then I hit publish when I realized how much I have and wrote about how happy I am and how I do not need what the Jones' have.

It was great to read it in your words though and push the point home that my grass is plenty green.

We are considering a bedroom switch as well as we wait for our third baby. We shall see but your beautiful little bedroom makes me think it might just be the solution we need to stay in our little bungalow with our slightly bigger brood and be all the closer as a family for brushing elbows every once in awhile.

Great Post!

Mamacita | 7:38 PM

Is that the painting you made for Hal before you were expecting Archer that you talk about in Rockabye?

GIRL'S GONE CHILD | 8:16 PM

Will be posting pics of the kid's room as soon as its fully finished.

As for the painting, YES! From the book.

Mamacita | 2:00 PM

That's so awesome! I love it! You are just busting at the seams with talent, Rebecca!

Unknown | 2:05 PM

This totally resonated. Loverly.

Maile | 12:48 PM

incredibly jealous of your gramaphone