Space

Not as in the "final frontier".

When we bought this house over 8 years ago it was SO BIG. I always knew we would have kids so I intentionally didn't do anything in the upstairs rooms, but the rest of the house was still just BIG.

It has gotten smaller.

That's natural when you add three more people (and two dogs). The living room is full of toys. The kitchen is full of toys. The office is full of toys. The part of the office not full of toys is full of guitars and musical equipment. My sewing/puzzle table now houses SkyWalker's computer (the desktop. His laptop is upstairs)  and various other stuff.

I had no space.

I've done pretty good over the last year of creating a mental space for myself. I run 3-4 times a week and I make sure I do child-free whether it's on the road or the treadmill. I read a lot more and book blog and write my examiner articles. I have my monthly girls' nights and make sure that there is a spot in my brain that thinks only about ME and not about the rest of the world.

But I needed a physical space too. When I mentioned this to Vader he was caught up in what I would do with this space. Not that I had to justify it, but for him it was "I want to do puzzles so I need a table" and for me it is "If I have a table I can do puzzles, scrapbooking, whatever." There was NO spot for me. None. There was no room in the office, no room in the kitchen (and I don't consider the kitchen my space. I'm not that interested in cooking.). Finally I looked to our bedroom... that we share with the dogs. We have a large dresser in there but we couldn't move it because of the TV. We just HAVE to have that TV in there. /sarcasm I came up with an idea to move the dresser upstairs into the Princess's closet, take her smaller dresser for Vader's stuff and then have more room in our bedroom. Luckily we didn't have to actually do that. We just slid the dresser down a bit, moved the dogs down a bit, and then opened up a corner. My own corner. I took the craft/homework table from the kitchen--the one that NOBODY does any crafts or homework on and is primarily a climbing tool for Chewie and moved that into the corner. I moved a smaller toddler table into the kitchen so they can still sit and do their playdoh. As of yet I haven't been able to sit down at my table, but it's nice knowing that I have a place to sit.

My space

The kids' space. One of many.