I’m on a Tear

We’ve decided not to remodel the house.

I really want to fix the problems in our house’s design, but we don’t have the money.  We could become “house poor” and suck it up for a few years and trust that financially things will be better when we’re not paying for (hopefully) two children’s daycare. 

Or we could take the financially conservative route and just wait.  Wait until the kids are in school.  Wait until I get tenure.  Wait until we have a bit more money in the coffers.  And although I don’t like waiting, it is part of our financial philosophy to live below our means so that we can retire at our means.  ((Although, to be perfectly honest, we are not currently “living below our means.”  We’re still spending way too much money when in actuality we’re poorer than a church mouse.  We should cut back on everything if we want to live below our means.  No groceries, no electricity, no clothes from anywhere besides Marshalls and Target.  Actually, the latter is true.))

So I’ve decided since we are not going to remodel, I’m going to stop ignoring some of the fixable flaws in our house.  I’m on a tear.  I’m a whirling Tasmanian devil whipping through crap, tossing crap out, and reorganizing the crap we can still use.

So far, I’ve thrown out a great deal of my wardrobe including all those cute, skinny clothes I had when I was cute and skinny in LA.  Newsflash:  even though I’ve lost all my pg weight, I’m still not as skinny as I was in LA, and my body has changed so that I can’t wear most of my clothes from before.  And even if I could ever get my fat ass in my skinny clothes, what looked good as a single skinny girl in LA is not so much in fashion for a mother professor in the South.  Result:  a nearly empty closet. 

I’ve also started on the counters and cabinets in the kitchen AND the infamous junk drawers.  I’ve put all those extra appliance cords and birthday candles and matches and whatnot in plastic baggies.  (And BTW, we had well over a 100 birthday candles, so Sorry Mom!  We could have had candles on your cake for your birthday this year instead of that sparkler which seemed like a good idea at the time but left burnt silver shit all over the white icing of your birthday cake.)   Result:  I can see the counters for the first time in months.  Additionally, there’s a trashbag of shit we’ve never used and will never miss. 

There’s more we’re going to do:  move furniture around, buy a few pieces of cheap furniture for the living room, hang more pictures on the wall, throw out more and more and more and more and more accumulated shit that we don’t ever use. 

One thing that has really stuck in my craw from what the architect said.  She pointed out that if we did the remodel, we’d still only end up with 2200 sq. feet “and that’s a really small house.  That’s not big at all.”  (And that wasn’t even counting the additional 400 sq feet out in the office) 

You know what folks?  The vast majority of this world lives in a smaller space with more people than we currently live in now.  We can manage.  No.  Really and truthfully.  It’s OK.  We can do just fine in the house we’re in right now.

We are, however, seriously considering using their plans to revamp the butt ugly bathroom.  Their suggestions would fix the one major design flaw in the house that does make our bathroom difficult to use.  (Dave can’t use this bathroom because the toilet is so close to the shower that either his butt or his knees are hanging in the shower if he’s at the toilet.  I simply sit sidesaddle and bypass the issue).  But that’s only about $6-8K.  That we can afford. 

8:40:40 PM