Bittersweet

I went to a Board meeting today for Youth and Family, whose new shelter has been featured repeatedly on this blog. Right after we wrapped up the meeting, someone came in and yelled "Hey, they're tearing down the old building!" Which was something we'd been waiting for, and had been delayed a bit by crummy weather. But that has been our agency for thirty years. Despite the fact that the Christmas tree fell through the floor a few years ago, and parts of the kitchen had been condemned and we were putting band-aids on bleeding wounds . . . it was a refuge for thousands of children. We love our new building, but it was hard to watch the old one come down.




That used to be one of the girl's rooms.

So, the end of an era. We love the new, it's hard to see the old, no matter how decrepit, go.

On a lighter note, I was visiting with a couple of the Board members and got this story. Last week, we had a snowstorm. The weather, roads, and visibility were all crap. C was at a medical clinic and they asked her to go across the street to the hospital for a procedure, for which she would need an epidural. She said she'd walk and they advised her to drive . . .??? Anyway, she pulled out of the clinic, which is on a hill, slid, there was a car coming down and she couldn't stop, it honked, she hit the rear end of it. She got out, the other driver got out, and it was another Board member, J. They've been friends for years, so the first thing they did was hug. Damage to the vehicles was almost non-existent, so they got back in them and went about their business.

Meanwhile, C goes to the hospital and, in her words, "have my butt up in the air so they can figure out where to put the needle," and the woman administering the needle is telling the nurse how she just witnessed an accident outside and "they HUGGED!" So C, butt in the air, says "Yeah, that would be me." I have to say, we got a good cackle out of it.

Office Space

When hubby quit his job and started a consulting firm two and a half years ago, he started on the dining room table. It was practical, he wasn't sure where and when he wanted to rent office space. It was fine until such time as he had enough business to merit piles of paperwork, and the dining table ended up looking like this.



I loathe clutter, so I would try to not look at it. But every six months or so, I would freak out and say why does the @#*&%*&@#!$!## house have to look like something off Clean Sweep?

We have a spare bedroom that I wanted to make into an office. It tends to be the place where everything goes that I don't want to deal with right now, so there have been times that I had to wade through junk on the floor to get to the window to open the shades.

Meanwhile, our daughter moved into an apartment last fall, and her room was largely empty, or, as she put it when she came home one weekend, sad.

Hubby and I both wanted an office in the spare room, but we disagreed on a fundamental item - the desk. I wanted a nice wood computer desk, maybe a dining room table sized desk facing it, and a bookcase. He didn't like the stuff I liked and he thought it was cheapo. He wanted something more industrial. I was picturing something like a metal desk with green sides, and I didn't want the home office to have that look.

My non-profit just moved into our new shelter and didn't take everything from the old one, so we had a big sale a few weeks ago. One of the sale items was a desk from our Office Manager's office. I liked it because it was nice wood and he liked it because it was sturdy. Okay, the thing is six feet long and weighs a ton.

We brought it home. The next day, hubby was out for around three hours running errands. When he came home, he had an office. I had cleared out all the junk, reformed the entire east wing of the house. He was shocked. He had underestimated how much I loathed the clutter, and underappreciated that I only blew up every six months or so. He said it was like a spring unloaded.





And Jessica's room is no longer sad.





And best of all, we have a dining room table. Just in time for Christmas!



So Peter Walsh will not be visiting me anytime soon. Well,unless he looks at the garage . . . .