The Working Woman and Her Dreams

I am very lucky to be able stay home with my sweet baby. I know plenty of Mothers who would love to stay home with their children, but because of circumstances beyond their control, they must work full time outside of the home. I am also very lucky to be able to say that I am employed outside the home- sure I have only worked about 10 times in the past 10 months- but hey, I am keeping my skills up, and when I do get called into work, they are very very grateful to have me around.

Why am I telling you this? Because I am excited, I feel really blessed, one of those Long Term Blessed feelings where you can see some far far in the future dream starting to come true. What dream is that......? I just might get a Family Room. (So what does that have to do with being a stay at home mom who gets the chance to work once or twice a month? Just wait, I can not type that fast.)

Ken and I bought our home about a year after we got married. It is a 2000 sq/ft rambler. One of the things we liked about it was that we could do most of our living on the main floor. Our main floor has a nice sized Living Room, a Kitchen/Dining area, the Master Bedroom/Bath, and a second Bedroom and Guest Bath. For the first couple of years we lived here, we only went down to the Basement to do laundry, run on the treadmill or play Ping Pong (both of which are located in the Large Family Room), put food in or take food out of the Food Storage room, or show our Guests where the Guest Room was. (OK, so that sounds like a lot of stuff, but really those activities only took up +/- 5% of our time) After the baby was born the DVD collection and my Craft Supplies were also moved downstairs. We look forward to many more years in this home, because there are two unfinished rooms down there- a 4th bedroom and a 3rd Bath (which I like to think of as my future Spa Retreat). We could live here for a long time, and with the way the economy is right now, we just might live here forever- but that is OK, because it is a great house.

So anyway, since the sweet baby has become more mobile, and since he has learned how to make bigger and harder to clean up messes, I have been dreaming about creating a family room downstairs. Currently our Living Room houses our TV, our Computer (and all the gadgets that come with computers) our Piano, all of the Baby's toys and a few other pieces of Furniture. It also houses a good amount of clutter. This would be fine if we were antisocial, but we are not. It would also be fine if I was good at keeping the area clean and clutter free, which I am not.

And so the dream goes, I want to put all the electronic forms of entertainment downstairs in the Family Room, this would take 1-an Entertainment Center with Storage for the 400+ DVDs that we have managed to collect over the years and 2-Furniture (either new furniture for the family room or we could move the old furniture from the Living Room downstairs and get new furniture for upstairs.) I talked to Ken about if a few weeks ago......that conversation ended with me asking Ken, "Will you think about it....." and while Ken was thinking about it I started to plan. I have a basic design for a built in Entertainment Center that would provide sufficient storage for many many more DVDs than we currently own and then I found a couch online that I really like- even better than that- I found it on Overstock.com for $299 and then found the exact same brand new couch on KSL.com for $199. Then I took a look at IKEA and found a couple of cool looking chairs for $99 a piece, a cute modern rocking chair for $149 and possibly a love seat for $249. I think a room full of Furniture for $600-800 is pretty darn amazing! I don't know how much it will cost to build the entertainment center but I hope it is not more than $250.

Now for the feeling blessed part. We don't have $1000 to spend on furniture right now at least it is not currently in the budget. But then I got called into work, and while I was there I learned about all the turnover they had recently been experiencing, and I offered to come in a little more than usual. I have a 1 day per week and no more than that policy- well, I offered to come in 1 and a half days a week until they were able to hire people to fill the open positions they have. When I realized that I would be bringing more than $50 per month home, I told Ken that I wanted to stash all my earnings away into a Family Room Savings Account- and He agreed. When I work it is almost all I can think about- in fact on Tuesday I caught myself saying "Ohhh, I have been here for two hours already- that is +/-$30! YEAH! That is 1/3rd of a cute red IKEA Chair!!!!" (don't worry I said this in my head, and I don't think anyone even noticed the quirky smile on my face).

I did the math after work on Tuesday- and it is going to take me a while to earn enough money to make my dream come true (especially if they hire someone quickly), but I think it is a good dream, a righteous desire you might call it, and as such I can see how I am being blessed to make it come true.

Here is my list of reasons why it would be nice to have a family room.

1. We would be less likely to eat dinner in front of the TV. (because that would mean taking the food all the way down stairs and around the corner and I am very klutzy and would probably drop enough food to warrant a family rule against eating dinner downstairs.)
2. The Front/Living Room would stay Cleaner- allowing me to be much less stressed when people are coming over for Family Home Evening (or other such events where people who we don't plan to watch TV/Movies with are coming over.)
3. The Front/Living Room would be less crowded, and it could be a calm place to read or nap.
4. We could have Furniture that is not 24 years old! Not that our 24 year old furniture is not nice, I have enjoyed lounging on it since I was 8, I very much appreciate having it and I know Ken was grateful when my parents gave it to us. (I am grateful too, but I really love New Car Smell and New Carpet Smell, I know that I will love New Furniture Smell too!)
5. The Family room is right next to the Kate and Children's Craft Area! So if Kate or a Child wanted to do crafty stuff and the other wanted to watch TV- it could be so much more easily accommodated- not that the only child who lives in the house does crafts but he will- especially when the Children's Craft Area is furnished (I have been saving $5 per month since August of 2007 for the furnishings that will soon go in the Children's Craft Area- also thanks to IKEA- I love that place!)
6. I know I had so many more reasons, but I cannot remember them right now. All in all, I really think it will be good for us.

I tried to get pictures of the Furniture I am currently in love with but I couldn't get them to embed....so in the next week or so I am going to IKEA to make sure that the Chairs/Love Seat are comfortable- if they are, and if I still love them in person, I will take pictures and post them for you to see... who knows, maybe you will fall in love too.