this week

This week hasn’t been much fun (on many fronts), but on the home front it’s been pretty crappy. F’s fighting some annoying virus that keeps lingering on, sending her temperature soaring every 4-5 hours. Just when you think she’s broken through to the other side it’s back. She missed four days of school this week, and so far we’ve missed night one of our semi-annual group camping trip. Not fun.

M and I have been juggling this all week, and yesterday I was home with her while M put in an eighteen hour day in an effort to catch up a bit. I don’t really have the software I need on our home computer to get much work done, so whenever F laid herself down to rest or relax I tackled some deeper cleaning around the house.

You’ve seen pictures of our bedroom before, but usually I just take them from an angle that blocks out the old shelving unit where our computer has been sitting since F arrived and kicked us out of our studio space. It’s driven me batty in there on numerous occasions – it’s not comfortable to work there for very long, it’s a massive dust collector, and even if we’re not actually using it during sleeping hours, I don’t like any technology in the bedroom. So it’s been one of those annoying things that seems simple enough to remedy but never is. Until yesterday.

Clean, glorious clean. I scrubbed, dusted, moved, pitched, laundered, organized, thinned, adjusted, and mopped every square inch of the space. In the middle of this activity, F climbed up onto the half assembled bed and took a nap. I sorted and folded and packed up clothes around her.

Last night I stayed up way too late, waiting up for M to return home, and tackling some more tasks that never seem to get accomplished on the weekend. I know I was physically tired and emotionally spent when we finally turned in for the night, but still – that was some good, clean sleep. Just what the doctor ordered.

We have the cast iron summer front in the basement that used to be in the living room before we did the bookshelves. M said he’d repair it and bring it up and install it, so that will look great there under the mantel. The leather bench at the end of the bed might be one of the first things we bought together – I can’t say that I love, love, love it anymore, but it currently houses all the dress up clothes which makes our room very popular when friends come to play.

One day we’ll be out of the dress up stage, and maybe we’ll replace with a simpler, non-storage bench. I’d still like a small nightstand or two someday – I wouldn’t complain if an Eames stool showed up under the tree one day! But I really love this room, as simple as it is. Now that it’s clean and uncluttered again the whole room feels as good as a crisp, clean set of sheets do during a stolen afternoon nap. Perfect surroundings to sleep through the sickies and wake refreshed and cool again. (I hope that day is coming soon, poor dear.)

P.S. See that little white button on the floor at the head of the bed? I also installed the bed warmer last night. Fall!