Tuesday, September 25, 2012

One and a Half Months


As of this writing, I will have been in my house for about a month and a half.  I’m still getting used to it.  It’s weird being alone after being in a house that often was full of people and not just the MMC and my two girls, but other family, in-laws, friends, and neighbors.  Now I find times where I keep expecting someone to walk through the door.  Or while watching television, I go to say something about whatever I’m watching and realize there’s no one there to tell it to.  Not that that stops me anyway.  Maybe someone passing on the street far down at the bottom of the hill wants to know my TV musings.

Having an entire bed to me has been an adjustment I haven’t made.  I still sleep on one side, almost at the edge.  As I explained in Making the Spare Bedroom Your Bedroom, Spare, the girls used to sleep with us and most times I could never get comfortable enough due to all the kicking and hands in my face in the middle of the night.  So I would either be almost falling off the bed or I just went into the other room. I still think this was a defensive maneuver by my wife allowing the girls to sleep in our room.  Nothing like adding two warm bodied people to help fortify the emotional wall you’ve built around yourself. 

Anyway… now that I always sleep on my own, I don’t take advantage of having a queen sized bed by sleeping in the middle or diagonally across it.  I sleep on the edge, sometimes teetering off of it as if I was being pushed out by my sleeping children.  Primarily I think it’s just because the edge is closer to the night stand thus easier to do things like reaching for books, turning off the light or turning off the alarm in the morning.  If I was in the middle of the bed, I would have to struggle to get over to do any of those tasks.  I also think it is just habit.  I’m used to being on the side so that’s where I am most comfortable.  I have no idea what I did when I was single but I probably stuck to one side then too. 

Of course this makes me feel like I’m wasting my bed.  I was going to buy a new king size bed when I moved in but they’re freakin’ expensive so I have been using the bed that was in our spare room only I put a pillow top cover thing on it to make it more comfortable as it was a very firm mattress.  That made a huge difference so I have temporarily ceased by bed search.  Now I’m thinking that if I am only using one edge of the bed, maybe I should just get a twin mattress.  That way I would be using ALL of the bed, there just wouldn’t be that much of it.  Wouldn’t THAT be impressive when I finally reenter the dating scene and reach the point where I bring a woman home? (This is far, far, far into the future and quite possibly an alternate reality, by the way)  “Hey, baby…here’s my twin bed.  We’ll need to decide who’s on top right now.  Let me just pull back my Spider-Man sheets and my blankie.  Do you want the night light on…or off?” 

No, I guess I’ll stick with the bed I have and eventually get a new one.  I still need to put furniture in the spare room so that’s the ultimate fate for the bed I have.  It came from the spare room and will ultimately die in there.

Outside of the previously mentioned spare room, I pretty much have settled into the house.  All of my pictures are up (although I could use more), living room, dining room, breakfast nook, kitchen, girls bedroom and office are all decorated and squared away.  My bedroom is pretty bland though.  Yes, I have the half-used queen sized bed but the only other things in it are a small nightstand and a tall dresser.  I really don’t need anything else, but the room looks pretty empty.  I guess a king size bed would help fill it up and maybe if I got a new dresser set where I had a tall dresser and a long one, that would do the trick.  Just not sure what I would put into these pieces of bedroom furniture.  As part of my 1.5 months, I took out the pathetic lone wire rack in the master bedroom closet and put in a nice “closet organization system” that gave me two racks for hanging my clothes, a long shelf along the top and a single set of shelves going from the top of the closet down to the floor.  I also put in a set of hooks for belts, hats, etc. so I am set on clothes storage.  Having more furniture to put clothes in isn’t really needed but it would help fill up my room.  I guess other options would be an easy chair or something like that but you know what that ultimately means don’t you?  Just something to pile my clothes onto.  And when am I just sitting in my bedroom anyway?  If I want to sit, I’ll do it in the living room.  I just got a brand new leather couch that reclines.  Yes, I said reclines.  I may cheap out when it comes to getting new bedroom furniture but I will make my living room as comfortable as possible.

I still have to get the basement settled but I’m not in a big rush to do that.  As it is, I do need something down there to put an old TV I have on it. This is the TV I mentioned in Moving Daze Part 4.  It’s like 300 pounds since it’s the probably one of the last tube TV’s but it has a flat 38” screen.  Perfect for down in the basement until I upgrade the TV upstairs…which would probably be a long while.  I don’t have a 3D TV but if that is still a thing a year or so from now, maybe that is what I would upgrade to.  I still think 3D TV is a fad but maybe it’s a fad like the internet is a fad or toasters are a fad.  I dunno.

I guess when I look back at the 1.5 months and the fact that last night, I didn’t have any pressing unpacking or “settling in” to do, I should be proud of where I am.  A lot of people in this same state would still have boxes to unpack, rooms still unsettled and an array of pictures on the floor perhaps by the wall they are to be hung on but still unhung.  I guess it’s also easier for me to be settled in since I only have my girls with me every other weekend but still.  I think I opened up a can whoop ass on the house and came out looking pretty good.  I do still feel, however, a bit unsettled or uneven…like there is still stuff to do and while there are some small things, it’s nothing major.  Perhaps that unsettled feeling is something more than just unpacked boxes or an undecorated wall.  Perhaps it’s a sense that I need to make this house my home.  To do that, I need make my single life something more than every other weekend visitations and house settling but what should I make it?  Let’s explore that next time.

Meanwhile, I will try to become more centered by sleeping in the center of my bed but it won’t be easy.  I threw my shoulder out trying to reach the alarm clock this morning.  Oy.

 

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