A really important post (tongue firmly in cheek)

Okay don’t get me wrong – I have a nice house. It’s big, not as big as some but plenty for a family our size. It’s got some really nice touches. For instance we have a good sized family room off the kitchen which has some great advantages. The kids can destroy it/play while I cook dinner for instance. I also have a small laundry room off the kitchen which makes doing laundry a little less of a chore (although my family room is often full of laundry needing folding lol). Still, I’m often a little embarrassed when people come to visit.

We built this home in 2000. RIGHT in the middle of our infertility woes. If you didn’t know that we’d wasted (read:spent) an obscene amount of money on infertility treatments followed by two reasonable priced but still expensive adoptions you’d really wonder whey we wasted our money on such a large house that we couldn’t afford to furnish. We’ve been working on things. Slowly. We’ve gone room by room and done what we could afford. Family room — check. Nursery — check. Kitchen — check. Big girl room — check (Sam inherited the nursery). Living room — getting there. Our bedroom well – we’ll just close the door. Dinning room — maybe we should install doors or perhaps just seal it off.

When we moved in everyone in my family HATED the light fixture in our kitchen. As a housewarming gift my parents bought us a new fixture. We took the hated lighting fixture and hung it in the dining room where there was nothing, temporarily. Ya. It’s been six years. It gets worse. For our formal dinning room table we used the table my father’s friend had given me when I moved out of my parents’ house. Okay, it’s the one he had when he himself had gotten married 40 years ago, an old brown melamine table, nothing special. When you use your knife at this table, the entire table shakes. My father re-upholstered the four wooden chairs for me. The re-upholstered part is quite nice. The chairs, well they need a good coat of paint. They are after all 40 years old. We took the Ikea book cases from Claude’s old apartment, the one’s he used as a TV stand to use in place of a buffet and/or hutch. It was better than an empty room.

When more than 4 people came for dinner I would use our old kitchen table on little wooden blocks (so the tables were the same height) and cover them with a tablecloth.
I stored my good dishes and crystal in my kitchen pantry. I tried to be casual with guests about not finding just the right set yet. If I get a chance this week I’ll take a picture and let you drink all the luxury in.

So a friend came to hang out last week. They just built a new house down the road from us last fall. When they moved they left ALL their old furniture behind and bought all new stuff for their new house. Their home is devine. As we sat using the computer in our dinning room (might as well dump the computer there as we aren’t affecting the decor any). I commented that I had finally found a light fixture for the dinning room and that maybe it would give me the incentive to finish off the whole room. She giggled a little too politely at my little joke. Sigh.

Anyway I bought the “chandelier” the next day. Without telling my husband. It really is a temporary chandelier but definitely less temporary and embarrassing looking as what we have there now. I pulled out the new Ikea catalogue when he got home and told him I was sick of waiting to buy a dining room set that we liked AND could afford and that maybe we should get something serviceable and just live with that for awhile. The next day he showed me a furniture flyer that had a set that looked all right in the ad on sale. It was a going out of business sale. I acquiesced to going down and looking although I had no real intention of buying anything. We’ve looked for years and NEVER purchased. Only dreamt. On Saturday, 2 seconds after walking in the door, we had a new dining room set. We got home an on checking out our dining room and imagining the set in place (it won’t be delivered for 3 weeks) I decided that we needed to take better advantage of the sale that the Bombay Company was having and that I also needed a new clock. Ta da! Off to the store on yesterday to buy a new clock and just like that we now have a formal dining room. Although I still need window treatments and I guess I have to find somewhere else for the computer or at least a nicer desk.

I’m giddy with excitement and keep looking into the room longingly. Okay it’s a silly thing to be excited about but what I’m really excited about is living in a grown-ups house after living like a student for so very long. I have a good job. I’m careful with my money. This shouldn’t have taken so long. Infertility affects us in so many ways. If I could pop kids out like the next guy well this would have been done years ago and then some.

Ah well — Off to look at roll top desks.