The other day it occurred to me that our current one bedroom "house," which is actually more of an apartment as it is the annex off the back of our landlords' house, is the largest place I've lived in during my adult years. And then I remembered the Romworld house (funny how I had momentarily blocked that out, huh?), which was much, much larger—even just our personal apartment.
Of course that didn't mean there was enough space. The man is a freakin' pack rat and he just leaves shit everywhere, wherever he happens to drop it (and then stomps around cursing about not being able to find things). So despite my best efforts, there were just piles and piles of crap everywhere in the house. I finally accepted that I would have to have "zones" that I kept organized and clean like I wanted and let the rest of it go. An entire half of our attic bedroom was devoted to his crap-tastic crap-stravaganza and when we were packing up, I had desperate hopes that he would forget about the cupboard under the stairs, which was filled with dusty, old crap that he terms "folkloric items." No such luck. The stuff from the barn was even worse.
But the one thing I loved about the Romworld house was that I finally was able to have an office. You may remember it from other posts:
Ahhhh, isn't it beautiful? Look! A desk with space to keep everything organized! A proper chair! Bulletin boards and photos hung with care! Not one but TWO windows!
I loved my office.
Our digs are much smaller now. And like a woman, I've made the sacrifices when it comes to space. He has a desk top computer, so he got the dining table in the living room as his desk. My precious keepsakes and tchotchkies remain boxed in storage, but he had to have all TWENTY-SEVEN boxes of his books in the house. Guess who gave him all the built in shelf space and cabinets?
Here's my current workspace:
In case you're wondering, that is one of those little "dressing / make-up" tables with a cushioned little bench. It's all of two feet wide. It had a three-part mirror on top that I store next to the dresser (which doubles as shelf space, as do the windowsills).
Said mirror comes out when I actually have to do my hair. There is a dearth of electrical outlets in the house (note power cord stretching off to the right—it barely reaches the outlet) and being as this is England (aka the Nanny State), there certainly isn't one in the bathroom—which has the smallest mirror I've ever seen in a bathroom. EVER. So when I have to actually use a hair dryer, I have to unplug either the lamp or my computer from the socket next to the bed and place the mirror on the bed so I can see what I'm doing. Sort of. Because even bolstering it with pillows I seem to only be able to see about 75% of my head at one time. I'm really looking forward to having to do that every morning when I get a job.
My other workspace is, frankly, the bed. I basically have very little to do, so I spend hours on the internet reading the
New York Times,
Jezebel, and blogs. I hate, hate, HATE job-hunting, so there's only so much of it I can force myself to do each day. But I'm great at finding excuses not to do it. This week's excuse? The man starts his new job next Monday, so then I'll have to get up to drive him to the train and we'll be on a schedule and I'll be much, much more productive. Good one, huh?
You might wonder why I don't venture to oh... say... the living room? Well, the only seating in the living room is two leather chairs. No sofa to get comfy on. And no TV. Which was really my idea, thinking it would be good for me to do without TV for a while. Unfortunately, all this has meant is that I've spent a small fortune downloading movies and TV shows from iTunes. That's the other way I'm spending my time. Yep, iTunes has easily made a couple hundred bucks off of me since our arrival in England.
Despite these small inconveniences, I really do like our place. It is nicely decorated and has been well looked after. The owners have a couple acres of beautifully landscaped grounds and gardens, some of which we're allowed to use. It's pretty and peaceful and they are very nice folks. The little idiosyncrasies of the place I chalk up to the fact that it's a slightly older building and the owners don't live in it, because they're the kind of things that you would definitely fix if you did. But they really aren't that big of a deal and we have everything we need for now. Soon enough we'll have to move on to a place where we can have our pets. And hopefully a proper desk for me!
