AtypicaLife dot net

Hi.

I’m in my new office, do I look different?

I’m on the second floor, in the small bedroom, the one we called the nursery, the one we used as a bedroom for half the winter because it wasn’t as cold as the other room in the North corner, the one with “KATIE” stenciled on the window frame, coordinating pastel wallpapers and matching Noah’s Ark border. For a small room, it has two doors and two windows. It gets great morning light and if I sit at the computer too early, the screen is hard to read. No worries, a couple more months and the sun will move around enough for this to not be a problem.

We finally set it up, one rainy afternoon where it poured hard enough that not only the Internet went out, the tv almost went out too. Oh, and it’s damp enough here there are ducks and geese on my lawn all the time. Anyway, Ron finished assembling the hutch part and I gathered up all our piles and odds and ends, and wiped down dust.

My new office (okay, mine and RON’S but he gets it at night) is still a little bit of chaos and the old office, now the kid’s, is still a bit wild, but we can walk through both rooms and sort of know where everything is. Even if it’s “in that box over there”. My huge new desk surface is littered with papers.

There’s a futon in here. Meaghan sits on it, notebook on her lap, pen in hand. Or in  her mouth, as she gazes out the window, thinking. She writes. The light is better in here, she says.

Emma comes to visit, hanging off my shoulder. “I’m lonely,” she tells us. “I’m downstairs all by myself.” Sarah’s not up yet, but when she does get up, I can see her right away. “Hey,” she’ll say as she crosses the hall.

I don’t have her clacking the keys in tandem with me anymore. I can close the door and be alone and quiet, enough to hear whomever on the other end of the phone. I can see out one window if I turn my head slightly, see people walking down the road, some traffic, an occasional tractor with the lights flashing. I can’t turn around and show Sarah what’s on my screen though. I email her downstairs, send a link, forward an email with “print me plz :)” in the subject line.

Okay, now it’s really quiet. I’m feeling peckish. I have to go all the way downstairs, and hope I don’t forget anything on the way down or on the way back up. My travels through the house have changed direction. It’s faster to get to the kitchen if I use the back stairs. When I was in the other room, I used the front staircase more.

I may have spent a good half hour a day just in walking in circles around my house to go up the correct staircase.

Hmm. Wonder what they’re doing downstairs?

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