Thursday, August 1, 2013

Marni makes... a pretty home

For quite a while now it's been a goal of mine to have a home that is not only comfortable and organized, but beautiful and reflective of myself - both as I am and as I'm working to become. When I think of what I want from my home, I envision a colorful mishmash of quirky, irreverent, functional, unique, personal and largely handmade touches that make me happy. I want a home that I'm excited to share with others. What I've got now is... well it has it's cool spots but it's definitely a work in progress. And since I've lived here over a year now, I can no longer use the old "...but I just moved in," excuse.

Let's just start with the main issues: 
  1. I'm on an extremely limited budget. Almost three years ago, my comfortable little suburban life went boom when my marriage and relationship of eighteen years dissolved. Boom... big-badda-boom. I had managed to back myself into a corner and never having completed college or finding a career for myself, was completely dependent upon my ex. To complicate things, over the course of our marriage, I had become disabled and was unable to work. Financially speaking, this makes things extremely difficult. Which brings me to my next issue...
  2. I don't really like where I live. I looked for months trying to find a place for myself and my son that would meet my requirements: 1) Due to his special needs, I had to keep my son in the same school district. 2) I needed to find a place where I could keep my puppy dog. At 120 pounds, she's a big girl and since she's an American Bull Dog, I was running into weight and breed
    my goofy girl
    restrictions nearly every place I looked. 3) The rent had to be cheap. I was receiving a nearly unlivable amount of support from The Ex and honestly, I couldn't afford much of anything. At what seemed like the last minute, I found low-income housing that met my requirements and moved in just days before the bank foreclosed on our old house. But I don't like it here. The cops are constantly being called out to my complex, there's a great playground but the children here are largely unsupervised, fowl-mouthed heathens and I refuse to expose The Boy to them, and the quality of people here, for the most part, leaves much to be desired. In the plainest of terms, it's a total ghetto and for now, I'm stuck here.
  3. I'm a messy pig. Straight up. I don't like picking up, I'm not very good at nor do I enjoy cleaning. I had previously remedied that issue by hiring a maid service, but that is obviously no longer an option.
  4. I simply have too much shit and my place is tiny. I got rid of an incredible amount of stuff when I moved from my 1750 square foot home to the 950 square foot home I'm in now. But if I'm honest (and really, why wouldn't I be at this point on my own blog?) I could stand to get rid of a lot more. I've been in my place 19 months and have yet to unpack quite a few boxes or finish decorating any of the rooms. To give you an idea of how small this place is, I can literally stand in my kitchen with one hand touching one end of the "room" and my other hand touching the other. I shit you not. It's like trying to cook while standing on a postage stamp. I have to open my refrigerator door in order to get my dishwasher door open. It's absolutely ridiculous and for someone who loves to cook, it's quite maddening. 
But I believe I can make it work. Kinda because I have to make it work and also because I'm actively trying to court optimism in my life. 

I turned 39 last March and made a commitment to myself to get my life in order by the time I turned 40. So I've started meditating on a daily basis once again, recommitted to my spiritual study and began a home-wide culling, organizing and cleaning expedition. I even found myself a man. An amazing man. For serious cats and kittens, uh-maz-ing. There are other goals I'm working towards too, but I'm trying to keep this inaugural blog short. 

Before the big-badda-boom, I was an avid food blogger and a hardcore DIY girl. I made stuff. A lot. Admittedly, I had already slowed the creating train way down due to my disability, but all of those things that made me so happy in the past were just gone and forgotten for nearly two years after I split from The Ex. Depression is a wicked, wicked bitch. However, I have since renewed my sense of purpose and drive. Even though I've started making things again - I'm writing, I'm knitting, I'm making liqueurs and I'm even learning to draw - I also want to get back into cooking and blogging and taking pictures and general DIYery. All things that used to bring me lots of joy. And I want to do so at a sustainable pace so I don't break myself. I have to constantly remind myself to live within my physical limitations. I'm no longer the able-bodied, enthusiastic, DIY dervish I used to be. But I'm not dead, dammit! I'm no longer doing my best impersonation of a buoy and simply letting life happen to me. I'm now grabbing the reigns and doing my best to behave like a proactive, goal-oriented adult. Well, adult(ish). Do any of us ever really feel like an adult?

All this squawkery has brought me to my original point: I've committed to participating in ApartmentTherpay.com's month-long Style Cure. It's my intention to follow the program throughout the month of August as much as my limited time and severely limited resources will allow. Hopefully, by the end of the month I'll have one pretty groovy room in my place, and some new skills to beautify the rest of my place, room by room, as I can. I haven't decided which room I'm starting with, but I'm counting on that decision becoming more clear as I dig into first couple homework assignments. 

This is already longer than I intended, so I'm shutting my proverbial pie hole for now. I'm off to do my first Style Cure homework assignment.

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