grace aloud |
family therapist, wife, Christian... collections of my thoughts shared out loud |
As I posted before, I’m working on a scrapbook that is called “Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life” in which you make pages with each letter of the alphabet telling something random about your life. I’m going to be posting the journaling here that I will use on the page, both as an idea for blog entries and so that I will be moving ahead on the project, even though I don’t have a lot of time for scrapping at the moment! Here is my first entry for the letter A: Apartments.
So far in our four years of marriage, Jonathan and I have lived in two apartments.
Our first place was on campus at OBU. Our tiny apartment was right around 500 square feet, and it consisted of a living room, kitchen/dining room, bedroom, bathroom, and VERY LITTLE storage! It was tough fitting all of the things two people need to live in that small space! Every bit of the walls in our living room were lined with something—couch, bookshelf, corner desk, TV stand… And you should have seen it when we squeezed the Christmas tree in there! Our kitchen was also pretty small—it was long and narrow, so you had to be careful going around one another, and really only one person could cook at a time. And it had no garbage disposal, and no dishwasher! We were fortunate to have a washer and dryer, although they were older than I was and stacked in a closet in the dining room—you had to hold the washer top open to get clothes in and out, because the dryer was so close that the washer lid didn’t have enough room to stay open!
Yet, we had many friends that came and visited with us there, in our first home. I love to provide hospitality to others, and to serve them by inviting them into our space to enjoy time with us. It was sometimes easier said than done though—in addition to getting used to a small apartment, I was also still learning how to cook!
I am most proud of how I creatively found more space within the apartment. We had a small corner desk where Jonathan did most of his work, and I would spread out on the kitchen table with my laptop. However, I really wanted to have more space where I could leave papers and things, especially when I was working on my thesis. So, I converted a closet in the kitchen area to my office! I did a lot of organizing and purging the space, which had previously been used for random storage. Then, I got some plywood and covered it with contact paper, anchored it to the wall at about desk height. I hung a calendar on the wall. Viola! My own office was born. The closet even had a light in it, so it was well lit. We lived in the apartment in Shawnee for almost 2 years.
When we moved from Shawnee to Stillwater, we felt as if we were getting a major upgrade! We moved into a two bedroom, one bath apartment. It has a much larger kitchen that opens into the living room, and there is just more space in general! My favorite spot to sit in the entire house is in a kitchen char in the corner of the living/dining room. From that spot, I can look out the window and see Boomer Lake, and if I look around myself, I can see into the kitchen, the living room, and all the way into the back bedroom! It feels very spacious to me.
Our apartment in Stillwater is nice because it is very quiet. We like our neighbors, and there is plenty of yard to walk Lucy in. Plus, we have lots of things we didn’t have before, like a full-sized washer and dryer, a dishwasher (praise the Lord!), and a garbage disposal. It is in a good location as well. While we are not on campus like we were in Shawnee, we can walk from our apartment to the football stadium to watch the games, as it’s only about half a mile, and it only takes about 5-10 minutes to get to school from here (although walking in to our building from the parking lot is another story! Seems like that takes forever!)
This apartment has been our home for over two years now, and we expect that we’ll live here another year, when we’ll move to who knows where for a doctoral program! I am looking forward to getting a new apartment, which will hopefully be another little upgrade from where we’re living now, and one day buying a house. However, as Paul said, I’ve learned that the way to be happy in all things is to be content where I am now… And I am!
