Home Decorating is an Adventure

Okay, so I have a problem. Well... I have a lot of problems, but this particular problem is costing us a lot of money. Decorating our house has become an obsession and I am here for it, but I am so not here for the cost of decorating our house. Thank goodness I'm almost done... probably. The good news is that our budget will be happy, the bad news is that I always find something else that needs doing. But, it's turning out soooo beautiful.

When we moved to Pennsylvania, we bought a 1925 craftsman. The house is gorgeous, with lots of character and it is in immaculate shape. We have beautiful glass door knobs and locks that require a skeleton key. The house has all original wood floors, except in the bathroom and kitchen, where I have no idea what's under the linoleum. There're gorgeous built-in cabinets around the fireplace (which doesn't work, but could if we ran gas to it.

We have a small yard, which is nice because taking care of a yard isn't really my jam, and it's not my husband's either. Though we do plan to make a small garden in the back yard this spring. 

The house feels huge compared to our space in Utah, where the spaces were allocated so strangely that the house felt tiny. However, it's only about 100 sq. ft. bigger than our house in Utah was. Having a basement and an attic really makes a difference, even though they don't count toward your square footage. This house has a classic layout: Living room, dining room, kitchen with nook, three bedrooms, one bathroom, an attic, and a basement. In short, it's absolutely perfect. My dream house! 

With that said, our former decor style, a very industrial, Star Wars themed space wasn't really working for us anymore. We've outgrown it, and it doesn't fit our new space, so redecorating a little at a time has been fun (and pricy!). Suddenly, after all these years, the husband has an opinion about our space. He cares, now, after 25 years together, what our space looks like and how it reflects us.

The biggest project has been the library. We decided that one of our three rooms should be a place to enjoy our books and a sort of sitting room upstairs. It turned out so fab. When we first moved in, that room was fullllllll of boxes and it sat like that for a long time. I started buying shelves and putting boxes away, then slowly got the rug and furniture. Now, that room is absolutely cozy! 

Since we finished the library, and when I say "we" I really mean "I," the projects have been mostly downstairs. Upstairs, I've reorganized our bedroom so our other dresser will fit and moved some things around into the diamond painting room (yeah, we don't have any guest rooms!). That's about it up there. Everything else has been redecorating our living room and dining room.

Last weekend I got two really beautiful matching curio cabinets for the dining room and it has been such a game changer! Look at this...

Getting new curios has allowed me to bring my great grandmother's china down from my attic and put it on display. Matt's grand dad's china was already down here, but my family's wasn't. Since bringing it down I learned that it's called "Sylvan" and is made by the Edwin M. Knowles China Co. in November, 1934. 

Overall, the house is coming along so beautifully, I'm overwhelmed with gratitude that we were able to afford to do this at all. Even though it's turning out expensive, we're happy with the overall result and since we don't buy a lot of new things (that chaise lounge and ottoman in the library aside), it's not costing as much as it could! 

There's more to say, but this is getting long and I really want to finish up the living room before I share that space! 

Workplace Trauma

I've spent some time recently thinking back on last year. This is something I do every new year, but this year I had a lot to contemplate. Last year was a mess of downs and ups. My husband spent 6 months at a job where he was treated like crap, I had to leave a job I had at one point loved because my boss was awful, we sold our house in Utah and moved to Pennsylvania, where we bought our house outright. We spent months not working, just enjoying our lives, and settling in to our new reality. It was a hell of a lot for one year.

The thing that keeps living in my head rent free is the job I left because of my boss. With time and distance, I've begun to sort out what happened there and how it's affected me. Having to be afraid to go to work is never okay. My boss was an irrational terror. He constantly put me down, my work (and the work of my peers) wasn't ever good enough for him, though he never communicated what he actually wanted, he even wrote several of us up for talking to one another. It became a situation where we literally couldn't confer with our co-workers for fear he would see us talking to one another and be angry. He once spent a half an hour berating me, while I cried, because he believed I was rolling my eyes. He went so far as to accuse me of victimizing the people he perceived I was rolling my eyes about. 

Our department had ten employees when I was there. Another girl, who he also terrorized, left around the same time I did. The team's videographer moved out of town. And one of the other employees left for a better job. All four of us left because our boss was completely awful. After I left, I learned he had told those who remained that he wanted to move them into one big room and have all the desks face the walls (which he did), where he could watch them to make sure they weren't talking to one another.

Here's the thing. Since leaving that place, I cannot bring myself to even apply for another professional job. Any time I even consider it, I have to take my anxiety rescue meds. I cannot even contemplate working for anyone, because every single ounce of belief in myself is completely gone. That job left me empty, doubting myself, and feeling so small that I can't fathom that anyone would even hire me. 

I think the worst thing of all, though, is that I absolutely feel that that job completely robbed me of my new career. I was training (at substantial personal expense) to be an instructional designer and I was good at it! Now, I can't even think about returning to instructional design without getting sick to my stomach.

I believe I have workplace PTSD, which I've recently learned is actually a thing. At this point, the only person being hurt by this is me. I know that, but I can't seem to move past it. What hurts the most about that is that this boss is just going to go on treating the people who choose to work for him the same way he treated me and my peers, but because he's a VP at the college, he's out of reach. It doesn't matter how many people file HR complaints about him (I did and so did some of my co-workers). He's more valuable to them than we are, so we end up fodder while he keeps his $150k a year job. It's pretty gross.

I work for myself right now, doing independent contract work, and I still teach comp online. I do a great job at what I do, but I still can't move past what happened with this job. So, 2023 turned out to be difficult, but so far 2024 has been pretty great. Let's hope that with enough time and separation from that job, that I can begin to move on. Or maybe, I'll get therapy. Here's hoping, because I suspect that I won't ever move past this alone! 

All Moved!

Wow, last time I was writing here I was saying "Let's go!" and we certainly went! We arrived in Pennsylvania on Sunday, July 2nd after a three-day long, 1,800-mile drive. We stayed with a close friend for six weeks while we house-hunted and bought a house. We caught up with our oldest friend, went out and enjoyed our new hometown and the surrounding area, and went hiking in a nearby state park (where my husband promptly got lost). We bought a house that we absolutely love and have since spent the days getting situated in our new place.

The best part, we're happier than we've ever been! Now... even though I've been trying to write this since October, it's mid-January and we're still so happy here. We've gotten completely mostly settled (we still have one room that's taking forever to unpack) and we're enjoying our forever home. 

That has not come without some complications here and there, but being happy has made it easier to overcome those hurdles. Here's to many happy returns! 

Let's go!

You know the old adage "ask and you shall receive"... yeah, um, the universe is listening. I mentioned before that I was ready for this house sale business to be done and for us to be on our way right now, rather than in the middle of July. Turns out that's exactly what's happening. We're moving this week! Our house closed today, the moving container will be here tomorrow, the moving help will be here on Wednesday, the junk removal will be here on Thursday, and then we'll be on our way Thursday evening. I am nervous and excited. Time for the next phase of our lives... let's go!