Seasons of Life
By: Rachel Krugh--Family-focused freelance writer from Puyallup, WA
With Halloween behind us, now is the perfect chance to take time to catch your breath before the busyness of the rest of the holiday season is upon us. Pack up all the witches and goblins, skeletons and pumpkins, and before you bring out the boxes of Christmas/Hanukah decorations, take some time to live with the empty spaces in their place. Take a good look around your home to see if the furniture in your home fits your needs, if the spaces and traffic patterns function well for the way you use your home, and if the things you have in your home speak to your heart and nourish your soul.
A wise man once said that you can chronicle the seasons of life by watching the furniture in the family room change. A young, newly married couple, with lots of love but little money, starts with a love seat. They make a little more money and want their home to reflect their sense of style, so they buy an expensive sofa and tchotchkes. They start a family and add a rocking chair – and soon after add a slip cover for the sofa and box up the tchotchkes. As the family grows, the trendy sofa, which wasn’t really comfortable anyways, is replaced by the sectional sofa. As the nest empties, they end up with “his” and “hers” recliners, which, of course, can be moved when they fold out the new sleeper sofa for the visiting grandchildren, who think the tchotchkes make great toys.
What “season of life” are you in? Does your furniture work to support you in the many roles you play to keep the household running? Do the pieces of art on your wall bring you joy, or remind you that you need to dust more often? Are you able to enjoy your most cherished treasures, or are they buried under piles of bills and clutter or stored in the back of a cabinet somewhere? Would a room function better if some of the furniture was removed? Do you have a comfortable space for celebrating holiday traditions with family and friends? Sometimes our lives and our living spaces can be too full – even if they are full of “good things.”
With Halloween behind us, now is the perfect chance to take time to catch your breath before the busyness of the rest of the holiday season is upon us. Pack up all the witches and goblins, skeletons and pumpkins, and before you bring out the boxes of Christmas/Hanukah decorations, take some time to live with the empty spaces in their place. Take a good look around your home to see if the furniture in your home fits your needs, if the spaces and traffic patterns function well for the way you use your home, and if the things you have in your home speak to your heart and nourish your soul.
A wise man once said that you can chronicle the seasons of life by watching the furniture in the family room change. A young, newly married couple, with lots of love but little money, starts with a love seat. They make a little more money and want their home to reflect their sense of style, so they buy an expensive sofa and tchotchkes. They start a family and add a rocking chair – and soon after add a slip cover for the sofa and box up the tchotchkes. As the family grows, the trendy sofa, which wasn’t really comfortable anyways, is replaced by the sectional sofa. As the nest empties, they end up with “his” and “hers” recliners, which, of course, can be moved when they fold out the new sleeper sofa for the visiting grandchildren, who think the tchotchkes make great toys.
What “season of life” are you in? Does your furniture work to support you in the many roles you play to keep the household running? Do the pieces of art on your wall bring you joy, or remind you that you need to dust more often? Are you able to enjoy your most cherished treasures, or are they buried under piles of bills and clutter or stored in the back of a cabinet somewhere? Would a room function better if some of the furniture was removed? Do you have a comfortable space for celebrating holiday traditions with family and friends? Sometimes our lives and our living spaces can be too full – even if they are full of “good things.”
Now is a perfect time to try this experiment and see what happens: take everything off of the walls and horizontal surfaces in a room and box them up. Live with the space this way for at least a week. After the first week, start putting back your most cherished items, one at a time. You might find that you are content to leave half of the things in the box. If so, pass them on or donate them. You will be ready to start the rush of the holiday season with a clean slate. And maybe Santa will bring you some new tchotchkes!
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