DOWNSIZING

This is a season of change.

After decades of living in a house bursting at the seams with people, noise, and activity, I find myself adjusting to life in a household of two. I miss my children!

On the UP side:

The bathrooms are much easier to clean now. A bathroom used by one girl - as opposed to a bathroom used by a couple of girls, plus four boys - really doesn't get very grungy over the course of a week.

Laundry takes a fraction of the time to do that it once did. Used to, I ran at least one load of darks, a load of lights, and a load of towels or sheets every single day. Now, on some days, I don't do any laundry at all. Weird.

Leftovers last...forever. This is a good thing if I don't want to cook, a bad thing if Helen and I really don't want to eat potato-ham casserole three nights in a row! The soup bucket in the freezer - where I dump all the leftover bits and pieces from dinner - fills up much more quickly now. Good thing we like soup!

I have time to read. It's been ages since I've had time at the end of the day to curl up on the couch with a good book and read simply for pleasure. Nowadays, I can finish a book in a couple of weeks. I don't usually fall asleep while I'm reading, either. Nice.

I can begin a project - say, cleaning out my closet - and keep working on said project until I'm finished. Without interruption. (Unless I throw out my back in the middle of said project.) How cool is that?!

If I put an item somewhere - say, I put the stapler in the closet under the stairs - it stays there, and is waiting for me exactly where I left it, the next time I need it.

On the DOWN side:

The quiet in the house is distracting. I am used to working with a hum of activity and conversation in the background. When all the kids were home, QUIET meant trouble. Now, all this quiet gives me the uneasy feeling that I am overlooking something that needs my attention before it escalates into an emergency. Too much noise makes it difficult to concentrate - so does too much quiet.

I have to handle technology problems all by myself. Blrrrrgh. I am a techno-dinosaur. Now that the young 'uns are no longer available to solve my technological problems, I am having to work my way forward from the Paleolithic age. (Can I brag? I installed a camera on my laptop for video-conferencing, all by myself, and IT ACTUALLY WORKS!)

When I begin a project - say, cleaning out my closet - I miss the help of young arms and strong backs. And how on earth am I supposed to get things out of the attic now?

When I lose something - say, the stapler, that I thought I put in the closet under the stairs - I have no one to blame for its not being where it's supposed to be, and no one to help me find it, either.

Sure, the bathrooms are easier to clean...but when I use the toilet in the downstairs bathroom and discover there's no toilet paper, there's no one to send upstairs for another roll. :(

I miss family read-a-louds. I miss the kitchen weave of six people dancing around one another, all wanting to have a hand in whatever cooking project is happening at the moment. I miss the coloring parties around the kitchen table. (Can somebody please make me a monkey poster?!)

This new season of life - this downsizing - is going to take some getting used to.