We lived too long with rouge furniture.

It’s been weeks since I took the leap and started moving things around the house, in anticipation of setting the big girls up in the downstairs bedroom, and moving the master bedroom upstairs.  I pulled all the toys out of the bedrooms and stacked them in the hallway.  The kids’ clothes have been in disarray, shifting from one closet and set of drawers to another; trying to stay one step ahead of the move.  The piles of clean, folded laundry on the couch grew to become a fixture, because I saw no point in hauling them upstairs to a closet, only to haul them back downstairs to another closet when we completed the move.

My attempts to move the project along progressed to the point of actually moving furniture a good two weeks ago.  Our small house doesn’t accommodate much rouge furniture, so getting through the transition involved living for a time with a vanity and mirror blocking the kitchen hall, and a very large chest of drawers making its home smack dab in the middle of the living room.

I no sooner got the project to that point that my husband saw an open weekend and suggested we take a break from the moving things around to hold a garage sale – maybe it would ease the whole mess to eliminate some clutter and lighten our load.  I generally argue for Good Will donations, over garage sales, but once every ten years, I concede.  We did the work, held the sale, and remembered more clearly why we prefer to make Good Will donations.  We made a few bucks, probably broke even for our effort, and still have a backlog of stuff we need to unload.  Plus – there was still that chest of drawers in the living room.

Then we had pickups and drop offs for summer camp that occupied much of our free time for a week.  Then we needed to get the taillights on the camper to work, so we could have some hope of actually camping in the thing before winter.  Then the Olympics started.  Then the bills were due.  Then…then…then…

Now that I’ve thought more about it, I’m scared to count back and even know for sure how long we’ve been dancing around a chest of drawers in our living room.  All I know for sure is that yesterday, finally, it found a home.  Not just any home, but an insanely useful home, where it not only has quit blocking my view of the baby when I want to check on her from the kitchen, but where it now stores, with complete visual anonymity, copious amounts of family clutter.  Items that once graced every horizontal surface of our ground floor are making their way into designated drawers, offering me such a massive sense of peace and relief that I might even find it in me to put all those clothes away, and find a better home for the toys.

Yep, it was a real milestone.

Then that time will come when the Lord will give you fresh strength. He will send you Jesus, his chosen Messiah. Acts 3:20