I hate discussing my former marriage (either on this blog or in real life) but . . it happened and was a part of my life for 15 years and sometimes it just has to be mentioned.
I began sewing non-stop while still in high school so my sewing room/area has always been important to me. The ex and I had been dating for a while and we were talking about getting married and building a house. Like any optimistic bride to be, I rushed out and bought about 20 books of house plans. I had turned down some pages, made some notations and was sure I had the perfect house plan narrowed down.
Then . . the unthinkable happened! We broke up. My sister was married, with children and they were thinking about building a house so I said here, take these house plan books. I’ll never use them. I’m sure I’ll be a very old woman, without a husband, without children and without a home of my own. Just take the books . . get them out of my sight!
She took them, she looked through them and she kept them. After a while, the ex called. I was so sure he was calling to tell me how much he missed me, he couldn’t live his life without me and we’d run off at daybreak, get married, build a house and live happily ever after. Nope, not what he was calling about. He wanted to pick up those house plan books because he was going to go ahead and build a house. Knowing what I now know, I should’ve jumped for joy but I’m sure I retreated to my room and cried myself a river of tears.
I told him my sister had the books and he could get them from her . . which he did.
Not too many weeks before the house was finished, we did end up getting back together and he took me out to see his new home. It was nice . . but not very nice! He was so proud of himself because he had chosen a plan that I had picked out. Are you sure? Yes, look, it’s right here . . even has notes for some changes I had wanted and he made those changes. Wait . . that’s my sister’s handwriting! You built the house my sister liked! How could he have known? Our writing was similar and he wasn’t at fault for thinking it was my writing.
Well, you would think that little mess up still bothers me! It doesn’t . . I think it’s kinda funny.
We ended up getting married, and lived there for 5 years I think. But, the house was about 1,700 square feet. Not nearly big enough for 2 adults and a dachshund . . if one of those adults needs a sewing room with a place for storing lots of fabric!
The real problem is that I’m a horrible housekeeper and I kept telling him that I needed more room. If I just had more square feet, the house would be neater. He was kind of a neat freak and that’s one thing I’ve never been accused of being. So, far 5 years, my excuse was that I didn’t have enough room. The next house we built was about 2,800 square feet and it was perfect . . for a short time! Then the sewing room wasn’t big enough, the clutter was everywhere. Still 2 adults, one dachshund and now we have Chad. I explained to him that if I had more room, things would be ok. I was sure that with just a bit more room, I could keep the house neater. The next house was just a bit over 4,000 square feet and you’re getting the picture by now — it was still a mess and he no longer subscribed to my “need more room” theory.
There is a point to this story. For years I used a regular ironing board with my sewing. Several years ago, I made myself a big board of sorts. It was so nice to have all that extra room. Last night I was trying to iron binding . . you know — it’s cut 2-1/2″ and I press it in half so all I really needed was about 2″ of space on the big board. It wasn’t there!
There’s the current UFO I’m working on, there’s pieces and the pattern left over from Santa on Speed. There’s some knitting yarn there. Don’t ask me why *everything* is on the ironing table — maybe because if there’s a horizontal surface in my house, it is going to be covered!
As I was trying to press that binding, I said to myself, I need a bigger ironing table, and then I remembered that it doesn’t matter how big my table is, it doesn’t matter how big my room is, it doesn’t matter how big my house is — it’s always going to be cluttered.
