When we first toured our New Old House (someday I’ll tell the story of how we came to buy the New Old House – it was insane) I was enchanted by this small linoleum floored space in the basement near the back door.  A mud room!  How charming!  I envisioned a padded bench with a place for shoes, could see in my mind’s eye wet umbrellas laying on the floor next to a pile of discarded rain boots.  Hooks on the wall, maybe, for raincoats and backpacks.  That room would be AMAZING, and useful and very Martha Stewart.

Here is that room at this very moment:

Glamorous, right?  This is sort of the way it goes with me (and maybe you, too).  I have a vision for a room (or a house) and I want it that way NOW.  Not later, not in a month, not two weeks.  Just now.  Not too much to ask, right?  Except it is.  Where else would we keep the endlessly growing pile of cardboard if we didn’t have this space?  See those raspberry colored carpet tiles on the left?  Those are the disassembled Flor carpet we had in the Old Old House that was supposed to fit perfectly in the basement but didn’t.  And the kitty litter box.  Where was that supposed to go?  Certainly not in the entry like it had to be at our Old Old House.

This room makes me crazy but I am simultaneously digging for gratitude.  I have a place to keep kitty litter, cardboard, paint cans and a disassembled rug.  Those things don’t have to live in my living room.  I can find gratitude for that.

I think the big lesson here, and close friends/family will not be surprised to read this, is that I have very little patience for “settling in”.  One of my closets friends had a mantra for me as we prepared to move:  It doesn’t have to be perfect right away.  I listened to her and was sure I’d be able to follow her advice (not really – I know myself better than that), but what I’m learning is that not only does it not have to be perfect right away, it simply CAN’T be.  And maybe it never will be.

Maybe the cardboard room is a place I should look at more, to embrace the mess and the real utility of that room.  Soon the cardboard will be out on the curb with the recycling, the carpet tiles will be sold or given to someone who will love them, the kitty litter replaced with a cat door.  Maybe I will make that a mud room.  Or maybe I won’t.  Maybe the best plan is to just let that be a linoleum floored room.  Plain, and simple, and there to temporarily house the things on their way out, with maybe a wet umbrella or pair of rain boots thrown in for good measure.