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10.21.2010

the view from down here

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I have a confession.  It's this situation I am in, a collision of time and place, and I find myself frequently viewing the world from a perspective not seen since I was six years old.

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Hi, my name is Charity and I spend a good part of my day sitting on the kitchen floor.

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See, when we rented this little house, we were totally enamored with the lovely yard, quiet street, and entire provincial park worthy lake out the front door.  What we failed to notice, is that the only table in the whole place was in the sun room.  Sun room sounds lovely?  Yes, well, unheated sun room.  It is October in Alberta.  Not so much a place where I want to eat breakfast.

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The kitchen is not large enough for two adults, never mind a table.  We plan to put one in the living room, but the hard wood floors and our desire not to scratch the heck out of them have prevented us from bringing in the sun room table.  Oh, that and the fact that we are giant slackers when it comes to buying stuff.  We don't like to buy things.  Have you met my better half?  Between my craftiness and his aversion to new stuff, we hardly have a thing that does what it was originally intended for.

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Which is okay.  Life is a series of trade offs.  We choose what is most important to us and we live it.  It feels good ethically, and sometimes we even get the aesthetics right (though not always), and I think we are passing along a sense of self sufficiency and guardianship of the planet to our children.

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But, on the other hand, it makes some interesting challenges for us, given that there is usually a block of time between the moment a need has been identified and when it is satisfactorily addressed.  It can be, oh dear, inconvenient.  It has brought us to this point of where I dish my kids up their morning oatmeal and have to wonder where hell are we are going to sit?!

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No table.  Yet.

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Thus, my new view on life.  From the floor.  We just drop where you are, is where we find ourselves conducting more and more of our lives as the weather steadily cools off.  The early evenings, supper time, is still warm enough for us to enough the sun room and all of its dining glory, but breakfast, morning crafts, lunch and snacks, all on the floor.

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I am enjoying this unique perspective, seeing what the smaller members of this household see all the time.  I find myself paying attention to things I usually ignore.

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Plus, the children do not mind.  They think they've been having picnics for three weeks now.  Which has led them to believe somehow that cooler temperatures is a temporary aberration from our regularly scheduled summer and that we will be returning to our warm, sunny days any moment now.

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Why else would they want to make sandals and skirts?  I think I've been caught up a bit in this delusion too, since I keep neglecting winter prep (raking leaves, digging out the toques and scarves, completely blanking out the purchase of snow boots for Smootch) in favor of summer-ish things.  Like planning on making sundresses and taking up outdoor activities that only work well on dry concrete.

If I refuse to think about it, can I stop the inevitable march towards the time where the earth is frozen and just getting finding my dirty white car in a dirty white parking lot is an Olympic level sport?  When my toes disappear for six whole months?

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The time to stop and think things over.

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Very soon I will have to start accepting that the phrase 'wind chill' does indeed exist and means something to me.  Very soon I will have to wrestle that girl into some leggings, convince the boy that he really does want to wear a toque, and cozy up to the idea of ice skating and hot cocoa.  Just like, very soon, I will have to accept the fact that sitting on the floor for breakfast has had a certain novelty but it is getting about the time when having a place to set my cocoa while I sew a little is pretty good idea too.

Soon, but not today.  Today is about the sun and a warm breeze, even more delicious knowing how precious it is in the face of the coming, terribly inconvenient, winter, and squeezing out a little more character building from the useful and under appreciated art form we call Making Do. 

This is me, on the floor, looking up.

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11 comments:

  1. We lived in a tiny apartment for a while and the only table was piled high with craft projects. We had picnic lunches every day on a quilt on the living room floor(didn't want to stain the carpet) and dinner around a tiny plastic kiddie table. I still miss the picnics.
    Great post, it made me smile, and those shoes are great too!

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  2. I l-o-v-e them! They are gorgeous! Have to make few pairs for me.No, for the whole family!

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  3. how funny are these!! So I tried your peasant top tutorial and I LOVE IT! I posted about it on my blog! Thanks so much for sharing!They look way more scary then they actually are!

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  4. One of many reasons why I read your blog is because I am in Arizona. We had a storm front move in a couple of days ago, and I have finally flung the doors and windows open, and constantly shoo the kids outside to play. While you try to ignore the impending wind chill, I am ignoring the fact that the weatherman says we are due for a warm up next week, and may get back up into the 90's. Now the 90's are a sight better than the 110+ degrees that we live with through July and August, but you definitely can't leave the door and windows open, and I do love the fresh air!

    Thanks for the perspective and encouragement!

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  5. diggin the 'indietutes' in the white glue....awesome! :o)

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  6. Go get your table! While you're at it, grab a few tennis balls and cut a hole (the plus sign) and place on the bottom of the table and chairs. no more scratches and family time at a reasonable level. happy kids=happy parents It's a win-win.

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  7. What Kellie said! Or just glue bits of felt on all the legs.

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  8. Fun post! My little girl wants to make a pair of the beautiful shoes today, and we will. :) I'm loving your message in the glue!

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  9. I don't know if you've moved your table yet, but wanted to share an idea with you. What about shoes for your table so you don't scratch the floor? I was thinking you could cut out some cardboard, perhaps even glueing two or more layers together. For extra strenthgh line with duct tape or shipping tape.

    Put that under the leg, then under that, place a circular piece of felt (or something else that should glide nicely) and cinch is up around the base of the leg. Voila, table booties!

    With your creative abilities, you'll probably take this very basic idea and turn it into something that all readers would want to do to their own tables - whether they need it or not! ;)

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  10. i love this project. we will do this week¡¡
    thanks¡

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