Lately I’ve been feeling like I’m standing on Four Corners (the exact point where New Mexico, Utah, Arizona and Colorado meet).  Rather, I feel more like I’ve been standing there a while and now I’m sitting, kind of looking over my shoulder one way for something, then glancing out another direction, legs crossed, fiddling with my hands, twirling my hair in my fingers, fidgeting and trying to get comfortable.  And now that I think about it: it’s also hot.

The hot part is probably because it’s 85 degrees in southern California despite the fact that it’s almost November.  But the rest — the rest is just me.

In one corner I want to spend some time and money redecorating our spare room in our house — we use it as a closet, a guest bedroom, an office, and for craft/gift storage.  But it’s really not functioning well for any of those things. After living there for a year and a half, I think we ought to start using the space in ways that better suit how we actually live.  Take the desk, for example. It’s a large solid oak desk that Mumbles has had since he was younger – it’s a great desk but we can’t even use the hutch (which is in the garage) because it’s too big.  Not to mention, neither one of us has ever actually sat down at the desk to do any work.  Not once!  And I don’t craft in there either because I’m usually up to those shenanigans on the floor in the living room or kitchen while we watch tv and hang out.  And that is further complicated by my storage — half of my crafting supplies are on a bookcase in the second bedroom and the other stuff is tucked away neatly into a large trunk which serves as our coffee table in the living room.  So the desk mainly accumulates trinkets, change and trash when Mumbles empties his pockets at the end of the day, along with discarded clothes draped over it, and stacks of papers that need to be filed.  It probably should have the printer sitting on it, but that’s still on the floor not plugged in because like I said: we don’t actually use the desk to do work.

our futon/bed/couch in the spare bedroom

That was just the desk!  Most of the room is consumed by a futon couch bed we got for Dr. T’s days of staying with us during her rotations last year and before her wedding.  Now it goes unused except for the very rare overnight visitor. Other than that, we never sit on it. But it is cute.  And lastly, Mumbles uses the closet in this room for his clothes and shoes and our luggage which he must because I take up all the room in our master closet (I do agree that, yes, I could clean it out and organize it way more efficiently, but that would probably add to the crux of this whole post which is: spend the time and money to do it or wait it out?) Because in the other corner of this dilemma, we thought we’d be looking for a bigger home soon so maybe I should be concentrating on saving my energy and earnings for that.

The other big ticket weighing on my mind is a car.  I love my SUV but if we want to get some money for it, now’s the time to sell her while she still looks fabulous and shiny. And she is. I love her but I also love the idea of a smaller car (although I’ve only ever driven an SUV so it somewhat frightens/makes me uncomfortable to be driving so low to the ground.  Then again, the concept of better gas mileage has me pretty smitten (isn’t everyone?).  The resistance here lies in that I thought I’d have this SUV for another two years or so and since she’s got all the fancy trimmings and has been paid off for a while, I’m having a hard time imagining a car payment again. Every month. Ugh.

Another item that’s gonna take a pretty penny: a new computer.  I bought an HP laptop in college as a desktop replacement, and at 17 glorious inches with a full keyboard, it absolutely is.  But the problem is that I hate it.  Maybe I’ve grown too used to my iPad and I just need to buy a wireless keyboard and mouse with it for longer typing projects.  Or do that and also buy a Mac desktop? Or, suck it up and just buy a MacBook Pro.  I’ve been thinking of that last option but then I think about my bank account balance dropping by two thousand dollars and it’s a little harder to agree to it.  I do note the exasperating logic “I can buy 4 of these HP laptops for the price of one Apple!” is what got me into this mess in the first place so that’s not helping.

I’m a bit stuck in this in-between feeling of want and want not.
Have you ever been there?  Is it hot?