Getting ready for school

Our apartment is not that big, and it’s prone to getting messy. Jessica and I have this attitude toward cleaning that it’s more important to spend time with family than to spend cleaning up, resulting in an apartment that looks like it was the victim of a cyclone — sometimes, a cyclone consisting entirely of…

Our apartment is not that big, and it’s prone to getting messy. Jessica and I have this attitude toward cleaning that it’s more important to spend time with family than to spend cleaning up, resulting in an apartment that looks like it was the victim of a cyclone — sometimes, a cyclone consisting entirely of medical supplies.

When we brought home the giant tub of stuff from Medford, though, it was school supplies instead of medical. But that’s okay too — Namine seemed just as excited as we are to start school. She misses being in school, and she loves to learn. What she didn’t love was being made fun of and hit, thus the change to homeschooling. But the nice thing about RVA is that it’s a public school, putting tax dollars to work providing an education. But first things first: we had to set up an area for Namine to work.

Our apartment doesn’t even have the space for me to have a den, or office, or whatever, for when I work from home. When I do, I usually set up in my bedroom, where I can barricade myself in from screaming girls. (No, I’m not talking about my wife. Namine does have playdates, you know.) But when it’s just me and Namine, she’ll sit next to my feet on the floor and draw or read. She knows when I’m working from home, and most of the time she’s good about letting me work. But I digress. Jessica and I had decided before that the best place to set up a school work area was the dining room table. We’d already set up some stuff, but we ended up pretty much gutting it in favor of the school-supplied supplies.

Sorting everything out. There's a lot here.
Sorting everything out. There’s a lot here.

We had originally stacked the two large drawer units, but with so much stuff, we decided on putting the them side by side. (That way, they couldn’t be knocked over by a rambunctious child or two.) The lower unit had legs, but once we put them side by side, I had to remove them so that both units were the same height. The height difference didn’t bother Jessica, but it bugged me to no end. She just shook her head as I removed them, muttering something about me being crazy. But I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy. Their heights had to match. They had to match.

You can’t really tell in the pictures, but the wall against which everything is placed is not straight. There’s a slight angle, so the drawer units couldn’t sit exactly side by side. I positioned them carefully, though, so that when you looked at them, it looked like they were connected. I then draped the non-stick cover that Jessica had over the drawer units, carefully creasing it so that it covered the same area and followed the wall’s angle. It had to be this way, don’t you see?

Pretty much done, as long as you don't need to use the floor to get there.
Pretty much done, as long as you don’t need to use the floor to get there.

The last bit to be done was just cleaning up, and that had to wait until after Namine was in bed. There just simply wasn’t time enough. But now that it’s done, it looks that much nicer.

The finished dining room slash classroom.
The finished dining room slash classroom.

3 responses

  1. Jen, Jeremy & Jacob Schultz Avatar
    Jen, Jeremy & Jacob Schultz

    Oh, there is no WAY that you could have left those legs on and had the two units be different heights!!! I wouldn’t have been able to hear about Namine’s school experiences w/out thinking about it. You helped more than just yourself by removing them.

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