Weekend Coffee Share: Making Room

On By Terri Webster SchrandtIn blogging

Fall-weekend-coffee-share

If we were having coffee today, I would ask you this while I pour your favorite beverage: How is it only two months until Christmas?

If we were having coffee, I would chat with you about making room—whether it is to make more room in a daily schedule or literally, creating a larger living space.

Making Room for Blogging
Ten months ago on December 26th, I retired from my day job of 32 years. I had to temporarily leave my part-time university lecturer job because of the rules of how my pension works. I was really quite the lady of leisure for eight months. If we were having coffee, I would remind you, that during this time I pushed hard with my new blog, committing to posting every day, which I did for through the end of May.

But then I had to make room in my schedule. Summer began full-on, with my hubby’s busy work schedule, as well as windsurfing season vying for my time.  At that point I stopped posting on Tuesdays and Saturdays to make room for all these leisure activities. Yeah, I know, “tough life,” you might say.

When June began, I started my link party, The Leisure Link, and enjoyed hosting two months’ worth of link-ups. Once August came, I found myself traveling nearly the entire month to a variety of locations. Then I started back to teaching at the end of August. Believe me, if we were having coffee, I would tell you how exciting it was to travel, then get back to teaching.

I had to give the Leisure Link a hiatus, then drop down to posting four days a week. Once I got my bearings teaching and managing over 100 college students, I restarted the link-up only to sadly decide to stop it indefinitely. It was just too difficult to make room in my schedule for the care and feeding of managing a link party. The Leisure Link is still live through Halloween night if you still would like to give it a go one last time! All posts will be featured on an upcoming Leisure Link round-up post.

I felt like such a failure for stopping the link, because I REALLY loved the idea of promoting the values of leisure with my blog and encouraging other bloggers to post and share their leisure experiences. Upon reading this information in a post last week, I was heartened by several bloggers who wrote encouraging words about my decision.

I am happy to continue my blog and my Leisurely Thursdays series. My days as a leisure educator via blogging are far from over!

If we were having coffee today, my advice to you would be this: Knowing that blogging is a form of leisure (you have chosen to write a blog, you are not under obligation to do so, and it brings you joy), ENJOY it and post what and when YOU want. Make room for this important pastime in your schedule and life and keep it FUN, especially if it provides satisfaction for you.

Making More Room
If we were having coffee, I would tell you with glee that our room addition is 99.8 percent complete. As we wait for the shower doors and the final tile seal, we spent this weekend moving back in to our master bedroom, now 280 square feet larger.

The construction started on August 3rd and took three months. Very fast work! I shared about the progress in this post Living in Dust. Having construction guys tromping in and around the house 5 days a week can be a distraction. Almost daily, I would talk to the contractor about something, and unexpectedly, I needed to make room for these discussions. Of course I had to make more room to show hubby the daily changes when he arrived home from work. No wonder I couldn’t get anything done!

Here are a few photos of some before and after shots. I plan to write a post soon about “Coping with a Room Addition,” so stay tuned for that.

View of entryway into new addition.
Entry way morphed into a new hallway looking into addition. Bathroom and walk-in closet on the right.
Completed bedroom waiting for furniture.
Corner view with my almost completed desk (note work tools on far right)

I hope you enjoyed the coffee. Make room in your life for the things that really matter, whether it is blogging, leisure time, family time, or any other pastime for which you are passionate.

Join Part-Time Monster’s blog Weekend Coffee Share any time!

33 thoughts on “Weekend Coffee Share: Making Room”

  1. sizzlesue15

    It is sometimes so hard Terri to fit everything into our lives. Since losing my brother I am definitely looking at my priorities even more than usual. Thank you for sharing your coffee time with us and glad you started Leisure Link again. Thanks for sharing with us at #AnythingGoes.

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  4. I love the blue color of the room! I am finding it a constant struggle to keep up with blogging now that I have returned to full time work 8-5. I miss the leisurely reading of my friend’s blogs and I struggle to find time to write my own or comment- instead sometimes just liking. It is a balancing act of getting up early enough or staying up too late! Timely post for me and I look forward to more pics of the renovation!

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  5. leannelc

    I totally agree about blogging being fun and not a chore – I post a fair amount because I’m home a fair amount and still reasonably new to it all – I can see that decreasing when other commitments take precedence! I love your room extension and I look forward to the post you do on the finished result.

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  7. Terri! I’m falling into bed after a weekend of packing but I wanted to write before the weekend was over! Congrats on your new room:) And thank you for reminding us how blogging is a leisure activity indeed!
    Much love and sweet dreams!
    Lia

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  8. I love the idea of “making room”. Every now and then I go through and purge all the things in my life that are nothing more than clutter. This includes activities that I find I’ve been doing more out of habit than desire! It’s a great way simplify and make room! Good luck with your new spaces.

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  9. Sorry to hear about the link-up falling through, but I think that ultimately you’re making the decision you need to make, and that’s what counts. Blogging is a relatively forgiving hobby, for the most part, allowing us to experiment with all sorts of projects and writing and then shift focus if we need to.

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  10. Hi Terri, I am sure you will enjoy the new space- it looks like you have a nice office! I am seeing a lot of articles that say life balance is a myth, but I remain determined to try. I think we have spent enough years rushing around maniacally trying to get everything done. Now we have more choice in what we do. It is easy to fall into the old mindset. I am trying to keep my blog my labor of love, not my crazy new job- it could become an overwhelming task. I keep telling myself it’s not a race….

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    1. I like that…it is NOT a race. Yet why do we fly down the road every day chasing…? I am sitting in my new office now…a little slice of heaven. I think certain personality types just go for it all the time. As educators, I think our minds just head that way looking for teachable moments!

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  11. Good advice, Terri. I enjoy blogging, but if I was to post on my main blog too often I’d burn out for sure. Congratulations on your addition to your “Home Sweet Home”. I remember how exciting it was when we needed to add onto our previous home.
    Blessings ~ Wendy

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  12. Tell you what, Terri. I’m retired (33 years as a middle school educator), but making room in my week for all the things I want to do is a full time occupation! The care and feeding of my trail walking photoblog (Seen Along the Trail) requires spending hours on the trail, followed by hours on the computer processing and posting pictures, and then more time visiting my blogfriends at their sites. If we were having coffee, I would be asking you how you manage to make room when you actually have a real job plus all your leisure time activities. 😉

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    1. Hahaha, I know you are busy because I see that you post quite often with amazing photos. Maybe this genre of “leisure” blogging is a lot of work, fun work at least! It must be in our blood to share all these experiences 🙂

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  14. Timely bit of writing. I am approaching my first year anniversary with my blog and asked myself Richard’s comment yesterday!

    I’m currently trying to figure out what direction to take my blog, how many times a week to post, how to wrap it into my other activities….Thank you for reminding me to factor in the fun!

    Oh your space turned out just lovely! Well done.

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  17. Excellent post, Terri! I completely agree with you about blogging; the last thing we want to do is turn a pleasurable activity into a slog. I think since we come from a work-world, we are used to deadlines and must-do commitments and we tend to put those same pressures on ourselves even though they are entirely self-induced.

    Your addition looks great! Three months… I’m impressed!

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