A Fine Arrangement

Hello my name is Alisha and I am addicted to rearranging furniture.

I am an addict. Its true, and I am really not ashamed of it, but there it is: I'm an addict, I love moving furniture around trying new things and then sometimes moving them right back again.

I do come by this naturally, and I blame my mother primarily, however there are others who share in the blame as well. To make matters worse I'm passing this (some say sickness, yes Paul I am talking to you) down to my daughter who shows signs of greatness at an early age, rearranging her room before she was two.

My mother loves furniture and decorating, it's one of the things that just makes her tick and she's good at it; the first thing she sees in a room is placement of furniture and all the other ways it could be arranged. Some people look for emergency exits my mother looks at the arrangement of the room. She could get trapped during an earthquake, but would give at least three alternate room designs while waiting to be rescued. It's not the quality or style of the furniture that she is looking for because she sees the potential for everything and has a great imagination, but the arrangement of the room is what counts. It's no wonder I grew up thinking like that as well: rooms were made to change.

It always started with a simple request and we would be off and decorating. Mom would say: "Honey could you help me move this sofa? Oh and we will need your brother too, we need to get this done before Daddy gets home." I remember after helping her drag chairs and straighten rugs, add lamps and fluff pillows I would go to my own room and start moving things around, and now my daughter is in on the act as well.

When Anya was two and a half and I was as big as a cruise ship and due at any minute to have our second baby I attempted to move the living room furniture around. It seemed like an good plan at the time, and there was no way I was waiting for Paul to come home to talk him into his least favorite activity.
All I remember is crying because the sofa wouldn't budge and calling out, "Anya help mommy, I can't move the couch." and then after trying in vain to move the thing we gave up on the room to watch Winnie the pooh curled up on a crooked sofa in the middle of the room. But that was all it took and she was hooked, Anya felt like she was part of the team. When rearranging the furniture several years later she came up with her own floor plan carefully drawn out for me to follow, (Something I never, do but her Grandma Teri has been known to hanker after graph paper.) and proceeded to direct her father in moving things around.

She is a natural, just like her grandmother.

As for her sisters they show potential, just the other day Lila said "Mommy its time to move, I'm bored with this house." And so it begins.