It's the family room, darn it!
This post is a bit off the topic I am most passionate about, but I feel the need to express my frustrations, and this is the only forum I've got. So to all (3) of my readers, I hope you are not disappointed. On the contrary - I am actually hoping for some ideas out there in Bloggersville.
Here is my dilemma:
My husband is not happy that I am blogging. It's not because he doesn't want me to blog, at least I don't think it is. He would be happier if I got a job. That's true. But the main reason is because he says I am encroaching on his territory: The Home Office, formerly known as The Family Room.
As my husband works out of our townhome, when we moved in he set up the family room as a half-family room, half-office, with our old (25 years old) sleeper sofa with my old desk behind it as a sort of 'room divider'.
This is the configuration: The sofa faces the TV, our older son's old recliner - which he couldn't take to Israel because it was too big; it would never fit in his tiny one-bedroom-with-miklat-komat-karka apartment - and bookcases along the opposite wall. Behind and against the sofa is my old desk (which I acquired from a former friend, who accepted it 'temporarily' from a former acquaintance who made Aliyah years ago; his name is Norman; the acquaintance, that is; he probably doesn't even know I have his desk; how long is 'temporarily?').
The Home Office is the behind-the-sofa-with-desk part, which includes my husband's U - shaped desk system, computer, copier-scanner-printer, fax, phone with headset, etc. Opposite his desk are the rest of the set of five seven-foot tall bookcases. Two of those are set up back-to-back in another room divider configuration, separating The Home Office from 'The Children's Reading Corner' where I have all the Hebrew and English storybooks I saved from my children's early childhood. There is a rocking chair in that little reading corner, just waiting for a little someone to sit in my lap while I read from the old books...the same rocking chair from the day before I gave birth to my 4th child, in which I sat and nursed her...(catch her blog at www.toodles25.blogspot.com. oh. already said that in an earlier post.) who is currently at Hebrew U. and will now disown me for revealing this tidbit of intimate information.
I digress. The point in all this being, that my husband is not able to work if I am blogging away in the same room, in close proximity. Hey, what would he do in a normal office? While still an undergraduate, he was already the campus correspondent for the New York Times. He cut his eye-teeth as a newspaperman in the old 'city room' type office way back in New Yawk City. And anyone knows, each journalist (they didn't call themselves that then. Too elegant.) practically sat on top of his neighbor. They didn't even have cubicles; everybody was typing away as they were conducting interviews while screaming into the phone, As they say, instead of blood he had printer's ink running in his veins. So why, oh why can't he work with ONE PERSON typing in the same room?
He says he can't concentrate. Can't concentrate? Boy, is he spoiled! What, he just can't be upset that when Blogger has a technical glitch, or I am having trouble with that #$%@&! html code and formatting that I call my tech support geek-guy (him)? Or that, in the middle of an interview (it's only with Bill Gates, and who the heck is he, anyway?) I am Skyping with my son in H-- A--- over VOIP? Why should that bother him?
And, for gosh sakes, the bottom line is, I keep telling him that it's not his office; It's The Family Room, darn it!
Ok, I vented.
Aww, maybe I should give the guy a break. I mean, I'm blogging away down here and he is in the kitchen, cooking for Shabbat...
(p.s. for all you geeks out there, his newspaper is www.telecomweb.com.)
Shabbat Shalom!
Here is my dilemma:
My husband is not happy that I am blogging. It's not because he doesn't want me to blog, at least I don't think it is. He would be happier if I got a job. That's true. But the main reason is because he says I am encroaching on his territory: The Home Office, formerly known as The Family Room.
As my husband works out of our townhome, when we moved in he set up the family room as a half-family room, half-office, with our old (25 years old) sleeper sofa with my old desk behind it as a sort of 'room divider'.
This is the configuration: The sofa faces the TV, our older son's old recliner - which he couldn't take to Israel because it was too big; it would never fit in his tiny one-bedroom-with-miklat-komat-karka apartment - and bookcases along the opposite wall. Behind and against the sofa is my old desk (which I acquired from a former friend, who accepted it 'temporarily' from a former acquaintance who made Aliyah years ago; his name is Norman; the acquaintance, that is; he probably doesn't even know I have his desk; how long is 'temporarily?').
The Home Office is the behind-the-sofa-with-desk part, which includes my husband's U - shaped desk system, computer, copier-scanner-printer, fax, phone with headset, etc. Opposite his desk are the rest of the set of five seven-foot tall bookcases. Two of those are set up back-to-back in another room divider configuration, separating The Home Office from 'The Children's Reading Corner' where I have all the Hebrew and English storybooks I saved from my children's early childhood. There is a rocking chair in that little reading corner, just waiting for a little someone to sit in my lap while I read from the old books...the same rocking chair from the day before I gave birth to my 4th child, in which I sat and nursed her...(catch her blog at www.toodles25.blogspot.com. oh. already said that in an earlier post.) who is currently at Hebrew U. and will now disown me for revealing this tidbit of intimate information.
I digress. The point in all this being, that my husband is not able to work if I am blogging away in the same room, in close proximity. Hey, what would he do in a normal office? While still an undergraduate, he was already the campus correspondent for the New York Times. He cut his eye-teeth as a newspaperman in the old 'city room' type office way back in New Yawk City. And anyone knows, each journalist (they didn't call themselves that then. Too elegant.) practically sat on top of his neighbor. They didn't even have cubicles; everybody was typing away as they were conducting interviews while screaming into the phone, As they say, instead of blood he had printer's ink running in his veins. So why, oh why can't he work with ONE PERSON typing in the same room?
He says he can't concentrate. Can't concentrate? Boy, is he spoiled! What, he just can't be upset that when Blogger has a technical glitch, or I am having trouble with that #$%@&! html code and formatting that I call my tech support geek-guy (him)? Or that, in the middle of an interview (it's only with Bill Gates, and who the heck is he, anyway?) I am Skyping with my son in H-- A--- over VOIP? Why should that bother him?
And, for gosh sakes, the bottom line is, I keep telling him that it's not his office; It's The Family Room, darn it!
Ok, I vented.
Aww, maybe I should give the guy a break. I mean, I'm blogging away down here and he is in the kitchen, cooking for Shabbat...
(p.s. for all you geeks out there, his newspaper is www.telecomweb.com.)
Shabbat Shalom!
Comments
AND he cooks for Shabbos???? WOW!
Yes, he cooks.
Cant' you just set up shop in a different room and solve the problem?
I do understand his ( and your) need for space!
Be well.
Hahah, buy him a blender. That's good! (we have one. he doesn't use it. neither do I).
Lakewood (#4):
We've been talking about moving the computer. There are logistical problems with that. Technically, the best place for it is where it is right now, downstairs in The Family Room(!)