Interesting, and thanks, Andrea. You've had such great descriptions of this place, it helps to have some context as to the settings and what the change is about.

I'm also realizing that once my son goes to school it's me in a 4 bedroom house with two living rooms (one of those bedrooms is my office, but if I moved my office into the front living area I'd have a full four bedrooms, large living room, and library/office room). But it's the yard that brought me here, and the location in general, so I'm not too worried about it, because the yard is still doing what I want. At 2,500 square feet, it is still in the realm of what a lot of the design programs call a "small" house. It is certainly smaller than the houses I grew up in, but more than twice the size of the house my father lived in for many years after my parents divorced. (It was a small house on a prime location, though, overlooking Puget Sound and 2 mountain ranges.)

A small step was completed when the coffee table in the living room was cleared of the tapes, books, papers, and such, but the seating area still doesn't look the way I'd like. I probably need to break it up from a couch and a couple of chairs to more separation between the couch and the chairs, with the possibility of pulling them together if needed.

My hands have broken out again, dry, cracked and sore. Makes it difficult to work on the computer if I have lotion on my hands, etc. I need to start a food diary and see if there is something in particular that I'm responding to.

I've clamped a small fan onto my computer desk to blow down across the back of my computer, to supplement the computer fans. The computer had been working hard at times, I think because I don't keep the room as cool as the computer would like. This little fan is very quiet, and the computer seemes much happier this morning.

SRS