Lost a daughter, gained a guest room!

We moved our 20 year old college daughter OUT of our house again this weekend. Whwew! that kid has a lot of junk! Anyway, I spent yesterday helping her arrange her new apartment (subsidized by us" and today re-arranging the guest/sewing room. YES! Half-Empty nests are GOOD!

Wanda-- Congratulations! and 'my sympathies'!, too. We will be doing the same next week. Our 'Daughter Dear #1' is moving to San Francisco and taking a job there. We're thrilled but sad. One good thing for us,--we will gain a guest room... t.

Congratulations! It's nice to gain more space for our stuff, isn't it?

I have done that too. When we moved into this house, we had a son and a daughter still at home. When our daughter moved out for the first time, I converted her room into a sewing/craft room, but left the bed so it could still be used as a guest room.

However, every 8 months or so, she decides to move back home, so it keeps being flip/flopped between her room/my room. LOL

When mine turned 18 I MOVED....LOL It really wasn't planned that way but did work out that way...works for me!! LOL Jo

Mine always seem to come back home with the "Mom, its TOUGH out there" line...ummmm, what was your first clue? I figure when the 14 yo turns 18, I'M moving out and NOT leaving a forwarding address, lol

Jen that would work until you let them move in and bring the grandlkids.
My youngest son and his wife moved in with us when the granson that is 14 now was 3 months old and moved when he was about 7 months old. They just moved across town and I could go see him every day but this big old tall grown man cried like a baby. It was just like he had spoiled me to taking him outside at night and watching the stars,and cars lights and lightnen bugs and well you get the picture. One of the worst days of my life. I got to go get a tissue now just thinking about it. Don't ever let the new grandbaby take roots in your heart or you're sunk. I think you are sunk already.LOL

uh huh

Yes, my mother (a mother of nine) said her most 'challenging' mothering was when her children were from 21 to 28 years old...I'm beginning to understand what she was talking about! Lives can get extremely complicated and obstacles get serious about that age! Not to mention trying to just make a living!

Talking about moving--after thirty years in California my husband and I decided last year to move here for a 'change' and new challenges...never expecting our 20 somethings to want to come along. Guess what! Here there are!

Of course, my DH loves having them, and so do I--they do keep things lively. And they helped me put down the truck load of mushroom compost and plant the zillion daff bulbs at our new house. Couldn't have done it with out them--and my daughter is concerned that she is leaving before the daffodils will come up! Yes, I guess a garden can help make a house a home...

If she won't come back to see me, maybe she'll want to see the King Alfreds!

Happy gardening. t

.

She lives, works and goes to college right here in town. She moved out on her 18 th Birthday because of our 12:30 curfews on weekends and other restrictions that she felt were unfair. She managed to graduate with a 3.8 from hgih school despite all the bouncing from apartment to apartment. When she entered college, we subsidized her rent at the college apartments. When she moved out of there, we let her pay her own. She moved back into our house last November.

As my DH said to her last week "Lizzie, we love you, but you're hard to live with". Everyone knows that--why do you think she's moved 7 times in 2 years?
Anyway, we are subsidizing most of this single apartment as she goes to college. If she quits--it's all hers!

Guest room? Hmmm, I have not been to Iowa for many years. :)

Hey Tabasco, when will your room be ready? I might need to hide from the girls one of these days. LOL

I figure I'll have lots of guest rooms in 8-18 years. Who wants to be on the waiting list? I'm already running a bed and breakfast and lunch and dinner and laundry and maid service apparently. :O)

Of course, Badseed, you ARE most welcome to come over anytime...(You can hide out in my office with me--while I fiddle on DG--avoiding all the 'advice' the kids like to give me--and look thru my seed catalogs!) You don't have to wait for the guest room...we have other space for you! Wanda and everybody when you're in the area you are welcome to stop too!

Badseed--If you want to bring the girls, we still have the Disney movies and the Olsen twins movies and a big screen! That really takes me back! I won't say anything more about those days of innocence--Wanda--do you know what I mean?!

Badseed your idea of a bed and breakfast is interesting--we do have the skills for it, but I'm not sure I have the passion to do more laundry! Maybe open a Garden Center...We could put all the children to work lifting bags of compost--that would get them out looking for jobs pretty quickly, I think, and put all this good DG knowledge to work for us...just some ideas...

take care. t.

Built the house 10 years ago and had 5 kids in 3 bedrooms 2g, 2g and 1 boy .

The oldest came back once with a partner that turned out to be bad for all involved but it's the story to back up my general claim that they will all go forth and plow their own fields.

DW let the 2nd oldest leave while still in highschool when I came home unexpectedly and found her and the son (3rd oldest) home watching TV. "They missed the bus" Well wahhh, the weather was nice and the school is only a mile away. What - 15 minute walk? So harrangued them both for a bit then got on the phone called the DD's work and told them she would not be working any longer since my stipulation was that school would absolutely not suffer. That's when she left and the DW sided with her. She lived with friends and when I found she was living out of her car at one point I invited her back home but with a list of rules. She didn't come back. She graduated HS, took a few hours of college but has been fast tracked in management through progressively larger corps and is now manager of an Old Navy... and we are all very tight!!

Guest room cometh...
The DS graduated but had no direction other than online games. A computer whiz that never asked for anything and was never a problem. Did community college for a year and out of the blue joined the Air Force 8-03. I overhauled his room and it's strictly for guests from out of town, otherwise it's mine. I can keep it clean and cozy, moved my 55gal aquarium down there, have plants and seeds on an extended ledge around the wall under the windows, got cable and big speakers... whoo hoo!!

Now I've got 2 girls left. The oldest grad HS this year and is taking a scholarship to De Paul but she says I can't kick her out. "She's going to live here till she's 26" What's scary is she has accomplished everything she ever said. Meanwhile I got my eyes on her room which is next to ours - I'm thinking of a double wide doorway connecting the rooms and hers have a couple of leather recliners, entertainment, plant racks in front of those south facing windows....

1.5 kids left...

This message was edited Jan 31, 2005 11:08 AM