Pushing Purple

We got married in 1999, and we are getting ready to move into our 10th home, not including the four other homes we lived in for three to four week stints. From the age of six months, when I came to the US from Korea, until I left for college when I was 18, I lived in two homes and those homes were ten minutes and one traffic light apart. I had continuity. I had that childhood home, the nooks and crannies and scents of which I still remember. I never wanted to move.

As we move into our third home in Cebu, I am over moving. Really over it. There are some positive things about moving often. We don’t accumulate much stuff, and the fact that we move often (and frequently overseas) means that we don’t ever want to accumulate too much stuff because that would give us more stuff to move. So when we do our best to turn the boys off from having a consumerist mentality, they understand because they don’t want to have to move all of our stuff either. When we tell them we want them to be experience and relationally rich, it makes sense, unless we’re talking to Joshua and he wants soccer stuff.

But there are some downsides to moving often, too. Just when I feel like I’ve made a house feel like a home, we end up moving. With the last three houses I haven’t even attempted to spend money on decorations or attractive furnishings. Of course, the fact that I’m a frugal minimalist probably doesn’t help.

Yet, strangely enough, I now want to splurge . . . on a purple couch. I don’t have any affinity toward purple, but I like the idea of having a purple couch. Dave doesn’t like purple, and I don’t spend much time sitting on the couch. Still, I want one. I want to come home and see my purple couch. When we leave Cebu, I want to donate my purple couch to someone who will appreciate it. First, I have to find a way to get one.

There are three likely ways this will happen:
1) Let the other members of my family get cable as a bartering chip.
2) Just have the couch made and delivered without telling anyone in my family.
3) I could whine about working hard all day and just asking for this one special request to be granted.

I’ll probably avoid the last technique, especially since as the only female in my house I get my way far too often. And I really don’t want cable. It’s not that expensive here, but it’s another bill we’ll have to line up the mall to pay. Okay, Dave will have to line up to pay it because paying bills at the mall causes me stress.

We’ll see how it goes. You can come visit us to find out whether or not we own a purple couch.