In some ways you and I have had similar problems. I am not religious. Perhaps you are putting too much reliance on your religious leanings to show you how to solve your problems ? Just a thought. Anyway..my home life has improved a lot, because we moved out of the destructive home life we were heading for. We bought a vastly smaller house, in the city, with a tiny couryard. In doing the move, we have reduced our financial outgoings, there is less housework, gardening etc. The are cafes, art galleries, parks, people, communities, just out the door. We walk everywhere. We do things together we enjoy ! I guess I am saying - sometimes if you change your circumstances things can be so different, and new challenges present themselve. In doing that, your focus on the difficulties that you are experiencing now, fade into the background. Or you can see things from a different perspective. I realized that my DH was never going to be a person who "did things around the house" and I became resentful, that I was doing it all. Perhaps some lateral thinking on your part might help you. You don't want to plod on in your life and become bitter and resentful. Sure you can see better ways for your DH to relate to your children, but don't become a "policeman" who picks faults in his fathering. I could see glaring faults in the way my DH related to our children, over the years, but I guess they have grown up now, and we often sit and talk about what went wrong when they were younger. He knows he did things wrongly and has made ammends. Perhaps your DH might relfect on that one day. Tracystoke says your problem is not a serious one. Perhaps a better way to look at it - is that the problem is "fixable", it has the potential to be "fixed". I will stop rambling now. Good luck with it all.

1. Pay off the improvements that we have had to make on the new house despite having a mortgage and heloc on the old house (furnace, exterior doors, insulation) 2. Make that savings account we are all supposed to have with 6 months of expenses (thanks terriks). 3. Get new windows to replace the leaky aluminum framed ones. 4. Hardwoods or cork floors in halls and kitchen/dining and den, tile with an electric heat pad in foyer, tile in half bath and laundry room. 5. New cabinets and an island in the kitchen with 38 inch counter height and a single bowl sink with a decent garbage disposal and nice laminate counter tops. The cabs may be locally made custom, but I can save $$$ by getting laminate counter tops. 6. Hardwood on bedroom floor or tear out the 1978 main bath and redo with new tile and tub and decently high cabs with drawers for storage. 7. Whatever we did not do in #6. 8. OMG! We still have that hideous wall-o-brown-brick 1978 fireplace in the den! DO SOMETHING - cover with wood, tear 3/4 of it down and make the smaller fireplace nice by covering with stone, do something to lessen the dark cave effect. Put in an efficient gas insert or a pellet insert if gas prices have skyrocketed. 8. By now it is time to re-roof!

Thanks guys! You've reassured me that at least I have a backup plan that will work. (magnaverde - that picture cracks me up, LOL!) But I think I will try to post a floor plan w/ measurements and some pics at some point (can't do it today - have some family stuff to go to) and get your collective thoughts on what kind of furniture would work in here. Maybe someone here will have the brilliant flash of insight that's been eluding me for 8 years! It's funny that you mention the weirdness of new house layouts becuase although our house is fairly new, it was built to look like a 200 year old farmhouse and many of the things that were added to give that antique charm are also what make the room so hard to furnish (a half-height stone wall along the back of the room, one entire wall taken up by an off-center colonial-styled paneled fireplace with built in closets to each side that hide the entertainment components, a good chunk of the flooring is very bumpy fieldstone - it serves well as a hearth for the fireplace but it's way too lumpy to sit furniture on, etc.) It all looks beautiful, but it really doesn't function for a family who just wants to hang out and watch tv. I will definitely do up a floor plan and some pictures -- hopefully sometime this coming week. Our current furniture is circa mid-90s, navy blue, and overstuffed (ugh, what was I thinking?) -- it served us well, but now that the kids have outgrown the jump-on-the-furniture-stage, I can't wait to replace it. I'm sure I won't have the funds for a while, but it would be nice to have a vision to save toward.

Hello, and welcome, Iris! I am Tami in north central, snowy, Ohio. I have no idea exactly when I started here, but I am guessing around 1998. Soon after DH finally broke down and we got the internet! I started looking for crochet patterns, and lots of recipes, (and I hate to cook!), so I found the crochet forum, then the crafts and dec forum, and someone mentioned the KT, and I was hooked. I tend to be MIA a lot anymore, as I get distracted with a knitting forum on another site, also like family to me, and RVing. I have been a stay at home mom of 2, DD is almost 34, with a boy and a girl, and DS who is 30, with 2 boys. DH is still working, though we hope in a couple of years the he will retire and we will go full time in the RV. I am 58. We have been married for 35 years, but are high school sweet hearts, and dated for 8 years before we got married. We had a basset shepherd when we married, until 1994, then various gerbils, and a newt or 2, before DD talked us into a bunny. Sunflower bunny passed in 2002, and we were petless for 2 years before DD talked me into letting her get her dad a new bunny for his birthday. Sonny bunny was a one person bunny. DD is a photographer, and at the time, was photographer for Pet Smart and Petco in our area. She called one morning to say that her baby bunny's mom was up for adoption. I knew she would end up taking Sydney home, so I said if her dad was ok with it, we would take her. We got them both fixed, and those 2 were as close as they could get to each other until the day Sydney passed. Sonny lived about another year. We now have 2 more, brother and sister, Hoover and Dyson! They are about 2 years old now. You will rarely find me without knitting needles in my hands. Or a book!