My part of our home office is finished. We are using one of the spare bedrooms as a shared office space. I recently finished unpacking all my boxes and even hung the few office type wall things up. You really own a house if you are putting nails into the wall.
I say that my part of the office is finished. Tom’s part is still a work in progress. He boxes and boxes of office type stuff. Every time he sorts through it, he winnows out more, but his stuff is more complicated than mine. For instance, I had a whole box of confirmation materials that I really liked. But Cokesbury has moved on and those materials are now obsolete. Easy to get rid of them if I can’t get any of the student books. Tom’s books contain all kinds of reference material that he can’t find anywhere else so he has to hang on to them.
Anyway, in the finished office you can see I have a bunch of books around me. Some of them are the reference books I need for various things. I have a big travel section and a large collection of maps. When we are exploring, we don’t always have a cell signal, so I need those paper maps. And I have a bunch of books on hiking or bike trails in different areas, which are good references.
On my desk are several piles of books. Tom said I need more bookshelf space, but I don’t think so. Those are books that I am planning on getting rid of after I read or reread them. I read “The Great Gatsby” when I was 17. I decided it was worth another read before I die. But I don’t think I will need to keep it after I reread it. Some books are worth keeping and rereading again and again. I’ve read “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” so many times the cover fell off. Leslie Weatherhead”s “The Will of God” is a book I will always have along with Richard Foster’s “Celebration of Discipline.” In fact, I had two copies of both so I gave one copy of each away.
You might notice some things on the wall. I have three crosses. One made for me by Frank Myers. One with many names of God. And one made up of broken pottery pieces which is my favorite. It says, “Jesus takes our broken pieces and by his love makes them whole.” That thought has sustained me so many times.
The most important thing in my finished office is the computer. I write all my blog posts on it. It also has all my pictures and the starts of several books. In the computer’s files are sermons preached over 30 years of ministry. It also has wedding and funeral services, weaving and knitting patterns, and over 4,000 songs and compositions downloaded from cds and iTunes. After living in the RV for six years, the computer is my absolute necessity and the third thing I would save from a fire. Tom is first, my purse with my phone is second, and the computer would be third. All the files from the computer are triple backed up and stored in several places.
It is nice that the office is finished. I like having a dedicated place to work. Just walking in helps me focus and prepare to work.