Jovers

Home. What a strange word. Some people may define it as the place where you live, but others may define it as where your heart is.

For the first eighteen years of my life, I could easily say that my home was the fourth house on the left in a cute, northern suburb of St. Louis. I will venture a little further and say that I considered that home for the next two years while I was away at school. My first two years at college were hard for me, and homesickness wasn’t an unusual feeling for me because I didn’t consider Kansas City my home.

Then, it was like a flip had switched in my junior year of college. Kansas City was no longer this strange land to me. I had planted roots: I had settled on a running route around the track behind my apartment complex and up and around the art museum; my favorite checker at Aldi knew my name and I knew his; I frequented new restaurants and could navigate my way around without having a GPS; I was solving problems on my own and discovering and reveling in my own independence; I found a little known spot with one of the best views that Andrew and I would sneak away to on cool nights just to soak everything in. I knew Kansas City and it was no longer just the place that I lived.

In August, Andrew and I leased our first apartment together as newlyweds. I looked forward to coming home to him in the evenings and snuggling close while we watched movies. While we were already very close when we were just dating, I didn’t realize how different being married felt. It’s not something I can put into words easily because it’s all in my heart, not my mind. I just knew I wanted to be wherever he was.

St. Louis, on the other hand now feels unfamiliar. I’m such a different person than I was in high school so I feel like I’m looking at everything with fresh eyes. I have so many questions that I don’t have answers to anymore. As we are preparing for the move back, it feels like we are moving to a new city. All of the routines I established in Kansas City no longer apply.

So now, as this strange city has slowly weaseled its way into my heart and Andrew and I have put in some tentative roots, it’s hard for me to say where home is. As May inches closer, I keep telling friends and family that we will be moving “home” to St. Louis, but I’m not sure that’s the correct word to use anymore. St. Louis was my home for about twenty years – and it still holds a special place in my heart – but no, I don’t think it’s home quite yet again.

Yet, Kansas City isn’t quite home either. I’ve spent all of my independent adult life here, so this is where it all happened for me. But in Kansas City, I lack the friends and family that I have back in St. Louis. While I have a variety of friends here, I really only have one that I can talk to on a deep and personal level, and she’s currently working 65+ hour weeks. Here I lack the network of support that really keeps me going, which is why I struggled with depression for a long time here.

If home is where you live, then home is Kansas City. Yet if home is where the heart is, my heart is mostly back in St. Louis with my family and close friends. My heart is also where Andrew is. So where is home currently? Who knows, but I’m up for the adventure to figure it out again.

When I accepted my internship back in August, I was excited to have my own little space and to be able to personalize it! All of my previous internships have been only for a summer, so I’ve never had my own desk for more than a couple months. This post is a bit overdue considering I’ve now been working there now for six and a half months, but it’s also taken me a while to get things how I wanted them!

Before

This is a before shot of my desk area. I actually forgot to take a picture of my desk, so I snapped a picture of an empty desk a few cubicles over from mine. My cubicle is very white. And I mean, everything is this creamish, off-white color, leaving everything feeling bland and washed out. It was actually distracting me, the lack of color.

So that was my initial goal: to just bring some color into my work space. But I didn’t want it to be overwhelming either – I wanted it to remain professional.

I started with a few accents.I found a lot of cute pieces at the dollar section at Target. I used a little coral pail to hold my binder clips and found some colorful magnets to use for my cabinets. I drink a lot of water, so I also bought a floral coaster for a few dollars at Bed Bath & Beyond to set my cup on.

One of the other interns put a colored throw blanket over her chair which I thought was a great idea! I originally was going to use a bright teal colored blanket to throw over my chair, but decided it was too bright. So instead I used a really big scarf that my mom had bought me from Portugal. It’s definitely more subdued, but has such a pretty design so it was perfect to bring some color and design without being too over the top.

Chair

Then I moved to picture frames. I had already ordered my wedding pictures and received a couple of frames as gifts, so I brought those in to make my cubicle a little more personal. Since my desk area is so large, I knew I needed to bring in some more to just fill space, but I didn’t want the same black and gray picture frames. The purpose was to bring in color, and I didn’t really feel like spending $20+ on a cute picture frame, so I thought I’d make my own.

Pictures

I picked a few frames up from the dollar store and Goodwill and picked out some spray paint and painted them myself. It took a few coats, but I’m really pleased with how they turned out. Not bad for under $10! That really filled in the space, and I love turning around to grab something and seeing pictures from the best day ever. I also brought in a vase from our reception (we have a million and I’m not sure what to do with the rest of them) to set in the corner. It goes with the general color scheme of the space and I think everything is better with flowers – especially when ~~I can’t kill them~~ they can’t die.

Magnets

I’m a bit of a sucker for cute quotes – especially Bible verses. I found these pieces of art on Pinterest free to download (I love free) so just printed them off on the color printer and tacked them up to the back of the cabinet space. They’re nice to look at, bring some color, and are encouraging when I’m having a rough day.

It took me a long time to really get everything how I wanted, but I’m really pleased with how everything turned out! It’s a cute space that I enjoy working in and it was pretty inexpensive and fun to put it all together! It feels like me, albeit a very girly me – I’m not usually this girly or use this many variations of pink!

define: Home

Decorating my Cubicle at Work