I Broke It, Then I fixed It

Somehow I managed to cause my desktop computer to totally and completely break down over a year ago (circa August 2010). The hard drives were good, the CPU was good, the RAM was good, but the IDE controllers on the motherboard itself fried. Don't know how, don't know why, they just did. So for the last while we've (the hubs and I) have been solely relying on our laptop and mobile devices and gaming systems. And while using these items was ratehr satisfactory, I never had the real sense of belonging in a place without my desktop running.

Usually, the saying is that home is where the heart is. Here, it's where the desktop is setup. The desktop is a permanent fixture. It always has the most space, the most function, and is generally usable by all who come into the house. It's the central hub, so to speak. It's where I play a late night game of gin with my grandma on Pogo.com. It's where the hubs scans his art in through the printer and then plays with it in Adobe Fireworks. It's where my kids play games on FunBrain.com and argue about how to continue their game of tic-tac-toe. All these things happen in one central place.

And while we sound like a family driven by electronics, that's only half of the truth. We enjoy nights of Uno, and Chutes and Ladders, and Candy Land. Our Boxer, Oscar, keeps the children rather busy by insisting that they play tug of war with him. The hubs draws and hangs shelves and yells at the dog for tripping him during the game of tug of war. And I, well I sit back and take it all in.

I smile because I know that when I was their age, this didn't happen. My family was never this dynamic in their relationships with one another. And, with a sobering thought, I am reminded that they will not be young forever and that I must mold them and shape them to be kids first and adults next. Times change, as do families, and each new generation brings it's quirks with it. Our just happens to be a desktop that was broken and now is whole again. And in it's wholeness, we are finally home -- until we actually buy a house of our own.