Expanding Domains

   Not very long ago, my mom, sister, and I lived in the same apartment. Our move into separate apartments surprised many, but this move was needed because we lived in a three bedroom apartment. A three bedroom apartment, and my sister has two young children and I have a daughter getting all preteen and hormonal. A three bedroom apartment with three grown women who's monthly cycles never came at the same time, so that someone was always PMSing. We are extremely tight knit, but we needed space to spread out. 

My floor lamp, with black design

   So we did. And spreading out gave us some room to breathe as well as giving us free reign on the decorating. You can imagine that with three grown women, we almost never agreed on a piece of furniture. My mom likes showy pieces that are handmade or antique. She gives a lot of business to that Etsy website, a site that I never look at. Her most recent addition is a fireplace tool set that was handmade by a blacksmith, and that might be the one piece of decor that we all agree on, because now that I think of it, that is actually cool little piece. But many of her pieces are big and, though beautiful, they take up a lot of space. 

   Which leads to my own personal preferences. I like slim, space-saving pieces. My decor includes a lot of things that serve double functions. Of our apartments, mine is the smallest, and my mother has the biggest. I don't like a lot of floral, and I use a LOT of black; I don't have any pink at all. 

   And my sister? She is total goth. Walk into her apartment, you see dragons and skulls on the walls. She has a dragon side table, which looks awesome, but takes up a lot of space. She also has candles everywhere (my Mom hates candles and prefers the flameless candle warmers -- soy based.) The smellier a candle is, the more my sister likes them, and she will burn multiple scents at once, which makes my eyes water, but this is her space, and we try to respect that and not get too bossy about the other's space. That might sound like common sense to everyone else, but we are three opinionated, dominant  women, so this is actually pretty hard. 

My silk screen room divider, also black.

   But we have not separated. We still spend vast amounts of time together. Just last Saturday, I spent the day with my mother, daughter, and niece. We walked around downtown Seattle (I love downtown Seattle), went to the matinee performance of the ballet Swan Lake, and then had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. After we got back from Seattle, I went and spent the night at my sisters so that we could stay up really late and watch horror movies. Sunday, my mom met us at my sister's apartment and we then left to spend the day at the movies (we watched The Croods, which was great) and walked around the mall. We ended the day with dinner at my sister's. Monday after work, my mom and sister joined me at my apartment for a spaghetti dinner and the series premiere of Defiance. Tuesday my sister cooked dinner and we piled into her minivan to take the girls to their karate class. Today, we all met up to go to my daughter's school choir concert. Thursday it is back to my sisters because she is experimenting with chili recipes and we are all invited to taste the results. We may not see each other this weekend, but that is rare. Even living apart, we still live together. This is what most people do not understand about us. We didn't really move out; we expanded our domain. Be afraid. Be very afraid.