White Orchid Journal beginning

     In 2015 my daughter and I moved into the second floor apartment of a two family house with our two dogs.  Honestly, I didn't really like the house but my daughter really wanted to live there so that she could be close to her friends.  

     The house sat on a hill with a set of about ten steps off the driveway which lead up to a landing which turned to the right and another set of about ten steps leading up to the front porch.  There were two red doors.  The door to the right was the entrance to our apartment.  The door to the left was the first floor one bedroom apartment.  We had the second and third floors, which included a landing on the second floor.  There was a door straight ahead that lead to a balcony and to the right french doors that lead into the living room.  Once inside the living room there was another set of french doors to the left that lead to the solarium.  This became my favorite room.

     I really enjoyed decorating this room.  Fortunately there was only one thing I needed to buy to make this room a restful retreat.  I found a used coffee table at a local thrift store for twenty dollars.  It was pretty banged up but structurally sound.  So, I sanded out the rough places, and filled in the holes with wood filler.  More sanding to make it perfectly smooth and three coats of black chalky paint with a finish of cream wax made it beautiful again.   

     This became my morning meditation space.  

     I had a bitter sweet relationship with this apartment.  The patio and solarium were my special places but the rest of the apartment left a lot to be desired.  The owner had no interest in maintaining the property.  There was water damage on the entire right side of the house.  As a matter of fact on the day that I moved out there was a major rain storm that morning.  There was literally water rolling down the kitchen wall from the molding.  Needless to say I was happy to say goodbye to that experience.