On Occam's razor

Paul and I have spent countless minutes and hours trying to figure out what should be a relatively simple thing: what furniture to buy for Little's bedroom. I never knew so many factors were to be considered for such a thing. It all started with my barely alive idea of making her room look like the room in Goodnight Moon. I even painted the cow jumping over the moon and the bears in chairs on canvases over a year ago. The walls are green. I found a red balloon made out of plastic that I can hang from her ceiling. I sewed yellow and green-striped curtains for her window. It is coming along. The next step is to find a dresser and bookshelf in the honey oak color of her crib-turned toddler bed (a loose interpretation of the yellow furniture in the book). So we started the search with surprisingly scant results. This led to the thought that we should change her entire bedroom, so we were off to the furniture stores, juggling salespeople, Little, and each other, trying to find the perfect (not too expensive) bedroom set for our little girl. But it's a big investment. A lot of money. Something that a two-year-old needs? Not exactly. Back to square one and a long list of possibilities. Twin bed or full? White or honey? Move her to the guest room or keep her in her tiny 12x12 room? Give her the guest furniture and buy new for the guestroom or buy new for her? And wait... how much is it all going to cost? Then where will we put the furniture that won't go in the guest room or Little's room? And now what size bed were we talking about? We need a bigger house? We need to patch up a door, make a new wall? Paint the guestroom? Build into the attic? Get rid of the desk and computer and buy a laptop? Where will the books go? And my school stuff that I might never again use but cannot and will not get rid of? AND WHAT IF WE HAVE ANOTHER CHILD?! Oh crap. Then what? What if we want to? And suddenly, in my mind, this isn't about furniture anymore. It's about the entire future. My future, our family's future. And how I have to figure it out NOW or else I am unable to move forward with the simple task of buying furniture for the room of the one and only child I have who is alive and exists now. How is it that the mere possibility of someone else shakes me up so? Why was I annoyed at being woken up this morning from a dream in which this nonexistent person was in my arms? (Though I shouldn't put too much stock in my dreams, based on the ones that preceded this one.) Whoa there. First things first. We still don't have a solution to the furniture situation... and does it really depend on all those things?

How is it that furniture buying turned everything upside down? In the end, we decided to take the simplest route (and the one we originally intended for from the very beginning): convert the toddler bed into a full-sized bed and buy the inexpensive matching dresser and bookshelf from Wal-Mart or Target. Keep Little in her room until we have to move her (IF we have to). There. The simplest solution is, in fact, the best one.

Through this process (which seemed to gain a lot more importance than it warranted), I learned that there are some ideas that I have to weigh and consider for my life now. I'm not so sure that I still want that which I thought I wanted. Today, in church, I prayed for guidance, confidence, and peace.

"Whatever You're doing inside of me..."