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Obsessions

I am currently obsessed with houses. Old houses. Giant houses. Houses with far too many bedrooms and bathrooms for my small family. Houses with porte cocheres and carriage houses and barns. Houses with fireplaces and tall windows and leaded glass. Houses with peaks and turrets and bay windows and balconies. Houses with libraries and butler's pantries and multiple staircases. I even found one with an elevator.

I visit circaoldhouses.com more often than I should. I scroll through pictures when I should be organizing my tax documents. I look at house plans when I should be folding laundry. But laundry gets undone almost as soon as it's done, so why bother?

If I lived in one of these houses, I would have a room of my own. In fact, I would have several rooms of my own. Probably one for each day of the week. One could be an office, one an art studio, one a dance/yoga studio, and one just for empty space where I could lie down on the floor and make snow angels, minus the snow. I'd have a guest room for anyone who wanted to come visit. I'd have a room for foreign exchange students or refugees or foster children. There would be space in the kitchen for absolutely everything. Even the plastic food storage tops. And think of the Christmas parties!

It's a lovely dream, isn't it?

The reality is more likely to be lots of dust bunnies and cobwebs. Acres of floors to clean and far too many toilets to scrub. There would be a huge mortgage, not to mention the property taxes. And oh, the maintenance. All those chimneys to have swept. The grass to mow. The roof? Oy.

Still...a library and a butler's pantry?

I think I could find a way around the dust bunnies and cobwebs for a library and a butler's pantry.


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