The Fantasy of the Beautiful Home



How about a whimsical new planter?



Don't get me wrong, I adore my children.  But once a year, my parents keep all of the boys for a week or more.  They go camping, play with cousins, swim, fish, and get spoiled rotten.  And I . . . I engage in one of my favorite Mom fantasies . . . the Fantasy of the Beautiful Home.

It begins immediately upon my arrival from dropping  the boys with their grandparents.  I look around the house with a gleam in my eye.  I check the cleaning closet for supplies.  I strip the sheets off the boys' beds and toss them in the washer.

Hours later, when I would normally be in bed, I am humming and scrubbing the homeschool table.  I am vacuuming under the couch.  I am reorganizing the shoe cubbies at the entryway.



Lady eyes me nervously as I begin cleaning everything in sight!



Yes, it has hit full force: the delusion that while the boys are away, I can clean and tidy the house so that it will remain clean!  This is obviously ridiculous.  What home could possibly withstand the force of three little boys, a german shepard, and a husband who doesn't like to have anything where he can't SEE it?

Yet I cannot help myself.  Within a few short days, the house of my dreams will begin to emerge from the cobwebs-- though never coming fully into view.  It is the Annual Fantasy of  the Beautiful Home; back for a limited time only.