Ours

Oh look, I'm posting again! I feel a little bit like a blabber-mouth--ten posts in ten days!!

I was reading Bits & Pieces at Like Mother, Like Daughter and this bit really spoke to me:

We home-makers have to train our eye. Our home needs to be more than decorated. We can't really just aspire to decoration and leave it at that. Even the lowliest abode calls out to be made beautiful according to the tastes of the denizens. (Remember Ma's china shepherdess?) But that's not as easy as it sounds! I've found that I've had to study hard to know what our taste really is, and then work hard to try to make it come true within our means. Often my choices have been off the mark, but mistakes are part of the journey. I just keep reading books, magazines, and sites, trying to look past what is merely fashionable (or marketable) to what truly expresses my desire to bring humble beauty into our lives. 

This week I discovered Spoonflower and have been drooling over fabric for the twins' nursery. Serious nesting mode happening over here. I know myself well enough to know that, between moving and Michael and, well, my habits of procrastination, I will never quite create the picture-perfect nursery in my head.

But in general, what with house-hunting and new babies on the way, I've been thinking a lot lately about feathering my nest and making things pretty. One house in particular that we've looked at keeps popping up in my head, and I find myself redecorating it in my mind. (And believe me, it really needs redecoration!) This morning, while Michael and Keith both napped, I was making my coffee and looking at the plants on my kitchen counter.

I kill plants with good intentions; Keith loves them, and they love him back. But there are only so many windows in this apartment where they can survive and thrive. One of these is in the kitchen. I have made Keith promise that there will be no plants on surfaces for food preparation in our new home. I don't like having to clean up dirt before cooking food.

Anyway, I was looking at those plants and suddenly my whole vision of our (potential) new living room shifted. There would be plants. In every window. I hadn't even thought of it, because left to my own devices, they wouldn't be there. (I had a rose plant in my apartment when I lived on my own; that's it.) Lovely floral curtains, cushions on the couches, an upright piano--yes, these would all be in my home.

But in our home, there are plants. Always. Without them, a place would not be ours, would not be home.

And that thought makes me happy.