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Photo Credit – Mark

I have a new obsession. It’s called home and garden magazines and it’s costing us lots of money! Not because the magazines are expensive -only- but because I absolutely must have everything in them. Who doesn’t need 101 wall stickers from 101 different companies to cover every square inch of your walls? We don’t exactly live in a large expansive house, so cramming all those delicious items into our small space may not be possible. Not if we want to actually live there anyway.  Maybe having a small house is actually a good thing or maybe we just have to live in a tent in the back yard – but oh how perfect my house will be!

I do, however, have some questions about these beautifully decorated houses. For example, where are earth is everything kept? Exquisitely designed kitchens with not a dish, or a plate, or even, in some cases, cupboards to hide stuff in. My kitchen is full of cupboards and I still struggle to find counter space even to make a sandwich. The dishwasher is always the perfect hiding place for dirty dishes you aren’t up to washing -heck, even my cat climbs in there- but I’ve yet to figure out where the people in these magazines store stuff. Sometimes I imagine a pile of cups, plates,pots and pans all piled up in the garden while the shoot takes place. It may be far fetched but it gives me some comfort. One magazine even suggested putting your toaster and kettle away. Wouldn’t that make toasting your bread a little awkward? And hey, who needs their morning cup of tea or coffee anyway?

The other rooms are also always perfect. A place for everything and everything in it’s place. I think I spend my life perfectly arranging my “pieces of art” on the coffee table or dining room table. It’s all about the angle you see, but no sooner have I got it “just right” when someone straightens it. Some people have no concept – I’m just saying. I’ve even considered gluing these items down, but I haven’t become quite that obsessed yet.

Another room that confuses me is the bathroom. Having three girls in the house means that our bathroom is completely overrun with cleansers, toners, soaps, shampoos and creams for every occasion. Sometimes you can be having a calm, relaxing bath, with one of your gorgeous smelling bath salts, only to be attacked, quite unexpectedly, by an avalanche of bottles and tubs as they crash into the bath on top of you. Oh for the magazine bathroom which appears to only require a soap and a strategically placed cream or two. I got really excited while looking through one of the magazines and actually seeing toilet paper in the picture. I breathed a deep sigh of relief – at least I can keep the toilet paper!

Then there are the gardens. I have a rather small vegetable patch that currently resembles a desert. Nothing like the expansive, lush, green vegetable patches I see in the magazines. I believe in live and let grow. I think I may have sown the same lettuce bushes about six times now. It looks more like a lettuce forest than the perfectly straight lines I see in the magazines. And somehow, carrots seem to be popping up out of nowhere – who knew? We won’t even mention my herbs – well I think I’ll just blame the cold weather and leave it at that.

So I find a sunny patch in the house, open my magazine, and live vicariously through all these wonderful places. Imagining my perfect house, trying not to gasp too loudy at the price of things, and wandering how I could get hold of Mary Poppins to transform my well lived in, well used home into a place of perfection. Oh, who am I kidding. I live here with my gorgeous family and constantly shedding cats and it’s a great big mess of designer love!

Teddy bear hugs

Tonia