Dreaming. Again.

"Where there is no vision, the people perish..."   ... Proverbs 29:18

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I have a dream!

See that smaller window on the right? Well, I'm dreaming of making that into a doorway (with a door) which would open out into a tiny room with only a bed and a closet. But ah! Not just a regular ol' closet, but a divided one. One side would have a window (!) with a view of the sleepy blue river at the end of our street and below that, I'd place a little desk with drawers and room enough for my laptop. Oh, and instead of a nightstand taking up space beside the bed, I'd place a shelf on the bed wall to hold nightstand-types-of-things like I did back on the farm, remember?

Now, why am I dreaming this dream? Because each night this week I've found myself sleeping in Tom's recliner in the living room. Why? Because our official guest room is upstairs in Debra's World and that's where Naomi is because Life With Guests is less complicated that way. And that little room I created for her in the basement last year? Although it was sweet, it proved to be too damp and she came up each morning sniffing like crazy and blowing her nose all day. And after all the humidity we've had lately it's even worse down there.

So unless we build an honest-to-goodness room in the basement, no one will be staying down there ever again.

But if we built a tiny room out on the front porch! I could (whenever we have guests who can climb stairs) stay there happily with great anticipation, even, for I'd have my own private retreat and no longer would I have to be awakened by The Midnight Cats' Circus, complete with flying, tumbling, meowing cats. I'd actually have a real-live door of my own, something I don't have even upstairs in pretty Debra's World.

Or--should people like my mother visit, we could place her in the tiny new room, even though it would be a tad awkward that she'd have to go through Tom's room in order to leave hers. But hey, as I told Tom recently--with things as they are now--if we wanted to have my mom come visit, we'd first have to buy another house.

No, really. So putting up with a bit of awkwardness and building just a tiny room would be much, much simpler all around. Don't you agree? :)

It's fun to dream, even if the dream doesn't come true or even if we must tweak those dreams in big ways. But in order for dreams to happen, we must first know what we want and then picture what we want. I remember that's what I did one day while sitting beside our torn-up lawn at our other suburb house. I sat with a piece of paper and a pen and sketched a new dream for that yard and eventually? That dream became reality.

Today are you dreaming? Do you know yourself well enough to know what you like? What you want? Do you know your favorite colors and styles, including styles of music, art, clothing and decorating? Do you know what makes you feel at home? What makes you smile? What energizes you? What you were created by God to do in this world?

Here's a sad thing: I've met lots of women who do not know these things, even at age 45 or 55 or older. Their children grew up, left home and then these mothers collapsed into sad, paralyzed heaps because they never began the Who Am I? Adventure. They did not know themselves. Or God... only about Him.

Today I hope you know. Or I hope you'll begin finding out. And I hope you will dream.

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"In my own little corner, in my own little chair I can be whatever I want to be."

..... From Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella


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And yes... I would lose some front porch space, but you know? The remaining area would be larger than the one at our other suburb house and we do still have the garage patio. Oh, and the new room would have two windows--the closet one and one at the front of the house, parallel to the street (and now I'm dreaming about light green shutters!). :)

The cool thing for future buyers? This room could be multi-purpose. It could become an office, a storage room, a private sitting room or a baby's room or ?

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We are due for only 70 lovely degrees today---!!!