Houses

**This is H in the A-Z series**

So Joe and I were driving around today after church just daydreaming. We were daydreaming about houses, which is something we do often. It's not that we aren't satisfied with our lot in life, but like anyone, we have our fantasies too. As we were driving around in an area that I love and dream about living in, we passed lots of houses for sale, and it got me to thinking about what I would do if we could buy any house and price didn't matter. Ha! As if. But still, it's fun to dream.

I've also recently discovered pinterest. While many of my friends are pinning cute crafty projects, great ideas for cleaning and kids, and fabulously stylish outfits, I find that at least 90% of my posts are about food. Another, oh, 9.9% are about houses.  Apparently my two extracurricular passions in life are food and houses. Both interests have their pitfalls. One negatively impacts my waistline and the other...our bank account. But no matter, food and dream house hunting are two passions I refuse to give up.

Anyway, our lovely Sunday afternoon drive, which we took to let Cora get a nice, long nap (so it was peaceful and quiet because Mimi and Papu had the other two kiddos), really got me to thinking about what my ultimate dream home would have. And here is the list, in no particular order.

1. Lots of slides! I've never outgrown the childish delight of sliding! I would love to have a beautiful, grand and spiraled staircase but with a catch. And the catch would be that along side the stairs there would also be a slide. So you could either walk down the stairs or slide if you were feeling child-like and adventurous. I would never walk. It would look something like this:

I think it would also be cool to have a slide that went from the first floor down to the basement, which would be a giant kid play area. We once walked through a house that had this feature and I was so jealous that there was no slide in my house. I think I've suffered from slide envy ever since. If I were forced to chose one or the other, I'd pick the staircase slide.

2. A pool! And not just any pool, but the most amazing pool ever. With a water slide (there I go with slides again), a diving board,  a for real deep end (no thanks on the 4 foot all over pool), and beautiful landscaping. I think there are probably amazing features I'm not mentioning, but I don't really know much about pools. In my mind, it looks like this:

And of course it would be beyond cool to have an indoor pool as well. But it seems a little snobbish to have both, don't you think?

3. The most amazing shower ever. I dream about this one all.the.time. It's hard for me to articulate about this shower, but let's just say it has benches, multiple shower heads, water coming from every direction, lots of steam (both the water variety and the husband variety....Rawrrrr!),  and lots and lots of space.  Perhaps something along these lines:

4. Lots of space. A bedroom for each kid, us, and maybe two guest rooms. Maybe even some themed rooms like the pirate room, the Treasure Island room, and the Neverland room....and a small zoo!!. Oh yeah, now we're talking. Or maybe I should just stick to "lots of space", I think I'm starting to sound like Michael Jackson...

5. A house elf. Someone is gonna have to clean that gargantuan shower, tend the pool, take care of the zoo animals, keep the slides slippery, and everything else in tip top shape. Oh, and make me trifle upon request. So thanks for the idea Harry Potter. Now, where do I get a house elf? I hear they work for free...

Oh man, I really hope I get to build this house someday.