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We spent the weekend at a good friend’s vacation house in Cape Cod. I use the term “vacation house” loosely, as their vacation home is nicer than our full-time home! It looked like something out of a Pottery Barn catalog — seashell motif in the family room, gorgeous kitchen with rustic chicken wire insets on the cabinets, Donna Karan towels in the bathrooms, and L’Occitane toiletries in the bathroom.
Christian Haugen/Flickr
We had a fabulous time lounging by the pool, walking in the cute seaside town, and just hanging out. They are the ultimate in gracious hosts, and we can only pray we behaved well enough so that we’ll be invited back! (We won’t talk about me giving my daughter a small glass of “lemonade” from the pitcher in the fridge that turned out to be margaritas! Or my husband setting off the burglar alarm as he made an early-morning getaway to catch a plane!).
I left relaxed, suntanned, and with a bad case of house envy!
Do you ever get that? When you get that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you view photos of bloggers’ homes online? When you would gladly trade one or more of your children to move into that House Beautiful room, for just a day? When you feel like everyone else is living in a Garnet Hill catalog when you’re stuck in MAD Magazine?
Yup. I’ve been there.
But I’ve figured something out. Lives are like Spanx underwear. When you pull on Spanx, you squeeze everything in here, but it’s going to pop out there. Your rear may look better than Beyonce’s, but suddenly your knees plump out. Or you put on the shaping camisole, and you get underarm fat. You get the picture.
MATTER CANNOT BE DESTROYED OR CREATED: IT ONLY SHIFTS FORM.
So how does that apply to a life? What I think is that everyone has a share from the life energy pie. Our slices are all the same, but we choose how to use those. I can use some of mine on my work, a little bit on my hobbies, a good chunk on my family, and a little bit here and there. Those with the gorgeous houses? They’ve chosen to devote more of their life energy to maintaining that home. Maybe they don’t work outside the home. Maybe they only have one child instead of three (or six!). Maybe they don’t read a thing but home decorating magazines. Maybe they don’t work out. Or maybe they have help. (Money helps, sure, but it’s not the only answer.)
They’ve made a choice to create that beautiful home. And I could do it, too, if I made the same choices they did. And maybe I’ll devote a little more life energy (perhaps from the Spongebob re-run allocation) towards taking it up a notch.
There are only so many hours in the day (or, as I like to say, “half-hours” in the day). We all get to choose where we want to spend them. And while I’ll never be so invested in my home that I’m afraid to have anyone over, for fear they’ll smudge the finish on the coffee table, I could take it up a notch.
It doesn’t take much to make a big difference – going through my old makeup, decluttering the kitchen counters, and a fresh bouquet of flowers are on my list this week.
What about you? What would make the biggest difference in your home? It could just be clearing the shoes from the entry hall, sweeping the porch, or replacing lightbulbs in your outdoor fixtures. Take 30 minutes and give it a shot, and then come back here to tell me what you did. Maybe we’ll all move on to Pottery Barn status together. 
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Thanks for making me laugh out loud after a particularly long week. (I know. One week has the same amount of hours as another, but this past one seemed to have more hours. Or maybe more was packed into the hours. Or half-hours.) I love your Spanx analogy. I thought I was the only one who squeezed myself into Spanx only to have that fat pop up elsewhere.
Anyway. This feels so relevant to me at the moment. I’m renovating my kitchen, and spending most of my life energy pie (and perhaps going into life energy pie debt) on planning it. As part of the planning, I’m doing lots of research. So many kitchens I see inspire house envy. Your post is a nice way to frame my feelings.
As for your question, my 30 minutes today were used buying fresh produce at the farmers market so we can eat well even while our kitchen is demolished.
Gena
Wow – your post seems to echo my own theme this past week…three kids, one pie, Spanx forcing fat out here and there – I SO relate. I’ve been forcing myself to find “free” half hours here and there and working little areas to help things look a little better around here. I actually did clean out my old makeup. One day I organized our bathroom closet. Another, I went to Tuesday Morning and purchased a new soap dish(with fancy soap!) and matching accessories and towels – what a difference it makes! Now I’m hooked. Today I’m tackling my dresser top to organize my jewelry and get rid of the accumulating junk there. Tomorrow, the TV room shelves. It feels really good. Will I ever live in that gorgeous cape house you visited? Not anytime soon – my boys make sure of that. But I’m discovering that there is a peace that comes with making time to tend to our nest – and it makes me feel happier when I’m divvying up the rest of my daily pie. Every time I go to the bathroom and see those new towels I smile, even if my living room still looks like a truck went through it.
I just got a beautiful African orchid to review, and it has really inspired me to add other beautiful things to my home. Love this post, Lain!
I am totally familiar with house envy, especially spacious homes with a BASEMENT (We live in tornado country). But I struggle to maintain our current smaller home (which is bigger than both the house I grew up in and my husband grew up in). Heavenly Father gives us what we can handle. So one theory I have is that once I figure out how to handle my current home, He may decide to bless us with one with a basement.
So true, so true. Thanks for a post that made me giggle after a long week at work. I have house envy, but it’s getting better. My house now is not the idyllic Alaskan cabin I dreamed of, but it’s extremely conveniently located and well-suited for the four dogs we co-habitate with. I constantly struggle with clutter – pre-schoolers produce a ton of paper!…and dog hair. The big husky dude is shedding again, and hair just leaks from my lab. I will devote my 30 minutes to combing them. I feel better, and they look pretty! I don’t have a long enough attention span for knitting (thus the scrapbooking), so grooming dogs is my repetetive -action therapy. For those of you with lab-like fur to deal with – the Furminator is totally worth the dough.
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