Reentry to the week is hard, isn't it? I have to do it a little earlier than most. Sunday night is when I have my "Monday," and by the time most of you are heading for work, I'm heading home for bed.
And we're all tired, aren't we? Yep.
What would perk us up? What about a little dream-weaving, eh? I'm not one of those people who fantasizes about what I'd do if I won the lottery. It's not something I think I shouldn't do; in fact, I think it does us all good to have a little mind-wander. I just never remember to do it.
So I'm going to let myself imagine for a minute, and you should do the same. What if we won the lottery? And let's say we hit it big, and had the money to do all the obvious things: invest wisely, pay off debt, buy houses for everyone in the family. What would we want once those things were paid for? (Think selfishly. You've already helped lots of people out. That's the game.)
1. An iPad for Lala. (That's silly, huh? But I sometimes feel guilty that I got one with book money in order to write books, and she doesn't have one yet (so this counts as selfish because I'd feel better). She should have one.)
2. A yellow Smartcar! And a red Mini! I can't choose, so how about both?
3. A second home in Venice in the north part of Cannaregio.
4. A third home in the Avenues of San Francisco (somewhere to go when I get too hot in the Oakland heat. I'm a delicate flower, yo).
5. Um. Oooh! A maid! No more cleaning the litterbox! Boy, do I hate that job.
6. Cashmere yarn. Lots of it.
That's all I've got. Apparently I don't think about it much because I don't have much of a list (I honestly thought when I started writing things down I'd have a hundred things. Huh.)
What do YOU want to buy with your winnings?
Fantasy money would upgrade ALL the gadgetry in the house: new Mac laptops, new phones, new iPods, an iPad for Hubby.
There would be a month-long holiday in New Zealand and Australia. Or two months.
There would be a month-long trip to England.
I’d import a Morgan Aero and a TVR Tuscan from England. Both cars, both wildly expensive, both beautiful. Google them, they’re drool-worthy.
Maid service for life.
And this is where I run out of ideas…
OK, so this is AFTER I have gotten myself a cozy condo with a view of Brandywine River Park, with valet parking? A piano. A six-burner stove. Good shoes. Private school for the Dude. A trip with the Dude and my parents to visit NONIA. Interesting what we want when we really think about it.
At this precise moment in time, as I sit watching the rain tipping it down onto not one but two loads of clean laundry sat on the washing line, I’d like a tumble dryer. And then I’d like a house big enough to put a tumble dryer in!
A house in the country with room for horses – and some horses, alpaca, sheep and a giraffe or two.
An apartment in NYC and one in Siena and then I would go to culinary school.
One house with all the amenities we need for every day, and fully serviced condos in the places we visit (or will visit) often, including Tahoe.
Proper wine storage and membership in a longish list of wine clubs.
Car service.
Three to four weeks exploring somewhere different every year. Europe, Australia, Iceland…
Two weeks every year wherever we find most relaxing (haven’t found it yet, but am on the watch…).
A personal shopper. I don’t like shopping and would be happy to let someone else develop my personal style.
POOL! Also, pool maintenance help.
/sigh
I haven’t played this game since I was a wee thing. It IS interesting to see how our wants change…
1. A new wardrobe. Something that says young academic, not a graduate student, please take me seriously but not too seriously.
2. A new car. Something fun but that seats 6.
3. Books, books, books, until I have no more shelves.
4. A complete kitchen remodel/expansion with all sustainable, eco-friendly materials.
5. Annual vacations overseas for my entire family.
6. College tuition, room/board for my girls.
Hmmm, good question…
1) Remodel the kitchen, replacing the dead oven from the 1970s.
2) Add a couple of rooms, one office for my DH, existing office convert to housemate’s room, one fiber studio
3) Housekeeping help so I can spend more time crafting.
4) College expenses, tuition/room & board for The Dork Son – classes start tomorrow…
5) Vacation money for my dream European vacation in a few years – go where I want to for as long as I want to.
6) Retirement fund
7) New car for hubby, older-but-safe car for The Dork Son
I’d buy the lavender farm & house for myself that I found this last weekend. That’d be lots of work I’m sure – but fun!
Other than that…go to the dentist & the doctor, because then I’d have the money to take care of things. 🙂
I’d want some life experiences for me and my family. Some vacation time, trips, and so on. I’d like to see all of Canada for starters.
I loved reading everyone’s lists, and this is apparently just what I need for a Monday.
1. I would pick out the house that made my heart go pitter-pat, and offer the owners cash to move (this is a persistent #1 fantasy). At times this has been a beachside cottage in San Diego, or a city condo with beautiful views. I could be happy lots of places.
2. A month wandering around Canada….
3. …followed by a month wandering around Europe, especially places I haven’t been like the Netherlands.
4. Tuition for my husband at his choice of college, if he wants to go.
5. Knitting supplies for me; it’s been months since I bought yarn, and I’d love to browse my queue for the thing I most want to make that I don’t have yarn for and cast on.
I would buy a pretty kitchen table, big and sturdy enough for everyone to sit around. I’d buy T-wa a new computer. Junior has everything she needs. I’d buy Blob a whole bunch of stuff he misses having. I’d replace my favorite ring that I left in a hotel in New York. Then I’d go to New York until I was tired of it, but I’d never order room service – but I’d leave GIANT tips in every dive restaurant.
A proper house, with a yard, so that I can finally get a dog.
Wait, while I’m at it. A house, custom-built for me, with a library with a spiral staircase, and those library-ladders that you can wheel around.
With secret passages, where I will direct the contractor to put them in without telling me where they are (maybe a sealed envelope that details them, not-to-be opened until a year after I take up residence).
A salt-filtered pool of my own, for night swimming without chlorine in my hair.
A yarn room.
A kitchen designed to have lots and lots of storage space.
Fluevogs, a trip around the world, and someone to look after my animals so I can traipse off guilt-free. A tailor and a personal trainer.
Spend way too much money on an architect and quality contractors to fix my house up completely, everything up to code, re-do the basement inlaw with permits, front and back yard landscaped.. All the house stuff!
Then the small farm in Nova Scotia,
Motorcycle lessons
A house cleaner!
A triathlon specific bike
Lots of beautiful wood storage for the craft room so I can get rid of all the crappy plastic shelving.
and then spend a year travelling, spending a month or two with all the friends we never see in NewZealand, Denmark, Australia, The UK.
Oh this just made my Monday much more fun. OK… thinking… big(ish).
1. buy the house next door, build a connecting structure between the houses (maybe a covered boardwalk). Turn the entire house into mostly a kitchen with small guest bedrooms and a therapy room for The Mister.
2. book my parents permanent berths on the cruise ship that just goes around and around and around the world, based on the passengers’ whims. Make sure my private jet is available to them whenever they decide to take a break from cruising to fly and see family.
3. pay for all the nieces’ college tuition (including the requisite semester abroad)
4. travel, travel, travel
5. yarn fort
I always planned on setting up a weekly pedicure. Basically paying someone else to trim my toenails. Because, HONESTLY. Such an annoyance.
My biggest dream: Offer ALL the doctors in the world enough time and money (because health insurance, referral letters, and waiting periods would no longer be an issue) to figure out just WTF is up with my hip and why it hurts all the time from my back down to my toes.
A respite from pain meds and the inability to sit or stand for more than an hour or so without intense pain would be WONDERFUL.
That’s the real dream. I’m a lot more likely to get a mortgage with my utterly nonexistent credit than find the solution to this, sadly.
1. A mini-winnie.
2. …
I don’t know! Since you’ve already bought me my dream penthouse apartment in North Beach (I love that “houses for family” takes precedence over a maid), I’m pretty much set.
Okay, fine. Just for fun, let’s throw in a custom treehouse in Bora Bora. And another near Tomales Bay. Maybe in Marshall. Yeah. With a fireman’s pole to slide down when we felt like wandering across the road to get fresh oysters.
And wow do I look like like a douche, following that previous comment. Can I change my answer to world peace and a cure for cancer? And for Orli?
I’d let my husband buy all the tractors/equipment he wants for our retirement home.
I’d buy a cabin in my favorite mountains for when the farm machinery got too loud. With a boathouse. And a pontoon boat.
A mansion (or a castle?) with a cheerful housekeeper, but a complete lack of gothic mysteriousness. Well. Maybe the chapel can be haunted. But no supposedly dead former inhabitants secretly living in the empty rooms.
I would set up a foundation then do stealth thing for friends and strangers and they would never know from whence it came.
OK, I’ll play, I love this game!
1. A big-a$$ truck. We’re talking Dodge Ram 3500 diesel dually with mega-hauling capacity. And heated leather seats. To haul…
2. The 3-horse slant-load gooseneck horse trailer with living quarters that takes me and my horsie to all those Parelli clinics and trail rides.
3. A really good saddle for my horse that fits both of us comfortably (the one I have now, I think it’s pinching him).
4. Computer upgrades, natch.
5. Travel: Morocco, India, Australia, Spain, France, Greece, Italy–anywhere that is known for architecture, art and/or and fabric design. And great food. Australia is in there because, well, it’s Australia and I’d like to meet a hot Australian Jackaroo (cowboy) who tames wild brumbies (mustangs).
6. When I’m done traveling, I’m immersing myself in classes, conferences, workshops and seminars of all kinds related to fibers and fashion design. Maybe I’ll even get a Masters–or more–in textile design.
7. Of course, I’m also debating on a Masters in Philosophy, but I Kant seem to get nearly as excited.
8. In my dream home (somewhere in the rolling wooded countryside on 100 acres), there is:
a) a huge library with built-in wooden bookshelves, a small writing desk, a bay window with a window seat, a fireplace for cozy days, and a big comfy reading chair.
b) a fully-outfitted fibers studio in the basement or a separate building that has a dye kitchen, huge tables for laying out fabric, an industrial sewing machine, dress forms, blind hemmer, serger, my looms, my wheels, a wall of storage for yarn and fabric, only OTT lights in the ceiling, and the latest computer textile design technology. Maybe I’d even have one of those machines that prints fabric yardage for me, an AVL loom, and of course one of those HP Touchscreens like on Project Runway.
c) a walk-in, walk-through closet situated between the master bedroom and bath, complete with laundry facilities with color separated bins, so that my clothes wind up there rather than all over my bedroom and bathroom. And dimmer switches, y’all.
d) a Parelli Playground (obstacles and toys that my horse and I play with).
e) and instant trail access right out my back door.
Wow. Not much I want, LOL! Sorry for hijacking the comments, but you DID ask. 😉 And it’s not IF I win the lottery, but WHEN. 😀
A valley. Where I could set up a fiber creature ranch on one side (rescues probably, and perhaps set up an extension program with an agriculture/animal/vet studies at the appropriate University so they can man it), and grow food and flowers on another part. The rest I have other plans for, but I’d probably take some time off to do some hard core healing in Hawaii. With the usual assortment of tech toys, perhaps a Vespa to get around (or the eco-equiv) and generally healing body, mind and spirit. While connected to the intarwebz.
Jujuwiz–this is a dream, right? You can have whatever you want 🙂 Don’t feel bad about your wishes.
That’s just my biggest, most unlikely wish.
My more attainable wishes, of course, include an outdoor, fenced/roofed/walled cat garden that no stray dogs/coyotes/wolves/whatever can get into but my kitties can have outside access whenever they want without me worrying about them.
A house big enough to have a craft room and an office for my boyfriend, with a basement for storage and a garage our cars can actually get into. With a small yard we can enjoy but not fall over dead from having to mow too much. (And space for the above-mentioned cat playpen.)
A private jet and pilot (or maybe just set my brother up so he can be our private pilot) so we can visit my family in California whenever we want without having to brave the public airports…and vice versa. (Grandparents flew in two hours ago. They were traveling for over 15 hours due to delays, unintended stopovers, and a guy having a heart attack on the plane with absolutely no one able to help. They’re over 80–I don’t think they deserve to deal with this crap.)
Enough money left over to live comfortably with all the above, work in my chosen field only when I want to instead of because I have to, and have lots of time left over to knit and design and draw and paint to my heart’s satisfaction.
For some reason when ever we go camping we play this game. I have a laundry list of many things. The biggest thing in this moment is a studio that is at my house or where ever we live (farm!). A place to make amazing just for me. I can even hang a sign up that says “no boys allowed” (husband and two little boys). And this sounds terrible, but a nanny. I love doing my work (yarn) but I feel torn about what to do with the kids. It’d be great to have a nanny or help with the kids. I guess I don’t need to have a therapy session in your comments. thanks for asking the question!
We play this game a lot at my house!
First for me is a matching pickup and trailer to I can go to the sheep shows in style. A real barn for the sheep, and one for hay. I buy out the s.o.b. that lives next door that has threatened me with a rifle. I buy the 90 acres across the street, but tell the current owner that he and his wife can live there as long as they want (they’re 80+ now).
Travel of course, a custom made spinning wheel. Replace my old mobile home with a custom built house.
You can see I’ve already put a lot of thought into this. This is just the beginning of the list!!
Books! Any and every book I could ever, ever want, whenever I want. I’m no collector, so I’m not talking about first-edition, museum-quality folios. Just lots and lots of books. And the built-in bookcases to store them all.
Mmm!
1. New foundation for our current house (in the Avenues – come visit whenever!) that not only makes the house safe, but adds rooms. A 3rd bedroom, a 2nd bath, laundry room, office, and storage. Oh yeeeeahhhh. I still have no idea where they’d put the staircase, but I’m sure I could hire someone to figure that out.
2. Professional garden help, because my neglectful ish won’t do.
3. Get my little car all fixed and souped up pretty. Maybe even new paint.
4. Beautiful old rugs for the whole house. Not museum quality or anything, but gorgeous colors and Persian for sure.
5. Personal shopper who can go to any store and truly understands my not-totally-standard shape and size. I would like to look very hip please!
Fun one Rachael, thanks for the little mind break this morning. 🙂
Custom made shoes and bras. And chickens, although I may get those anyway.
Little Cumbrae Island in Scotland, although it was finally sold last year to good people who are making it a yoga retreat and wellness center, soooo I guess I’ll find another island.
PS – In real life I’m getting bantam chickens soon!
Great ideas!
After I take care of the family things:
New eyes (actually even one that works right will do) for DH – he’s legally blind and almost deaf and only 55 years old.
We will buy a boat large enough to live on for a year and travel the seas.
We will have a house on the water in NY and North Carolina.
Mac products (laptop, I pad, etc) to stay in touch.
Home gym and personal trainer, personal shopper to dress up the better body that will result from the gym use. ; )
I will buy 4-5 houses that will have a manager and be loaned to homeless families rent free for a year to allow them to get on their feet.
YAY! Fantasy time- I have already worked this all out:
a personal chef
a gardener
a housekeeper,
and vacations in Europe every year that last for weeks!
It is true that if I didn’t have all this yarn, fabric, and craft books, I could at least afford a personal chef right now…
I know you said buying everyone houses was already covered but this would seriously be my biggest wish– to buy one of the lovely, big new houses being built in my home town that have little bungalows in the backyard (basically a really nice master bedroom, second room, living room and kitchen but all really nice). I’d move my parents into the bungalow and then my mom wouldn’t have to take on all the care-taking burden for my dad but they’d still have autonomy and privacy and I wouldn’t be stuck in this tiny town 2,000+ miles away from them.
I’d also buy a pristine vintage convertible car and diamond earring that would make Oprah jealous and that I would probably never wear because they’d make me feel ridiculous.
So many ideas!
I’d buy a house, a lovely old Victorian style with a screened porch. Hire a housekeeper/cook/maid/landscaper/handyperson, so I don’t have to do anything maintenance-wise.
Buy every book and skein of yarn that catches my eye.
A new car, not sure what kind but likely a convertible.
Perhaps a private plane, so I can visit family whenever I want.
Season tickets to the Bruins, and a car and driver to take me to every game without dealing with parking or the T.
Ohhh, fun thoughts!
Time. I really do have (almost!) enough stuff. What I don’t have is time. I’d buy myself out of the daily grind and spend my days playing – hiking, cycling, playing with my grandchildren, visiting out of town friends and relatives, seeing the beautiful world.
I want a custom loom and spinning wheels – you know like the awesome Golding ones? And of course a house with a studio for my spinning weaving, dyeing and knitting stuff. I’d love to have a compound like place where each of my sisters and children would have their own homes close enough to walk to and far enough away to not hear. A housekeeper, groundskeeper and pool boy would make the dream perfect.
Ooh, chance for a book prize! My favorite kind. 🙂