The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. - Eleanor Roosevelt

When Mrs. Roosevelt spoke those words, I'm fairly certain that she didn't have me in mind since, you know, I like, wasn't even born then. But darn it if my dreams weren't beautiful, albeit strange last night. I also don't know if nighttime escapes into alterworlds was what she had in mind, but I'll apply it here.

I don't remember all of them, of course, because I don't keep a dream notebook right next to me on my nightstand...first thing I do when I wake is get up to pee, not write (proof that I'm not truly a writer, that I just play one on tv). The parts I remember, however odd, were magnificently beautiful...the kind of beautiful that I can't describe to you through words (hey, I said I'm not a writer!). My family was on a farm somewhere. There were no animals, and I think we were trying to buy the land? Or had just bought it maybe? No one ever said dreams had to be clear. So we were all walking around this huge piece of land, and there were other homes on it as well, that belonged to us, but weren't livable. At least that's what we were being told by the host of our tour of the grounds (Real estate agent? Friend?). We still went inside these dwellings, and in one of them, we found 5 pairs of shoes...enough for our whole family. They were really weird shoes, made of some kind of leathery-looking material, but they were shaped really funny. Everyone put theirs on except me, and one of the kids knew exactly what they were when we were trying to decide what they were made of (and these weren't Nike type shoes, so I don't know how they knew). I had slippers on already, and although I don't remember the rest of my family going barefoot before the great shoe finding, there were no other shoes left on the floor when we left the building, so they must've been.

There were no animals on this farm, and no vegetation that I remember (meaning it wasn't a crop farm either). It had beautiful trees and shrubs and fields. We finally walked to the edge of the property, there was a road, and the town was on the other side of the road...right there. My grandmother lived in a house in town, so we went there. Oh no wait, first we went through a house that was having some sort of estate sale, but it was an old-timey house, and she had things like spools of thread and antique kitchen gadgets. I remember finding a boatload of original Hardy Boys books for BBM, and I tried to call him on my cell phone (I don't know where he'd gone by that time), and I couldn't get through, so I bought them all so no one else would get to them first. Then we went to Oma's house, and we walked in and went to the other side of the house where she was, and it was her kitchen. But her kithen wasn't really part of the house...it was like someone had knocked out a wall, and built another room on, but the walls of the kitchen were made of this fabric/plastic stuff. And no one seemed to mind at all. Oma was also the same age as she is now, but she was moving around like I remember her doing when I was little and she was younger.

I have no idea what any of this dream means. Maybe it doesn't mean anything. Maybe it means I want a new house. Maybe it means my kids need new shoes. Maybe it means that I had too much cheese on my grilled cheese sandwich last night. Nonetheless, I like waking to at least remember that I had a dream...remembering what the dream was about is just a bonus!

My dad arrives from MN today, sometime. He's not much of a scheduler, so we don't really know when he'll be here (original plans had him here late yesterday night). I'm not sure how long he's staying, but the visit will be nice. I think we have plans to do as much little stuff around the house as we can. The Master Bathroom is high on his list, hoping to get at least a working bathroom back in order...I'd much rather have to stomp sleepily into a bathroom attached to our bedroom in the middle of the night instead of tripping over everything to go out into the hallway. Plus once I open the door, Dexter the Attack Cat wants in, and I just can't handle him sleeping on me now...TOO. HOT.

So, until next time, pay attention to your dreams. They allow you to escape into a world where things can "happen"...some may be beautiful, some may be ugly, some may serve no viable purpose at all. Maybe you'll be allowed to sneak a peak into your grandmother's plastic-covered kitchen once in awhile...