Beautiful Visions

Usually when I see old buildings like this one my imagination runs wild. I fantasize about buying the place, fixing it up (I'd start with that balcony!), modernizing it in all the right ways, relishing the details of my own piece of history. In my imagination, simply living in a place like this would put me in a state of unending joy. I see myself happily doing all the boring day-to-day stuff of life because I get to do it in a rare gem of a home.

It's one part fantasy and one part theory--fantasy being that life is never as beautiful as the creations of my imagination. It's fun to get lost in my own beautiful visions, but they're just that--visions.  And then there's the theory, which is that if my surroundings were beautiful enough, clipping my daughter's toenails would be become beautiful also. Now if only I could turn this fantasy into reality and test that theory. . . .