Life with Martha

So I just got my July Martha Stewart Living, and you know, it's so lovely and so chock full of ideas, and yet I can't quite make the correlation between what I read and see in its pages with things that happen in real life.

Still, it's fun to pretend. You could pretend, for instance, that you might throw a Fourth of July party like they do in the July issue and spend hours tying ribbons into little drink decorations. The fact is, I would enjoy tying ribbons into party decorations. I love that sort of thing, but just thinking about what it would take to make it happen gives me a headache. Let's make a list, shall we?

1. First, you would have to get to the store to buy the ribbon. Take the kids to Michael's and listen to them complain the whole time you're there? Or spend $10 an hour on a babysitter? You decide!

2. Discover that that arts and crafts store you choose to patronize does not have exactly the kind of ribbon you're looking for. So do you spend another 45 minutes driving to another craft store (and hence another $10 bucks for the babysitter, if you've gone the babysitter route) or buy the inferior product? You buy the inferior product, of course, because you are so good at winging it when it comes to arts and crafts projects.

3. Three weeks later, when you finally have time to make your ribbon into lovely drink decorations, you sit down and get to work. Realize that the ribbon you got is twice the width of the ribbon Martha uses for her drink decorations. So you carefully cut your ribbon in half lengthwise. Only you're not that good at cutting, so the ribbon doesn't fall so much in neat halves as in two maniacal zig zags, at which point you have to put the kids to bed.

4. A week before the party, you remind yourself you need to sit down and make those ribbons.

5. Three days before the party, you remind yourself again.

6. The morning of the party you go to the store and buy swizzle sticks with little paper flags attached. Ta da! Decorations for your drinks!

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Now that I'm three issues into my MSL subscription, I have decided to name my house, because, of course, Martha names all of her houses, and if Martha does it, than so shall I. Sadly the names Turkey Hill and Skylands are taken, so I shall call my house Spencer Street Farms, at least for the rest of the summer, at which point I will change my house's name in hopes of fooling people into believing I have more than one house.

And now it is your turn. No matter how humble or homely, whether it be a ranch or a split level, it is time to name your house. Once you do, always refer to your house by its given name. Then, even when the beds are unmade and the drinks are undecorated, you will still feel as though life is grand and it's time to have a party.