thoughts on the emotional importance to me of dollhouses (and architecture...)

I've been thinking about how I might feel about letting my dollhouse go out on long term loan *if* I can find someone who will treat it with extreme, extreme, extreme care and love. (I love that dollhouse. I'm probably way too attached to it, but it was *extremely* important to me growing up, and I'd be heartbroken if anything happened to it or any of its furniture or (especially) dolls. But I also want it to be loved and enjoyed, and if we end up moving somewhere with no space for it, which is likely, it doesn't seem right for it to sit in storage.)

But letting someone borrow it is sort of like letting someone have a piece of my dreams and imagination and childhood in safekeeping for me. (Which I am only really realizing as I write this.) I was given the dollhouse when I was ten and treated it with extreme delicacy and built furniture for it (and was given lots by my indulgent father) and created increasingly elaborate physical environments (and from that, lives) for the dolls. It was a way of creating a different world to live in, a similar but not similar world that made more sense to me than the one I lived in, and one over which I had more control (much like how designing houses in my head was, and still is sometimes.)

Architecture has always been sociology and fantasy to me as much as anything, anyway. Now I also have lots of interest in architecture that isn't so much about that, just pure joy in forms and how things fit togther as parts and wholes, but the element of sociology, and to some degree fantasy, usually remains too. (I wonder if it does for professional architects to some degree. Do they imagine how people will live, work, etc. in the spaces they design, (I would imagine the good ones must to some degree) or is it all just the beauty and fascination of the forms themselves?)

things to give away... and a request to borrow plants

(This is the entry I originally set out to write, before being distracted by dollhouse/architecture ramblings...)

Next Sunday, the 18th, we have the open house for selling our house.

This means things must go before then. Mostly right now we are just giving away small pieces of random cruft (books, board games, a couple toddler toys, extra towels and oven mitts, some of the dozen or so bottles of lavender lotion I seem to have acquired and immediately stuffed in a closet, some fabric for patching (ie partially worn out jeans from the last five years I will never get around to mending) possibly some redundant kitchen stuff, etc.)

If no one wants them, we will probably just donate them somewhere, but anyone at our house for OPN (which mostly likely will be at our house this week) is encouraged to pick through the giveaway box and ask if there is more.

Eventually, when we know where we are moving, I will make floor plans, spend some time arranging and re-arranging furniture in my head, and then have lots of furniture that doesn't fit to give away. (And *possibly* a dollhouse to live for a while in a good home. See previous post.)

Meanwhile, we would love to borrow some plants to put on our backyard deck for the open house, if anyone has any they are willing to lend us for a couple of days. (And maybe even a little longer if it takes a while to actually get a useful offer on the house.)