I was going to write about guest rooms. You know: how to make your holiday visitors feel extra welcome?
But then I realized that a blog post like that would result in a big fat TO DO list. (Is there a trash can in there? I should get a docking station. We need little travel-sized toothpastes and shampoos…and I should shove my out-of-season clothes aside to make some hanging space…)
See what I mean? My blood pressure went up just writing that.
I don’t want to add to your holiday stress, Gentle Readers.
Instead, let me introduce you to bossy color’s brand-new mascot: Jasper.
That’s the humane society’s mugshot that made me fall in love with him. Frankly, I don’t know how they got him to sit still long enough to take it. My pictures end up looking like this:
In our relentless pursuit of gender neutrality, we’ve decided we can call him a Bossette, which brings our grand total to four.
My husband John and I knew that we wanted a dog in theory, but we know they’re a ton of work: a dog is another kid, really. And we wanted to do it right. Training, crating…all that time-consuming stuff that wasn’t invented when we grew up ;) We just didn’t know if this was the right time.
And then, a few weeks ago, one of our daughters stepped up her “We MUST Have a Dog” campaign. She started leaving pictures from her “dog a day” calendar in the most unlikely places.
Taped to the TV. On my lampshade. (That one reads, “Whoever said you can’t buy happiness forgot about little puppies.”)
In the fridge. In a bag of chips. And yes, in my husband’s sock drawer.
And then, the piece de resistance. On John’s pillow, she left a reindeer Christmas tree ornament with a sign around its neck:
(That’s a picture of my friend’s dog, Otis.)
Sigh. So despite John’s and my thinking that it wasn’t the right time for us to get a dog, we went for it.
Turns out that having a puppy is just like having a baby in that there’s never a good time.
But you know what that means? There’s never a bad time, either.
Happy holidays, everyone.
Quoted most recently in The Wall Street Journal and on Washingtonian.com, Annie Elliott is an expert in curated interiors, brilliant color palettes, and telling busy people what to do in the nicest way possible.