It's that time of the year again. The days are getting shorter, the nights will soon be getting a little bit cooler, the fireflies are slowly disappearing from our backyard. 

You're probably thinking--"yep, it's back to school time."  But, no. I'm celebrating a whole different time of year. It's the fall shelter mag and catalog season!

These are the weeks where my mailbox slowly fills with lovely bits of paper from Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, and Garnet Hill. I even find the booklets from J.C. Penny's and Frontgate thrilling. They contain my secret fantasies. They're my own version of porn.

Just like some people love their naughty magazines and centerfolds, I love to peruse the perfect curves and admire the peaks and valleys of the various subjects in my catalogs.  The sharp angles of a modern sectional.  The smooth curves of an overstuffed sofa.  The subtle differences in shade and shadow between oatmeal and khaki ultra suede...  Oooooh, I'm getting excited just thinking about it!

While "real" porn shows its viewers the dreamlike potentials of the human body, my catalogs show me the imaginary world that I can inhabit if I just close my eyes.  I can pretend that my 15 year old, half-shredded and abused sofas (that MacGyver and I purchased off the side of the road, and quite literally from the back of a truck, from some slightly disreputable dudes that required cash payment) are really overstuffed, down-filled microfiber piles of loveliness with color coordinating pillows. 

Instead of a scratched armoire holding a 32", 12 year old television (no HDTV here!), and held together with child-safety locks, I can imagine a set of white painted built-in bookcases with a hidden big screen TV and tasteful accessories.  I can pretend, for just a few minutes, that I'm sitting in a beautiful overstuffed chair, wearing a soft pima cotton pajama set from Garnet Hill, watching the Today show on a TV large enough that I can actually read the news scroll underneath (I have terrible eyesight.  Really, really bad.), while drinking a fancy coffee from my Crate and Barrel mug.

But, like all porn, it's just a fantasy.

Reality is me, watching Arthur or Bubble Guppies from my beat-up sofa (where I just found a LEGO mini-man stuffed in the newest rip in the cushions.  Apparently, there was a LEGO-man v. Polly Pocket war going on yesterday, and there were some casualties and MIAs involved.), wearing a set of old pj's from Target (but, to my credit, they are pretty good knock-offs of Soma jammies).  My coffee is being drunk from a BB&T mug (my favorite!) that I got for free from a street fair a few years ago, and it's contents are from Folgers and has been reheated at least three times.  And, for now, this is just fine for me.

That's the nice thing about fantasies.  They're just that.  Fantasies.  While dreaming about a beautifully, tastefully decorated house is lovely and amazing, reality would mean giving up all the fun, and mess, and drama that holds my sweet family together.  I'd never trade the story of how I got my sofas from the side of the road from men that I could barely understand from their thick-southern accents for the story of walking into the mall and placing an order at the register for a sectional with matching pillows.  I like the angst of looking for months (or years) for the perfect coffee table (which, after 15 years of home ownership, I still haven't found).  The drama of agonizing over the price of a kitchen table at a neighbor's garage sale.  The scrimping and saving for the patio furniture, bought on clearance, from a grocery store.  With a coupon, none-the-less!

In my real world, everything has a story.  And the story has never, ever included a phone call to an 800 number or a visit to an internet site to order my furnishings.

While I will probably always love my catalogs and magazines, I'm happy with my not-so-Dwell-inspired surroundings.  You'll never find my house in Architectural Digest.  And, if for some reason I'm lucky enough to be featured in Real Simple, it will be as a "before" not an after.

So, I will enjoy every stolen minute with my pages and centerfolds.  I will carefully clip and rip pictures of my ideas of perfection to put in my white binder of ideas.  I will faithfully enter every

home decorating contest (a $10K Pottery Barn remodel of my living room?  Sign me up!) and keep my fingers crossed.  But, I will love and treasure every rip, snag, and stain of my happy, chaotic life.

And, I realize that if I was ever so lucky to actually own furniture worthy of a magazine spread--it would be torn apart and made into a fort for LEGO men or a stable for My Little Ponies in 30 seconds flat.

And, I wouldn't have it any other way.