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How to Be Queen of Your House

By Sarah Lambert

Being queen of your house means being organized. It means knowing what is here, there, and everywhere. If you have lying about any pens, pencils, paper, pads of paper, notebooks, bicycles, tap shoes, library books, paintbrushes, sheet music, baking mitts, ballet shoes, or (say it not!) glitter scattered about your home, it is time you realized that you are simply not living up to your potential as queen (and probably overusing that poor pea-brained head of yours). Not to worry.

The key is dominion. Gather all the items of similar kinds into boxes so that they may may enjoy each other's company. This goes for raisins, toothbrushes, nailpolish remover, floss, toenail clippers, yarn, sculptures, power tools, pekingeses, and small children.

If you have lace, for example, make sure to group like textures, colors, sizes, thread-counts, and years of fabrication. If you are keeping fish, make sure that they are all the same color, unless they are black or white. In this case, it is safe to add a hint of color, but be careful not to do overdo it. You are a queen, not a mad scientist.

An irksome disposition in an animal may be overlooked, but a mismatched dog will never fit into an otherwise well-coordinated home. If you absolutely must buy the dog despite its dreadfully off-color fur, it will be necessary to reupholster the furniture and rug and to purchase new paintings and wallpaper. If you are acquiring a Dalmatian, you may want to go for the classic and very chic firehouse look. This will require demolishing your old house and rebuilding it with vintage bricks from an actual mid-nineteenth century station in rural New England, but the look is well worth the trouble and expense. If your dog proves to be mortal, too, as so many canines are, and you must refurbish your home once again, think about the message you want it to convey. Do you want to be seen as modest, polite, old-fashioned or refined? Of course not. You are the queen, and this time, the house is going to be about you.

Please, though, do smother any inclination you may have to express who you "really are," since the delusion that you actually possess a unique self will lead you far afield, hither and yon. Pure style is found not in "self-expression," but rather in selecting from designs created by someone else. From their studies of magazines, visiting ladies will know that you have excellent taste because you have bought into someone else's idea of what a home should be. Hurray for you!

If your boxes get out of order, rearrange them. Put labels on them so that you can line them up alphabetically. For instance, make sure that you have boxes for your lace. The velvet lace goes in a box labelled, "velvet lace." That goes in the "v" section. Put the black lace in a box labelled, "black lace." That will go in the "b" section, right after the "a"s.

If you have black velvet lace, that will need to go in both the "velvet lace" and the "black lace" categories. This is quite simple to do. Put the black velvet lace In the "velvet lace" box. Then, in the "black lace" box, put a cross-reference card. (An index card will do fine-get it out from the box labelled "index cards" from the boxes on your desk. You may want to cut it down to size with scissors-under "s" in the boxes on your desk.) On the card, write (with a pen, dear, from the box labelled "p"), a note that says, "velvet lace-- see also black lace." It's really quite simple. Stop scratching your nose-it ruins your complexion, you know. What? Time for sewing? Oh come now-you're a queen, not a seamstress.

©2005 Sarah Lambert

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Lambert lives in San Francisco. This is her first attempt at writing for Happy Woman Magazine.