"If Barbie is so popular why do you have to buy her friends?"
When I was 8 years old I asked my parents for a Malibu Barbie Dream Home. I was in awe of Barbie & all the fashionable excellence that she exuded & this particular house had a working elevator in which to house all that GLAM. I mean hello who doesn't have a pink elevator in Malibu? It was pretty much all I dreamt about for months. Hoping, praying that I would wake up on Christmas morning to find that glorious pink palace awaiting my ever eager party planning 2nd grader hands.
Ok, so to know anything of my parents you would have to know that such a pink display of materialism & superficiality?? Yeh, not really their style. I would even go so far as to say they were probably horrified, not only at my choice of gift, but also at the thought of having to look at a towering piece of withering pink plastic for many days to come. 
Fast forward to Christmas morning: bleary eyed , barely awake & full speed ahead charging toward the Christmas tree & THERE it stood. My very own 2 story barbie house. A wooden house. An 1800s farm house handcrafted by my parent's own hands. No ordinary 1800s farm house, mind you. This was an every detail thought out with great historical accuracy style farm house. Each piece of furnishing (wood burning stove included) carved by my dad & painstakingly painted to perfection. Every piece of bedding & curtain hand crafted & sewn with love by my mom. Ok, I'm not gonna lie. I was secretly mortified. I mean where would Barbie park her corvette?? In the stables? And what was to become of all those fancy parties I had planned? Where would we hang the disco ball? Okok, I reasoned, she would just have to call up her friends on that hand crank phone on the wall instead of the shiny gold one I had seen in the magazine, it would be ok. It wouldn't be the end of my world. Would it? I could improvise. I mean, I could glam up a butter churn & a wood pile, couldn't I? Ohhh mannn, all I could think was how will I face my friends? WHO will ever want to playdate the girl with the weirdo barbie house with NO ELEVATOR??
And then a funny thing happened, I began to listen as my parents explained, in great detail, all the features of the house & how they had to sneak away to work on it together every night after I would go to bed & how they just knew I was going to discover their fabulous surprise. I will never forget the look of excitement & joy they had in hiding this great secret from me for many months & the sense of immense accomplishment they had for their countless hours of hard work. Right then, at that moment, with the wisdom of an 8 year old, I remember making a conscious decision. I decided to LOVE that house. I was gonna LOVE it no matter what. And I did. Ok, so it was hard in the beginning, but over time I learned that all my friends were actually intrigued by an 1800s farm house. Every friend who visited wanted to know "Did they really have to pump their water from a well?" &"is that really what a refrigerator looked like back then?" & "did your dad really carve this bathtub?" Over the months & the years, I grew to adore that house more than any other thing I owned. And as I watched my friend's plastic palaces begin to fade & wear (even witnessing a barbie elevator breakdown or two) I realized more & more the value of handmade over store bought & I still own every piece of furniture made with love from that house. I plan to pass it on, along with a lesson I learned that day..
Love is always a conscious choice.I choose it.
xo
Birdee Bow
