Actually, the house had four kitchens, if you count the showroom one off the back used by the real-estate agents giving tours of the house. My family (including various siblings adopted in the dream and my husband) purchased and moved into this house, amazed by the sheer number of lavishly furnished rooms spread over three floors.

We broke the house in by throwing a party to which we invited all our relatives. As we were all crammed into the middle floor (the top floor was just bedrooms and the bottom floor was . . . well, we just didn’t go down there since the middle floor had the kitchen we were using), it did seem a bit crowded. It seemed especially crowded since for some reason the house was still being shown by those real-estate agents, who immediately started clearing out there stuff once they realized the house was no longer on the market. So much for all that extra food.

I decided that my husband and I should stake a claim to one of the two master bedrooms before everyone’s thoughts turned to bed. Since my parents had already set up in the one on the middle floor, that meant claiming the one downstairs. It was surprisingly chilly downstairs (maybe because my real-life apartment had taken a turn for the cold in the night, I discovered upon waking), and the furniture was not as nice as upstairs. Still, there was an ensuite bathroom with a tub, and that’s what I wanted (no sharing a bathroom with all the siblings, thanks).

We encountered the real-estate agents emptying the downstairs showpiece kitchen of its foodstuffs. It was sad to see all that food go, making the place look less homey, but the kitchen itself looked spectacular. It was much larger than the ones upstairs, taking up about half the floorspace but open to the living area. The trimmings were ornate and beautiful, and of course it had professional-style appliances. I wondered why we weren’t using this kitchen. Still, I was also envisioning this ground floor as our “apartment” within the larger house, so maybe my husband and I would eventually be using it.

I also had dreams about moving, especially cleaning out closets and cleaning out my old classroom. In my dream, though, there weren’t any days set aside for cleaning out classrooms, meaning I had to do it myself quickly after the last day of term ended.