(Not) Doing it all

Every once and awhile I like to pause and show you the “real” around here. Sometimes I show you in pictures, but today I also want to tell you how very much I don’t have it all together. :)

I’ve mentioned a few times that our house rarely looks perfect. OK, let’s make that never. Well, OK, maybe about five minutes before a party, but that’s it. So that would amount to about 15 minutes a year.

Fifteen minutes a year, it looks pretty darn fantastic. ;)

But the other 525,585 thousand minutes it’s just…normal. I’ve shown you our normal:

Uhhh…you don’t have a toilet seat sitting in your bedroom?

I was sitting in the office working on bills today, and this was my view:

Not awful, cause there’s a cute Bub smiling at me. ;) Just normal. This is actually pretty clean, really. The floor is cleared enough for us to walk through the family room.

What you can’t really see are the cluttered countertops, the island covered in shopping bags I haven’t emptied, two in-between projects on the windowsill (where else would I keep them?), the coffee table covered with toys and a pizza box. You can’t see the damaged spot on the floor, the messed up drywall on the ceiling from a leak in an upstairs bathroom.

I wanted to write this today because I neverevereverNEVER want anyone who visits this blog to leave feeling inadequate – that breaks my heart. But I certainly understand it -- even I read blogs and feel that green monster raising it’s ugly head. I wonder if the house is always that clean, the toys are always put away. How she does it all, with more kids, a bigger house, a full time job. And I’m lucky to keep one room completely clean for a day.

I’m here to inspire. I want to show you how you can transform your home and make it your haven. But I want to be real about it at the same time. Of course, I chuck the stuff out of pictures – and that’s just because I figure most of the time, you want to see pretty, not cluttery.

But beyond the not-always-perfect-house, I wanted to let you all know that there are so, so, SO many days where I feel like I am barely keeping my head above water – trying to do it all. Keeping the house picked up, let alone clean. Dealing with five animals – a fish, three cats and a puppy. Being a good Mom, an attentive wife, a supportive friend. And trying to post as much as possible here on my beloved blog, which has become my business. (Best. job. ever.)

At least once a week, I feel like an bad friend because I haven’t returned an email or a text or a phone call fast enough. There are days I walk into our house and just feel completely overwhelmed with all that needs to be done. Some days I wonder how it’s possible, as a stay-at-home Mom, I can’t keep our home and lives perfectly perfect all the time.

And then I’ll realize, yet again…dear LORD, it’s normal. As much as I want to do more projects and post more than I do, I choose not to. I don’t do it all – I don’t want to do it all. I crave a better balance in my life, but I’m guessing, hoping, praying this is normal? All mom’s feel that way at times, right?

But when I say I wouldn’t have it any other way, I truly mean it. Our sometimes messy home means I have a sweet four-year-old running around. It means I take time away from cleaning to work on a DIY project – my passion. It means I get to blog and share and write and (hopefully) inspire…as I am doing right now, with my feet propped up next to the pizza box on the coffee table. ;)

So I guess I just wanted to take a minute to say, I don’t do it all,  and sometimes I feel like I really stink at what I do do. :) But I love my life, all of it’s imperfections and messes. I’m just so completely happy to be doing what I’m doing. With the people I’m doing it with – including you all.

I wanted to let you know that. I never want you to think I’m capable of doing any more than you can do. I just show you the pretty more often than not, because for the most part, I like to see pretty on blogs and magazines and TV. I’ve got enough of the real at home. ;)

But I will keep showing you the messes here and there, cause it’s the truth. We’ve got the pretty and not-so-pretty around here, just like every home. :)

And I luuuurve it!!