It’s been brought to my attention that this blog has been woefully silent the past few months, but we’ve been busy–the good kind of busy. The kind of busy that’s made up of play, laughter, food, fun, family, vacation, exploring, learning, growing, improving…you know, living. And as often as I tell myself, “I need to blog about this,” I’ve obviously too often ignored or postponed that thought and gone on with living.
But I’m going to try to do better, because there’s so much going on now that I don’t want to forget. Little ones on the verge of bigger and better things, who tomorrow may just move on so that life as we know it, today and right now, will never be the same again. But it’s the living of today that I want to remember.
Honestly, though, there’s one big thing holding me back from doing things I love, like blogging, more often: my house. I know, sounds weird and completely illogical. But here’s a little window into the inner workings of my mind and the goings on of my life…
When we moved into this house 4 years ago, Sean was just 2 months old and being new parents, we didn’t think about how quickly time moves once you start a family. So we set up house for how it worked for us at that time, with no thought at all of how it might need to work for us a year or two later. And we’ve been paying for that lack of foresight ever since. Once Ben was born it became quickly evident that a major rearranging was in order–we needed our third bedroom to be used as, well, a bedroom, which meant the guest room/my office needed to be moved downstairs, which meant Chris’s office needed to be moved out of the house altogether. But it wasn’t long after all that was finished, that Jonathan was on the way and last year’s waterproofing happened, which started another round of upheaval from which we are still recovering. It didn’t take us long (okay, maybe kind of long–we did have a newborn, after all, and I wasn’t much help for a few months) to get our major rooms put back together and in order, but those hidden ones, namely the office, storage room and garage–that’s another matter entirely. They’re the dark underbelly of this thing we call “home.” And it’s that dark underbelly that’s holding me back from being a free woman.
Chris and I both suffer from a bad case of “good enough” when it comes to finishing major projects, and on top of that, I’m also a recovering perfectionist, trying to get over the idea that if I can’t do something perfectly in one fell swoop, I might as well not even start. So you can imagine the difficulty we have in following through on finishing those rooms, as important as it really is to do just that. And for me, it really is important, vitally important. I don’t function well in the midst of chaos and disorganization. I need to have things organized from the inside-out so there’s no doubt of where everything belongs. But it’s the getting to that point, especially when there’s such a big elephant to eat before getting there, that’s the issue. And until I eat that elephant, I tell myself that there’s no point in taking the time to do the things I love, like blogging and reading and writing and taking pictures and learning to sew and baking and…and…and. I want to do those things, really, but there’s this great big fat elephant in my way. And in my peanut-brained little mind, I’ve got to eat that elephant before everything else can fall into place.
Which is where the “recovery” part of my perfectionism comes into play. I’ve finally convinced myself of, and have even begun to follow through on the idea that doing something is better than nothing. I do have three children, after all, and there’s absolutely no way that I’ll be able to dedicate an entire day to cleaning out and organizing even half of one room, much less an entire one, as much as my perfectionist mind would like to tell me otherwise. So I simply have to do this thing one tiny little bit at a time and know that I will, eventually, one day, have my house completely in order the way I need it. But, man, that day seems a long way off. Think I can be done by August? Ha.
Great post! Love the picture! So are you telling me that I can't wait until I have two completely free weeks to clean/organize the house to do so? I've just got to jump in there and chip away at whatever I can? Hmmm . . . okay, but I do have to wait until after the Texas kids are here! I've so enjoyed all the new pictures of your boys that were taken when you were here. Precious!
yes, mom, you're a perfectionist too, but i'm not so sure you're recovering. 🙂
Sweet picture. Great post.
I struggle with this too — keep meaning to write down all the little stuff about the kids and I fall woefully on my face. Erg!