Showing You My Ugly

Julia posted a few days ago that she'd had a very un-Pinterest-worthy day.

Boy, do I know what she means.

There are days when the clean dishes don't get put away until after lunch, and the dirty dishes don't make it to the dishwasher until supper.  The clean laundry threatens to break the backs of the dining room chairs, as it awaits folding and putting away.  The girls' toys didn't get put away properly the day before, and they've strewn every plastic dish, every block, and every piece of dress-up garb all over the first floor.

I don't tend to blog about those things.  That's just the way things go sometimes, part of life with little kids, I suspect.  And I feel a little bit guilty about that from time to time, that I mostly show the pretties...the clever things our girls say and do...brilliant light bulb moments I've had as a parent...pretty artwork...newly-organized play spaces.

Every week Julia hosts a great link-up, called "Mama Loves", an opportunity to showcase tips and tricks that make our lives easier...maybe even the subject of Pinterest envy.

This week, Julia is daring us to link up our "real lives".  I know we all have them, we just don't always show them.  I've been inspired...seeing photographic proof that other folks' dishes also pile up...that not everyone has a brilliant color-coded laundry center in which they press and fold each piece of laundry immediately as it comes from the dryer...that other children also find it necessary to pull out every.single.toy they own.

I wasn't brave enough to take you on a full tour of the house (that would certainly have resulted in a too-long blog post), but here's a snapshot of one of the things that drives me C-r-A-z-Y...my kitchen counter.

This is the area to the right of my stove.  I always have two knife blocks, napkins, salt and pepper mills, olive oil, and a few bottles of wine.  I'm OK with that.

On the wall to the left of the refrigerator, I have a two-tier basket with fruit, and usually a couple of loaves of bread beside that.  I have my stand mixer, and a bread box, as well [which is full of pictures and electronic chargers...but that's another post!].  I'm OK with that.

It's the enormous pile of craft supplies and school projects that were giving me the major heebie-jeebies.



Since I took this picture on Monday, I'm proud to report that that counter space is clear.  I put my craft supplies away in the upstairs bedroom (which had to wait until the girls were in school).  The school projects, though?  Those have been stashed in the pantry.

I guess the next logical step would be for me to take a picture of the stack o' stuff in the pantry, right?  I just don't have the energy, though...it's depressing!

I say all this to say, there's always SOMETHING.  When my counters are gloriously clean...that means there's something, somewhere else.  There's only so much space...only so much time...only so much energy.

When I'm caught up on laundry, that probably means I didn't have time to sort the mail.  When all the paper is filed, that probably means the laundry looms.

While there are occasions that threatens to make me scream...or cry...or run away...I mostly just accept it's part of the package deal these days.  We all do the best we can.  And it's all relative.

But it is refreshing to remind ourselves everybody juggles the day-to-day in some form or fashion...and to occasionally giggle at each others' messes.  :)

Hop on over to Julia's blog to check out other slices of "real life".  I found it quite therapeutic, myself!