Perspective: Pinterestful, not Perfect

Dear Reader(s),

You're still with me!  I got to thinking last night about how so many pins link to pages and blogs where the women (mostly) seem to have everything together.  They are financial wizards who stay at home and take loving care of their 5 kids while making cupcakes every other week for the neighborhood school.

I am not that woman.  I work full time, my husband works full time, and we are working our way out of debt from our not-so-financially-savvy 20s.  We have one child, and at one time had 4 dogs.  This year we lost two, so we now have a "normal" sized pack of animals.  Or at least one that's acceptable to my in-laws :)

Some days, I feel like I've got it all together.  I'll make 3 square meals at home without having to go to the grocery store or make a last minute substitution; I'll mow the backyard with my handpush mower; I'll get all the laundry washed, dried, folded, AND put away; I'll even do something artsy with my son, Jack; I might even go for a walk to get some exercise.  But let's be clear - these are RARE days.  Treasured, rare, exceptional days.  They usually take place on Saturdays, and then I'll end up spending all of Sunday in a comatose state to recover.

But I do love those days, and one of the goals of this blog to get me motivated to have more of them.  "More doing," as Home Depot might say.  I have far from a magazine spread, picture perfect home - as you will see shortly.

Let me back up a bit though.  Just so there's some perspective to these revealing photos.  When my husband and I married, almost 3 years ago, we were living in a suburb that required me to make an hour long commute to anywhere that offered a reasonable salary, and to see my family.  A little over a year into our marriage, and shortly after Jack was born, my husband got a new job that was also nearly an hour away for him.  It just wasn't making sense to stay in the house we were in.  So we moved.

We moved from a nearly 3000 square foot, 4 bedroom, 3 bath, 3 living area, 2 car garage house with a huge backyard to a 1500 square foot, 3 bedroom, 2 (shoebox) bath, 1 living area, 1 car garage house with a modest backyard.

We cut our living space in half, after growing our family.  Let that sink in for a minute.  Donations were made, garage sales were had, and the Great Purge is still our on-going project.  So, as proof that I'm not perfect, and neither is my house, behold:

The "Office" - aka the "put it in there" room

Master Closet - notice the complete lack organization, other than pants on bottom, shirts on top

Jack's Closet - another "put it there for now" space

Storage Shelf - just so you don't think everything is behind a potentially closed door, this is in our living room

And for those who look closely, you will find that my household is a nerdy one.  You may have noticed the Star Wars lunchbox or Master Chief's helmut in the "office," a Hufflepuff scarf tucked away in my closet, or perhaps the Portal companion cube and TARDIS cookie jars in our living room.  We are equal opportunity geeks/nerds.

So that's it for today.  No storage solution attempts, no glamorous before and after, just an honest down-to-earth look at a real-life working mom's house.

Thanks for reading!
~Beth