the one about how i don't do it all

i've written about it before, and so have many other bloggers, but i sort of feel like it should be re-addressed every so often just to reassure people:

i don't do it all. notevenclose.

a darling blog-friend commented the other day on instagram how i'm her hero. i laughed out loud when i read it, and some of you who know me in real life are laughing right now too. because i know myself and i am no one to aspire to, as far as having it all together or being a supermom or being some amazing example of productivity or wonderfulness.

i think i should do a "day in the life" post soon, just so you can see how crazy life is over here. not organized, not really planned out, not glamorous by any means.

because here's what i don't ever want. i don't ever want anyone to read this blog or read my tweets or look at my photos on instagram or look through my shop and feel less-than or intimidated or envious or not good enough in some particular area. that is NEVER my goal. i want to encourage or inspire or challenge, but never anything else.

because you guys, i'm just a girl trying to survive her day. and i like to throw in a little bit of creativity so that i don't explode, quite literally. some days i feel great about all that i got accomplished and some days i'm an emotional basket-case and can barely see past the poop and the messes and the meltdowns.

i know i'm guilty of this too, though: glamorizing other people's lives and wishing i could pull mine together to have half the grace they do as they blog for thousands of readers and lead huge ministries and plan awesome events and sell thousands of handmade goodies each month from their shops. really, i get why it could seem like my life is glamorous or any different than yours, but i'm just promising you that it's not.

we tend to showcase our most positive aspects of the day, do we not? because honestly, who wants to be around negativity all the time? in real life or online. i like coming online to see pretty things and positive things and wonderful things. if someone is too negative, i stop following. i just don't want it messing with my day. intentionally following a more positive group of people, i can start to feel like everyone else as it all together, so it does help me to understand why anyone might think that about me....

so just in case you thought i had it all together, here's the truth:

i am a terrible house-keeper. i've gotten much better than when i was first married, and now the messiness does begin to bother me after awhile, but i still cannot keep up with bathrooms and baseboards and junk drawers and vacuuming and just general daily life, like dishes. i have piles of stuff everywhere. maybe that's more like an organized mess?

i really try to stay on top of the laundry, but a lot of the time it just doesn't happen until my husband carts it all downstairs so that i can't avoid it. it stares me in the face, and it's his non-confrontational way of telling me "it's time". by the way, i appreciate this, just in case you were about to be annoyed with him for being passive-aggressive :)

i am e.mo.tion.al. with a capital "E", you guys. i can cry at the drop of a hat, and jump to conclusions based on nonsense and silly circumstances faster than you know what hit you. i believe this drives my husband crazy but he does a really good job navigating it with me.

i am terrible at time management. so i will have a hundred tasks going at any given time and when i finally muster up the energy to finish one, it is a huge deal. i live for those random and unexpected spurts of energy :)

i don't have a quiet time every single morning, as some of you may think. now, i NEED a quite time every single morning but it doesn't always happen. i WANT a quiet time every single morning but it's not always feasible. i have been learning to live under Grace during this season of my life as i have two young children. sometimes the baby wakes up three times in a night and i just have to catch that extra 30 minutes of sleep so i don't collapse from exhaustion. sometimes they won't play together nicely and i can't steal those minutes while they're independently entertained. but listen, when it does happen, i relish it, and my day is absolutely glorious because of it. it is nowhere near the same, but i do listen to worship music throughout the day and always in the car, and i do take showers [where all the good praying happens].

i don't have as thriving a business as you might assume, with the amount of time i spend talking about it or promoting sales ow showing you new products, etc. this feels weird to write about because you might think i'm trying to drum up your sympathy, which i'm not. i'm just trying to keep it real with you so that you don't picture me up all night fulfilling orders and designing. i do it when i can, and some days are more work-heavy than others, but most of the time i'm talking about it and showing you new things much more than actually shipping out orders :) i LOVE designing and creating so even if it doesn't pay the bills, i just can't stop doing it, you know? i need to be creative and i need to make pretty things and i need to tell you all about it!

i don't do many playdates. i'm pretty much a hermit. i like being home. i don't like having more than one big thing i have to each day. if we go to dance class, we may grab some lunch but then we come back home. if we have to run errands, i can't throw in a play date that same day. if friends are coming over, we don't run out to the grocery store later that day. i keep myself sane, because it doesn't take much for me to get overwhelmed. plus i just like home. those of you who know me in real life are either rolling your eyes or nodding along. you never see me. i know.

and through all of this normal life going on, i do yell at my kids, i do snap sarcastically at my husband, and i do have emotional breakdowns sometimes. i have my issues, guys. just like everyone else. we all might have different issues, but we all got 'em. the good news is that there are things i do well, things that are awesome about me, and things that you could admire... it's just NOT my ability to juggle a million things and have my life all figured out :) [what's most telling is that you could read this post about this very topic from last year, and some of those things i "didn't do" then, i now do. and some of those things i "did do" then, i don't anymore. crazy how priorities shift and life just happens.]

i just have to add this before i'm done: how thankful, and often flabbergasted i am that God would use someone so scattered and imperfect and often barely afloat like me, to make an impact on even just one person, let alone all of you who are faithful to read and let me know that my words have encouraged you in some way. the times where there's enough pause that He can speak to me, the moments that i can steal away to read His Word: they are like seeds planted, that grow in my heart as the day unfolds and i have time to process. back when i was writing a lot more, those were the things that often became a blog post for you. and that's why i came back. because i just don't want to keep all that to myself anymore. i am so grateful for those of you who have encouraged me, by letting me know i encouraged you. what a beautiful picture of unity and love within the body of Christ, even online.

and now, it's back to my crazy-not-put-together-normal life :) a baby is hungry and a little girl is begging to watch strawberry shortcake for the third time and i have a sink full of dishes and two piles of unfolded laundry strewn over the couch and dinner still to make. [i probably shouldn't let her watch strawberry shortcake for the third time, though, huh?] until next time...