It Was House

This Christmas season has not gone as I had planned. I am ridiculously grateful for the many, many blessings in my life, don't get me wrong...but, boy oh boy has this Christmas season not gone as I had planned. I feel quite certain this is one of those times that God had to remind me, yet again, that I am not in charge.

We have all been just silly about the new house...and I think we all had these pretty Norman Rockwell dreams of what our first Christmas here was going to be like. We discussed all the decorations we would hang and the dinner we would eat sitting at our gigantic "new" dining set...oh my! the things we planned. And a month, a ton of doctor's and dentist's visits, prescriptions not covered by insurance, severe colds, a bladder infection, bulging disks and a thrown-out back, a stomach virus, and a shitload of medical bills later...we have a tree up, we have decided the dining table is too big, and we will be going out for dinner and a movie with our boys on Christmas night.

And you know what? I am ok with that. Yes, I had a moment or two where I was just disgusted that I didn't get to Pinterest my little heart out once again this Christmas, but at the end of the day, it was house.

Our "new" house is my husband's grandparents' houseplace. And we LURVE it. It is an old house, but she has great bones. The house is a nice house...it is spacious and has a great pantry...it has alot going for it. But none of those are the reasons why we love the house so. The house just FEELS like home.

I hope that you are lucky enough to have known the feeling (maybe you are really lucky and you STILL get to feel the feeling) of walking into your grandmother's house. My grandma's house just always felt like home...it was the most comfortable place in my world. Everything was gonna be ok when you were at grandma's house. Everything was perfect there...you didn't have to look or act a certain way...it was ok to eat a second piece of cake, noone was judging...it was just HOME.

That is the feeling in this house. When we walk through the door, everything is just ok, because we are home. It is comfortable. It is perfect.

We still have so much left to do as far as updating and finishing the house...small things like touching up trim and painting and rehanging doors. We have all put in alot of hours together to get it where it is now. Alot of late night, delirious hours...and so "it was house" was born.

My boys and I all get a little silly when we get tired...and at some point during our late night painting sessions, someone started yelling "it was house!" from whatever room they were working in. And all of our minds work the the same, so it was immediately understood that this really meant "ohmygoshthishouseisfantasticandicantbelieveitsreallyours". So, for months we have yelled "It was house" to each other.

I think one reason we get so frantic at Christmas is that it feels like a one shot deal. We have a "season" to cram in all these activities and feelings and our favorite foods and such. What I have finally realized this year is that we should live those feelings all year long...why does Christmas make us feel so good? Because we make candy with our kids and give it as gifts to people? Do we have to wait until Christmas to do that?

Yes, obviously there are alot of "Christmas" things we wouldn't do year round..If you are being ridiculous right now and naming them all in your head, then stop...you know what I mean. It's kinda the same as people who save all their good shit their whole lives waiting for special occasions to use it and then die before they do.

Our Christmas may not have turned out quite the way we planned, but it turned out, and for that I am thankful.

It was home.

Oh the Webs We Weave

It has been sometime since I posted anything. I have had somewhat of a love-hate relationship with this blog. I really like the idea of writing this blog...but notice every time I start a post, I kind of wrestle with myself as I'm writing. I censor myself.
See, the problem with actually DOING a blog, like full on doing it...is that you fling open the doors on all your shit and invite people to come on in, parade around,  observe...and yes, judge.
There was a time in my life when I simply didn't care what people thought of me. Somewhere along the way, I lost that person. I started to care waaaaay too much what people thought of me. I started to censor myself.
Last week, my little family went on a much needed, nothing extravagant vacation. It was fabulous. I was stress free. I was uninhibited. I was uncensored. It was so freeing. So, I brought that me home with me.
I even posted a full body pic of myself from vacation on Facebook. No more cropping myself out of pics because I'm overweight. No more editing tutorial pics so you can't see that after a year, my kitchen cabinets STILL don't have doors on them. I am who I am. We live how we live.
I'll be inviting you into my home in the blog posts to come. I spend a lot of time making things beautiful for other people with my business, so my house looks like a hodge podge of started refinishing, decided I hate it, realized I was trying to please someone else shit right now. I'll be starting in the master bedroom..."before" pics to come. I hope you'll stay tuned!

Failing at Facebook

Well ya’ll, it has been a few months since I wrote a blog post. At first, I was just too busy with all of the holiday hoopla going on. And then when I realized I hadn't written anything in a while, I kind of panicked (because my millions of readers would be wondering what had happened to me, haha)….and I tried…and tried…and tried to bang something out, but nothing would come. In fact, it’s like I have been bound up for months in all areas of communication….and if you know me, you know this isn't me. Anyway, I finally just gave up and quit worrying about it. But good ole’ social media sparked some inspiration a few days ago.

I am not a huge lover of social media. I think it has its selling points as well as its flaws. I don’t look down on anyone else for loving it and using the hell out of it, I have just never been really enthusiastic about it. I use it now, for my little business, more than I ever have before.  I am more of a Facebook creeper than participator.  Although I do enjoy the occasional convo with a long lost pal or friends/family that have moved far away.

With that said….I was scrolling through my feed the other day, and I saw a few of these “movies” that Facebook is making out of your pictures. Let me tell you now that I have about six pictures uploaded to my Facebook page, therefore I did not have a movie. Anyway…I noticed a few of these movies and went on about my business. Later, I scrolled through again, and saw some more. It was at this point that I had this….almost urgency overcome me….the absurd thought actually popped into my head that I somehow needed to “get on the ball”….how had I failed so as a mother that I had not documented every single milestone of my children’s lives on social media????

Seriously…I’m not poking fun or looking down on anyone that DOES post tons of pictures on Facebook…I enjoy looking at all the pictures that my friends post of their families, etc. But it just struck me as such a negative thing that I felt so bad about myself for not having done the same. Do memories exist only if we document them on Instagram or Facebook? Does everyone think I’m a terrible mother that never does anything with my kids because I don’t have any “evidence” of it plastered all over the Internet?

The point I’m trying to make here is how easy it is to get sucked into a vortex of comparison. I have read several posts on Facebook about “fasting” from social media for a while to avoid negativity, etc., so I know this isn't just me. There is so much ugliness in the world today…and I think women are worse than men….we are so judgmental of each other, all in the name of our own insecurities. Life is hard enough, people…be nice to each other!

I think it’s a wonderful thing to be able to connect with each other, to share our lives with people that are far away, to conduct business with people in other towns….but I think these same tools have the potential to breed discontentment or feelings of not being “enough” in our lives.

So….you will likely NOT see a huge increase in the number of pics I’m uploading to my Facebook page….I feel confident that my kids will have plenty of reasons to seek out therapy as adults, but I don’t think this will be one of them :)