Getting Real

I am a real person. A picture of my Master Bedroom is proof:



I'd better explain. I have just been reading a home decorating magazine. In these magazines, you see people with immaculate homes precisely decorated and full of things that are really nifty, but extremely expensive. All owned by people who they make sound like regular, every-day sort of Americans. They look pretty normal, too, like they could be your neighbors. If they have children, they are crisply dressed in stylish, stain-free clothing with artistically touseled hair, holding puppy dogs so they can look like they're real.

They're not real.

Any mother of three small children knows you will kill yourself if you hold Better Homes and Gardens as your homemaking standard. As I was reading this magazine today, I thought, "This is what's wrong with our culture. We think our houses are all supposed to look like this. And they don't. And we feel bad. And we shouldn't." Because I'm a real person, with real children, and real life is messy.

I am trying to decorate my house beautifully. In fact, the next thing on my to-do list for this week is to hang some curtains I bought on ebay. But it's not just getting the house looking cute to begin with, it's the fact that when you actually live a real life in a real house there is maple syrup on your coordinating pillows.

So, as I set the magazine down, I thought about my blog. I thought, "how nice that I have a place where I can write about my Real life." Like my recent post about the best and worst of my yard. Yes, my roses were beautiful. But there were dead spots on my lawn. Now the dead spots are filling in (yay!) but the pigweed has come back full force.

Therefore, if you are tired of reading articles about perfect people in perfect houses, I invite you to frequent this blog, where you will see both the beautiful and the ugly and always the real.

And hopefully you will feel a little better about yourself.

There is an ironing board in my Master Suite. And an un-designer portacrib. And sewing projects that need to be put away because too many days go by where I don't have time to sew. And I haven't yet had time to do a thing with my walls or windows or anything.

Someday my Master Suite is going to be a romantic, Pre-Raphaelite-style retreat.

But there will still probably be pajama bottoms on the floor.