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Life in Pictures...

This girl has my heart.

So does this boy.

This crazy silly boy.

This boy who wants to be in his swimwear any time the temp reaches 65 degrees or warmer. Yesterday it was 71. I came home from work to find him in his swimwear, soaking wet from playing with the hose, and huddled up in his towel in the sunshine on the patio, trying to warm up.

Crazy kid.

and this guy? He's pretty cool too. I like him most of the time, but I love him every second.

(I can't figure out why this photo loads sideways or how to correct it!)

I love the flowers in my yard, but I sometimes need some of that color in the house too. These pretty purple irises and yellow sunflowers are brightening my patio right now. I can see them from the dining room table and can really enjoy them while sitting outside soaking in the overdue summery weather!

(again with the photo orientation! It's correct in my files, but when I load it here, the program rotates it)

Last night after a long day for both me and Cliff, we poured some wine and went outside to enjoy the breathtaking orange and purple sunset from our patio. The summer night air was perfect. Cliff had just come home from a 40-hour stint keeping watch over his Dad in the hospital (heart bypass surgery) and was exhausted both physically and emotionally. We got the kids into bed and took some time to connect with eachother and ourselves in the peace and serenity of a warm summer evening. The sun was down, but the sky was still filled with yellow, orange, and purple light. The sky was the exact colors of the flowers I had out on the table. We finished off the Rhubarb Wine with some Rhubarb Crisp and Vanilla Ice Cream. It was the perfect way to unwind. 

This is our sweet, sweet dog Drake. He loves our kids as if they are his own, and I guess in a way they sort of are. He isn't quick or feisty or particularly brave. He still runs and plays like a puppy and he is six years old already. He is the sweetest, kindest soul.

This is our (indoor) cat Moses. He's not allowed outside. See how well he follows the rules? I am 100% sure he would not survive the coyotes, raccoons, possums, or wild cats if he were an outside cat - he just isn't smart enough and he's fat and slow. Although, he has accidentally spent several nights outside over the last year as he is getting more and more brave (stupid) when the door opens and dashes outside nearly every time. He is still alive. Lucky. I wonder how many lives he has left...

This is Stripes. She is (NOT OUR) outdoor cat. She lives in our garage with her four children and their stepfather Drake the dog (see above). Stripes came to live with us nearly a year ago as a kitten. It was never our intention for her to stay, but she did. She had plans. She had plans to have her babies on Cliff's boots on the rug in our garage. Cliff thinks that Drake believes he's the kitten's father. I thought that was a crazy notion since clearly Drake is smart enough to know he is a dog and they are cats. After watching him with them yesterday, I'm beginning to think Cliff is right. 

Love birds?

Drake keeps the kittens in the basket when they try climbing out. Pretty darn cute. He's a good stepdad. Of course, it's possible that he's actually just waiting for one to escape, so he can eat it...   

  

I think this little one is confused. She's hungry. Poor little kitten. I can practically see Drake rolling his eyes. What a sweet guy.



My chartreuse bleeding heart. Love it.

Super-Mom I am not.

I am grouchy today. I'm overtired and I'm feeling sorry for myself... or maybe mad at myself. I'm not sure which. The fact is, I have high expectations for myself, our family, our home, etc. and I feel that I fail at meeting those expectations... every... single... day. So, are my expectations too high or is my motivation and ability too low? Probably a little of both I guess. I expect a lot from my husband and my four-year old too. I expect them to pick up their dirty socks, put away their shoes, put their laundry inside the hamper instead of on the floor next to the hamper, give me some "me" time, etc. But th fact is that we all have different priorities and what one of us defines as important work woudn't necessarily be defined the same way by everyone else.  I get really overwhelmed when things don't go the way I had expected them to and I either burst out in tears or get angry and pout about it.

Lately I feel mean and crabby and I know that the root of all anger is fear. I have been a grouch at home and I think it's because I'm afraid that what feels overwhelming at the moment is not going to go away and I am afraid that I can't resolve it on my own. I am afraid that I am becoming unhappy or creating unhappiness in others. It seems sometimes that I am never satisfied no matter what and I think this is because my expectations are too high. Maybe I look at too many "home" magazines, maybe I read too many blogs and see too many 'perfect' projects on Pinterest. I have awesome kids, a beautiful comfortable home, a dream work-life balance, a supportive husband who works hard and long both at his job and on the farm, a postcard-picture view out of my windows and from my patio, and a really amazing extended family who comes together in times of need and in times of celebration! I really could not ask for more! And yet I let the little things that are undone get to me. I let the messy pile of wood that needs to be split and stacked bother me because when I look at our yard, I see that pile of wood with it's wrinkled up tarp as a big mess instead of letting our beautiful flowers and plants brighten my day or remember the joy that I feel seeing my little guy play on the tire swing out in the yard. Instead of appreciating the good, home-cooked, comfort food I've just made, I feel anxious about the pile of dishes that resulted from making that meal. I see the piles and bags and boxes in our laundry room and cringe because I think our laundry room should look like all of the laundry rooms in the BHG magazine or on Houzz.com. We shouldn't have junk, should we? We shouldn't have things, stuff, clutter. But yet, some of that "stuff" is part of what makes us who we are. Some of that "stuff" makes us smile, brings joy to our lives, reminds us of someone we care about. It seems there is a fine line between allowing your home and your posessions to be a reflection of who you are and allowing the "stuff" to become sources of stress for you.

I find that I'm a bit of a hypocrite... I don't judge anyone else's homes. Yet, I honestly believe everyone else is judging mine. I love walking into a comfy, lived-in house with drawings taped on the walls and blankets strewn about from the morning snuggles or last night's movie, and toys on the rug that show what the kids have been playing with   ...and yet, if someone is coming to my house, I spend HOURS just trying to bring the house to what I think is presentable. I'm not talking a thorough cleaning either. I'm talking just getting the dishes washed or into the dishwasher and getting the week's worth of mail off the kitchen table and picking up the dirty laundry off the bathroom floor and putting the shoes and boots in their bins in the laundry room rather than right in front of the front door. Cliff always says things like "Do you think other people don't have dirty dishes? Do you think other people don't have laundry?" and yet I think that somehow other people manage to have order and cleanliness all the time. So, what is the secret? What am I missing? How do they do it?

We eat macaroni and cheese at least once a week, and McDonald's at least once a week. We have dirty floors 6 1/2 days a week - they're only clean for about 3 hours after I've swept and vacuumed. We can't seem to go more than one day a week without a sink full of dishes. Our mail and paperwork pile up and when I'm in a hurry to clean up the house I shove the pile in the kitchen cabinet to go through it later. All this prep to have someone over and yet no one would come in to my house and think "Wow, it's clean in here". Nope, it is still very lived in. Our laundry/mud room is a disaster. I don't want to live feeling like I'm failing at "wife-hood", at being a grown-up, at parenting. So, how do we "let go" of these ideas that things need to be perfect. They aren't perfect at my house and I am holding on to the thought that they can't really be perfect at everyone else's houses either.

The truth?

THIS was my kitchen island just a few nights ago...

The picture is loading upside down here for some reason even though it's correct on my computer.

Rachel from Finding Joy wrote about the "Perfect Mom Fallacy" recently and it really resonated with me. Am I not the only one that sometimes just sits on the floor and fights tears because I feel defeated? because I feel like I am failing at what I am "supposed to" be doing? Even realizing that I am probably not the only one, I still feel like "I have only two kids. These other Moms have five or seven or eight kids" or "They are homeschooling their kids and so they have a lot more stress." I need to work on being okay with just being what I can be and know that LOVING my kids is the most important. Making fancy art prints for their bedroom walls or sewing curtains for their rooms that match the bedding or the rug wouldn't make me a better Mom.

I think that ALL of us Moms, and Dads, and Adults who don't have children, but still struggle to make life perfect, need to realize that perfect is defined by us. It's what's perfect for us, not for someone else.

(I never finished writing this post, but I'm posting it anyway! Story of my life! Ha! Unfinished...)