Sigh, if only...

I am a blog stalker, I admit it and I find no shame in it!  I also do not think I am alone!  Often I am inspired by blogs, by people's lives, by projects they share, by thoughts and words that make me think for days!  But sometimes, a blog can bring about feelings that are not so positive. Let me point out, that I do not find this to be the fault of the blogger-nope, only the reader!  See, sometimes I feel jealous!  Sometimes I see something and wonder why that person could have that life and I never will.  For years, I believed it was only a matter of time!  You know how it is, you walk into a beautiful home, decked out from top to bottom and you think "someday, I'm going to have a house like this."  But, the closer I get to 40, the more I realize that there aren't as many "somedays" ahead.  Don't get me wrong, I fully plan to live to 100, but I guess by this age, you just realize that you are who you are and the life you have is pretty much how its going to be for the rest of your life.  I'm sure that sounds depressing, but I dont' mean it that way! I really do love my life!  That's why I don't like feeling jealous when I come across someone's blog and peer into their seemingly perfect life!  I'm sure their life isn't perfect, but a blog can hide a lot!  And I don't like feeling inadequate or that I've cut myself short!  I guess there will always be a part of me that dreams and wishes that I had the type of life that would appear on the cover of Pottery Barn!  But I don't.  Let me show you the blog, I'm referring to.  Oh, but wait, first I need to give a disclaimer!  I love her blog!  She is a great writer, seems very sweet and I love the things she shares!  I have never met her, but she is married to a guy I went to high school with.  The kind of guy that seemed perfect!  Star of the football team, homecoming king, etc. The kind of guy that would never give a girl like me a second glance, and that's okay!  By 40, I'm getting better at being okay with those things!  So, here is his wife's blog and a tour into their home:

See Jane Blog

Isn't her home lovely?  Aren't her decorations perfect and exquisite and belong in a magazine?  How do real people pull that off?  I mean, really!  Even if I knew how to decorate like that, do you have any idea what my kids would do to those decorations in a matter of minutes?  Let's just say that I will stick to stalking her blog and not taking my kids over to their house!  None of us need to answer that question!

Let me give you a brief description of my house at Christmas and maybe when I decorate (after Thanksgiving) I'll even take pictures. But they won't look anything like that!  The first thing you'll see, at my house, will be christmas lights, half thrown over my small trees and bushes, because I will have left that job up to my boys (13 and 11).  It won't be because I'm incapable, but because I think it is good for them to learn!  Half of the lights won't work because they will have not heard me give the instructions to check them before stringing them.  Inside my house, the garland that I would have wrapped so cute around my staircase will instead be in a pile on the floor, because one of the children would rather wrap it around a sibling, or themselves and the floor was the best spot when they were done!  The tree will be filled with mismatched ornaments from construction paper to felt to salt dough, mingled with some I have bought here and there and have survived the yearly breakings.  I do have a beautiful Christmas village that sits unharmed on top of my cabinets in the kitchen!  These were collected over the years, as my sweet husband bought me one more piece, each anniversary.  We were married on December 2nd, and when we were super poor students, this was the best anniversary gift we could come up with.  My little village isn't from Pottery Barn or Williams and Sonoma, nope, it was bought at Wal-mart, piece by piece!  And I wouldn't trade it for anything!  And for anyone who visits me in July, they can see that village then too, because more often than not, I forget to put it away until I realize it would only be time to pull it out again!

I won't bore you with the rest of the descriptions, I guess what I'm getting at, is that I would love to have a meticulous house with decorations that would be the envy of the neighborhood (or blogging community), but I don't know that it is me.  I don't know that the sacrifice to make that happen would be worth it to me.  See, I'm kind of fond of the fingerprints my children leave on everything and I have no desire to change it (okay, well, maybe a twinge or I wouldn't have felt jealous) but I have a mommy house with lots of messes and stained carpet and chipped walls.  And I never plan for it to change!  See, when my kids are grown and I have my house to myself, then I want it to be a grandma house, a place that no one ever has to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome.  And I guess, I'll spend my whole life (the next 61 and a half years of it) loving the people who walk in the door or peek in from blogland and hopefully, somewhere along the way, I will stop wishing (even if for a moment) that my house looked like someone elses!

"Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he has been robbed. The fact is that most putts don’t drop, most beef is tough, most children grow up to be just like people, most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration, and most jobs are more often dull than otherwise...Life is just like an old time rail journey ... delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride." -- Gordon B. Hinckley


Here is the piece for today!

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