the immaculate misconception

A conversation came to my attention the other day.


A conversation between two of my new and somewhat casual friends.


They were talking about how immaculate my house and garden are.

That was the word they used.

Immaculate.

(That noise you hear is the hysterical laughter of every single person who knows me in real life.)


They were wondering how I do it all.


In the end, one of the friends said, "I am such a failure!"


The person telling me about this conversation was very sweetly complimenting me and my house and my garden, and believe you me, I'll take compliments any day of the week.


But. The conversation made me sad. Sad that a friend could think they are even in the failure neighborhood because they can't live up to an illusion.


I am a lot of things, but immaculate is most definitely not one of them. My house never has been and never will be immaculate. Yes, I'll pick up the house when I know someone's stopping by, but drop in unexpectedly, and you're likely to see a different picture.


I am not ever going to win an award for housekeeper of the year. On any given day, you can write your name in the dust on my furniture, and my broom doesn't get used nearly as often as it should. We won't even talk about my bathrooms.


As far as the garden goes, it's full of weeds. Weeds that are ready to go to seed.


I am easily distracted. Right now? Right this very moment? I should be making cookies to send in a care package to my overseas soldier. Homeboy needs some cookies, but instead I'm writing a blog post and that means that I'll be in a huge rush later today to get the package to the post office in time.


I should be editing senior pictures that are due this evening. I should be packing for a trip I'm taking. But instead, I'm blogging.


I should also be doing laundry.

My hubby gets irritated with me on a fairly regular basis, (rightly so), because he has no socks or underwear in his drawers.


I am unorganized. I love to write lists, but more often than not, I lose the list.

I'm a procrastinator. Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow.


Don't get me wrong. I've got plenty of strengths, too. I work very, very well under pressure. I can get so much done when I've got an important deadline on the horizon, it would make your head spin. I'm like a Tasmanian Devil on steroids when push comes to shove. When company is coming, I can get my A-game on with the best of them. A wedding in my back yard? Do. Not. Get. In. My. Way.


But in the day to day, more often than not, I am a hot mess of good intentions, craft project carnage, and empty underwear drawers.


Now, if you find yourself telling me in the comments not to be so hard on myself, you've totally missed the point of this post. I'm not dissing myself in any way, shape or form.

I just wanted to tell you that immaculate perfection isn't real.

But I'm pretty sure you already knew that anyway.

I don't do it all, and I sincerely hope I've never led you to believe that I do. Of course, I have creative control with my blog. I only show pretty pictures of pretty flowers and a neat house. I'm fairly sure you don't want to see pictures of my laundry pile, but rest assured, it exists and it's a big one.

No matter what anyone's life looks like from the outside, no matter how pretty, peaceful or dazzling the photos you see here or anywhere else, real life has always got at least a few bumps and blemishes.


The gauge of life's success or failure is in how you live it, not how it looks.

Happy Monday!