Lived In

This weekend I uttered a sentence that nearly knocked Matt over. "Our house is messy today, but I kind of like it. It's cozy."

 

I am a neatnik at heart. Matt teases me all the time about my hyberbole when it comes to the state of our home: "The house is a total disaster!" He throws away a piece of junk mail and runs the vacuum. "Phew, the house looks so much better!"

 

When I started this blog, I had spent a lot of time watching shows on HGTV, and lurking on design blogs like www.younghouselove.com. I thought this would inspire me to fix up our condo and address some of the nagging issues that have been bothering me. And I did do some things: We've been making over our bedroom (a post is still to come on that), and we painted our fireplace, which really gave the whole living space a fresh, new look. But these blogs and TV shows - and even my OWN blog - have made me feel inadequate more than they've made me feel good about our house. Because right now, our house is messy. Which means I don't want to blog, because I don't feel the condo is photo-worthy. And I just feel sad and depressed that my house doesn't look clean and organized like the houses I see online, on TV and in magazines.

 

But there's no denying that the house is just going to be a little disheveled in the foreseeable future. We have a one year old, whose favorite game is throwing anything he can get his hands on into the bathtub. And eating Chex out of a snack trap, and then waving the crumbs at the cats. And pulling out every toy he owns, only to play for the rest of the afternoon with a box of disposable lens cleaners.

 

So yesterday, I was assessing the state of our bedroom. The bed was made, with our wonderful new linens, but there was a pile of laundry waiting to be put away, and a cat napping next to it. Hovering on the ceiling was a Thomas the Tank Engine balloon. On the bedside table was a car shaped like an alligator. A pink bouncy ball was on our dresser.

 

But outside it was sprinkling, and inside the radio was playing softly in the living room, a chicken was roasting in the crockpot in the kitchen, and Matt and Sebastian were reading a story in his nursery chair. It was Sunday afternoon, we had no where to go, and no one was coming over. We could just be in our space - burrow in and take naps, eat dinner, snuggle and watch DVDs. My house is never going to be picture-perfect. But it is full of life and happiness.