Money Saving Mom®

“If most of us stopped to examine the expectations we set for ourselves, we would discover that our concept of perfection is so unrealistic that it can’t exist in one person. Instead, its a combination of pieces or snippets of what’s perceived as perfect. We don’t just want to be good at what we do, we want to be perfect–we want to edit together all the best clips of what we see to form our lives.”

Brene Brown, page 174, I Thought It Was Just Me But It Wasn’t

Last week, I brought you all into our home for the Clean Your Home for Christmas Challenge. I showed you my messy drawers, my unpacked suitcases, my untidy closets, and gave you a peek into real-life here.

Truthfully, I wasn’t sure how those posts would be taken. It’s always a little intimidating to press publish on posts that are far from perfect.

You know you’re going to disappoint some people. And as a recovering people-pleaser, that’s hard for me to voluntarily do.

But can I be really honest with you? Letting you into our home — to see the underbelly, as it were, of our lives — was so freeing for me.

Again and again, women commented and said, “Thank you for being real. It’s so good to know I’m not alone.”

You’re Not Alone

The messes, the fact that I don’t hit all my goals, the unkempt closets, the suitcases that don’t get unpacked for months… they all bear witness to the fact that I’m a work in progress just like you.

I hope that it encourages you to know that I don’t have my ducks in an alphabetical row. Far from it. I deal with have stuff bombs and dust bunnies and bad hair days, just like you.

In this online world beaming with Pinterest-staged pictures, it’s easy to start feeling like we’re the only one who has laundry piles, unwashed dishes, and sticky countertops.

We can be tempted to try to photoshop out the messes, slap on plastic smiles, and pretend we don’t have some ugly, messy, or struggles in our life and home.

But that’s not real life.

We All Have Struggles

I tried being a people-pleaser for years. And let me tell you this: not only is it completely exhausting, it’s lonely.

I’ve discovered it’s so much better to let people get to know me for exactly who I am — messes and struggles and all — than to wear myself out putting on an act in an effort to please someone.

Real, authentic relationships only happen when we’re willing to stop pretending and start being honest about our struggles.

No one — no matter how put together they may seem — is exempt from hard things.

We all have struggles. We all have burdens. We all have areas where we fall short. We all have literal and metaphorical “junk drawers” in our homes and lives.

Let’s stop photoshopping our lives and instead welcome people in right where we’re at. It won’t always be pretty, put-together, or Pinterest-worthy, but it will certainly be much more fulfilling and freeing!

I was feeling frazzled and impatient this morning — ready to throw in the towel and lose my temper. Kind of ironic because I just wrote a post about finding more S-P-A-C-E yesterday, I know.

But I’m just keepin’ it real here. And it was one of those days.

We had a long day yesterday and were gone most of the day.

When we got home last night, we went pretty much straight to bed instead of staying up and going through the all mail and packages that had arrived (it was a pretty massive pile yesterday!), finishing cleaning up the kitchen, working on the laundry, or unloading the car that we’d spent a lot of time in yesterday while driving to various locations all over Nashville for different things.

This meant that I woke up feeling behind. Plus, for some reason, my alarm clock didn’t go off this morning and I overslept, too. Which didn’t help me feel any more calm.

To add to that, there were some attitude issues that flared right off the bat this morning and some little people who didn’t want to help or focus or do what they were asked to do.

This morning, of all mornings, of course. I said to myself in frustration.

By about 11:15 a.m., I had had it. It felt like nothing was going right, my anxiety level was rising, and I knew if I didn’t do something quickly, it was going to go from bad to worse really, really quickly.

I went out into the garage and called Jesse. He listened to me rattle on about how frustrated I was feeling. He encouraged me and by the end of the phone call, I was feeling somewhat better.

But I knew I needed to do something more, something tangible, to help turn the mood around in our home. Well, and mostly, to help turn around my mood. 🙂

So I called the kids into the living room, apologized for how I’d acted stressed this morning, and then told them we were going to pull out the puzzle we’d gotten at a White Elephant gift exchange the night before and we were going to stop what we were doing, set the timer, and work on the puzzle together until the timer went off.

They were all thrilled with this idea — especially because it involved mom working with them on something that they love to do.

And I was amazed, because within 5 minutes, not only did I feel so much calmer, but I was actually really enjoying being down on the floor working on the puzzle with them.

Being a fun mom instead of a grumpy mom always wins! 🙂

Related post: How I Stopped Yelling At My Kids