Reality is Seldom as Pretty
March 5, 2010
Sometimes I read blogs written by other people and wonder how on earth they have time to do all the things they do. And where in all of that do they fit in taking care of their children, assuming those are real children they are showing in their photographs and not some cardboard cut-outs.
And I will admit that I wonder what I am doing wrong. Why doesn’t my day have that many hours in it?
Then I get emails from people asking me the same thing. How do you keep your house clean? How do you find time to do x, y, and z? The truth is that there are always things that slide. I can’t do it all, and I am sure that the people I wonder about also have things that they are letting slide. I don’t know what those things are, but I wish I knew. So yes, I do like to keep my counter tops shiny and my floors vacuumed, and I make my bed everyday– but there are a host of other things going on that are far from perfect.
So I present the reality that doesn’t often make the blog.
If you were to come to front door today and stepped into my foyer this is what you would see.
Those clothes? I threw those down from the balconey at the top of the stairs. Those are the clothes and towels I gathered up in the kids’ bedrooms. The laundryroom is right there to the left. Perfect place for a laundry room, huh? Right near the front door. Wouldn’t want to hide that at the back of the house somewhere where unexpected guests would never see it, would you?
I do multiple loads of laundry every day. If you ever stop by odds are this is what would greet you. Be prepared.
Down the hallway you can see the niche, still painted the baby poop brown color. Perfect resting spot for the stack of baseball hats I needed to bring to have names embroidered on the back. TEAM MOM, not just an unpaid job, a lifestyle! Also on there a folded sweater and tiara. I know what you are thinking… where else should they be?
The bench has two of the children’s Valentine’s day boxes that they had to bring to school, um last month. They are still filled with cards and candy wrappers that no one seems to want to part with. And there are a pair of cleats that really belong out in the garage. At least I didn’t find them upstairs, a trail of dried mud leaving a trail up the stairs to their location. That was last week. Sometimes it is the little things I give thanks for.
Other people put pretty things out in their decorative bowls. I have cough drops.
More importantly, that stack of papers next to the bowl belongs to my child who was out sick from school for a week. He has been back in school for an entire week and yet the schoolwork still sits there undone. In my defense, I was sick and trying to simultaneously cough up a lung and give birth to my bladder; I just could not make him do the extra work.
And hey, what do you know, a new virus has struck our house. If you looked over to the couch you’d see a sick girl surrounded by blankets, pillows, and half drunk cups of water and gingerale. On the other side of the couch my friend’s sick daughter is surrounded by her own sickness induced detitrus. I volunteered to babysit for her for a few hours, because really what’s a few more germs among friends.
And if you looked really closely at the couch you’d see this,
that it is held together by duct tape. I should probably care more about this than I do. But I prefer to think of it as giving my house a little bit of a lived in look.
And the plastic bag hanging off of the tree branch right outside my front door?
I don’t even pretend to have an explanation for it. Sometimes it really is better not to ask.
I like to think of it as a sign of what lurks just inside the door, perfect for those unexpected visitors.
I revealed on the phone to a friend today that when I am running through my kitchen I am constantly banging my hip bones on the corner of the countertop on my island. Their response: Why are you running through your kitchen. And you know what? I really don’t know why. Except I do.
So to recap: I have piles of dirty laundry visible from the front door, furniture held together by duct tape, children who are sick, and I can not seem to learn from physical pain (if that isn’t a perfect example of why corporal punishment doesn’t work I don’t know what is).
I hope everyone else feels better because I have sort of depressed myself now.
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I can relate to it all - and I only have one child. In other words: your reality is/has been shared with millions and millions of mothers. You’re in good company, in other words.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:43 pmThank you SO MUCH for this post. I am a new stay-home mother and am one who wonders how on earth you manage to raise seven kids (and with the homeschooling until this year) AND clean your house AND make dinner. I remember a post of yours from a few years back about taking nice pictures of kids, and you talk about having a clean, clear background without clutter… and you had to FAKE the clutter in the “bad” picture. Meanwhile I’m taking nothing but close-ups of my baby. Background? What background? It’s nice to know that you let some things slide, too, and that occasionally, you have real clutter. Seriously, you’re still amazing, laundry pile or no.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:43 pmOh I do feel better! Thank you.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:46 pmAnd I LOVE that cushion
And the plastic bag was blown there by the wind. Nothing to do with you at all!
You really are human and like the rest of us behind the scenes? Thank you for giving us a peak behind the scenes and showing that we are all in the same boat.
ps..for me it is the table and chairs that no one pushes in that I am constantly bumping into. That and the pantry door that is always left open that I run into.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:52 pmlol, and here i was just commenting to my husband about how nice our house photographs. And the videos that I post seem to make it look pretty darn good. It’s all about selective shooting, and what’s outside that lovely frame. I like to have the nice pictures to look at and see, because when actually looking at my house…yeah it never looks that way.
on a side note. your multiple loads of laundry a day comment has depressed me beyond measure. I do a load a day now, but the three are little, I’ve often commented when they grow so will my laundry…but the reality of multiple loads a day…ugh.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:55 pmOMG! Bless You, Bless You, Bless You!!! I only have five children and I’ve wondered for quite some time how you manage to do it all and your house look so great to boot. I can only manage to get one room clean at a time. Today, it is the kitchen, which is quite a task since I just spatchcocked a 14 pound turkey (I just love that word) that’s roasting away. What a mess! I did have the living room clean at some point, but that was hours ago and all bets are off.
Thank you so much for showing us your reality. It suddenly made me feel much, much better! :hugs:
March 5th, 2010 at 3:58 pmYou always seem so on top of things and your home so well put together but you’re really like the rest of us. Makes me feel better - thanks!!
March 5th, 2010 at 4:04 pmDo you have any idea how relieved I am that you posted this?? Because I am one of the people who’ve been wondering how you manage to keep your house perfect with multiple children and all their sports, school stuff, clothes, food consumption and on and on! My “let it slide” things are putting away the clean laundry (thus, the Mount Vesuvius that has consumed my loveseat), and making beds (what? We’ll just mess them back up!). I feel better now…thanks!
March 5th, 2010 at 4:06 pmI feel a million times better thanks!! I often wonder this same thing when visiting other people’s blogs and try and make excuses for myself like well they obviously don’t work full time or they must have a Cleaner so it’s fabulously reassuring to know I’m not alone in these thoughts!!!!!
March 5th, 2010 at 4:09 pmWe have the same open balcony “laundry chute” at our house. Thanks for making me feel a little normal today!
March 5th, 2010 at 4:12 pmThanks for this post, I really needed it today. I feel like such a losser mom after reading blogs and talking to my mom-friends. WHY can’t I do it all like they seem to?!? My husband tells me they are all lying to me ;).
March 5th, 2010 at 4:13 pmSeveral loads of laundry a day? Check. Volunteering for even more when I can’t keep up with what I have already volunteered to do? Check. Piles of “to do” things in random places. Check. However I don’t hit my hip running through the kitchen, instead I repeatedly stub my toe on the chair that’s never put back under the table. We all prioritize differently and I like to think that people who prioritize having an immaculate house are doing less for their kids. At least it makes me feel better to think that way.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:15 pmChris this made me laugh, I love your honesty! My house looks like poltergeists have been to visit, and I only have two children!
March 5th, 2010 at 4:20 pmThank you for posting this, Chris! You have no idea how much better I feel now!
March 5th, 2010 at 4:23 pmthank you, chris. my photos would look much the same if i were to take some right now. also? my sympathies on having a laundry room directly off of the foyer.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:28 pmLived in is the best look for a home.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:28 pmThe craft stores have duct tape in many colors, so you could color match to your furniture. So much classier.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:29 pmI am glad to see the valentine boxes still sitting around at your house….we had those at our house, too, until today. I had to distract the kids with something shiny and throw them out - all the while feeling like a horribly mean mother.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:33 pmI just, last night, had to duct tape my black leather sofa with black duct tape (because the black sharpie I tried to use didn’t quite cut it). Obviously, little hands cannot leave cracked leather alone, as it went from a small crack to a 2″x4″ hole. Very nice! So, in short, I can totally relate to your whole post, minus the sick kids; and you can keep the sick kids all. to. yourself. Please!
March 5th, 2010 at 4:35 pmThank you. If it would help YOU, I will figure out how to e-mail you pictures of my trashed up house. The beautiful home we built 2 years ago and I just can’t keep it picked up or clean. It is so bad, I feel like I can do nothing else but come home to it and attempt to tackle it. Then I come home, get what little I can get done finished, and it starts all over again. SIGH. (And, this economy does not lend itself to hiring someone to clean…)
March 5th, 2010 at 4:39 pmSounds just like my house!!
March 5th, 2010 at 4:47 pmChris, thank you for doing this. Even before this post, I felt like your blog is the most “real” of all I read.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:56 pmLove you even more now. Thank you for making me feel normal.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:00 pmThank you for making me feel like less of a total loser. My house is a wreck and a half right now (as it almost always is), and I’ve been feeling like the Worst. Mom. In. The. World.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:00 pmThank you for sharing that.I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say ….we’re glad to see that you are human after all….not just beautiful, perfect, stretchmark free Mommy Barbie.
I luv you even more ,now that I know you have dirty laundry and trash bags
March 5th, 2010 at 5:01 pmAw, chin up, Chris. There’s a reason I only post photos taken outside.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:11 pmI can’t explain to you how wonderful it is that you can share both the beauty and the beast of your family. I have three young kids, two of whom just started baseball in addition to gymnastics, girls on the run and swimming, and I feel overwhelmed. I have enjoyed your humor and your insights in addition to your recipes in the past, but today, I needed to see that it can’t all be done perfectly, or even at all. Thank you…
March 5th, 2010 at 5:31 pmOh my gosh, thank you so much for posting this! I won’t go into details of why I’m thanking you, I’d depress myself. But thank you!
March 5th, 2010 at 5:43 pmI like you even more now.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:46 pmWhy, yes, I do feel better. Sorry it is at your expense. And you gave me a great idea for keeping the stuffing in my couch. Because I’m not buying a new one until the old one disintegrates. It looks like hell but it’s still a ways away from that. Duct tape!
(LOVE the cough drops)
March 5th, 2010 at 5:46 pmOh hey do you live in my house? I have all of those too. Including the laundry flung from upstairs, though our laundry room is in the basement which means we fling it down TWO sets of stairs.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:51 pmThanks. Glad to see I’m not the only one. Your children usually look pretty happy and that’s what really matters.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:53 pmNow I feel terrible, I don’t have a second story balcony, let alone a second story, to toss my laundry off of and I still have a pile in the hall. The kitchen nook is the official gathering area of items that are no longer in service or awaiting hell freezing over to be put away. I have you beat on the Valentine Boxes, still have errant Christmas ornamentation that could possibly become Cinco de Mayo decorations due to their red, green and white color scheme, depending on when they get put away. However, I am jealous of your candy dish of cough drops, my candy dish contains six stray m&ms, a button from God knows where, three keys on a chain that my son swears belongs to a friend thus ensuring we can’t throw them out, and thirty two cents in change. Trust me, the cough drops are lookin’ way better. The bag in the tree may be looked upon as crazy, but let’s be positive, it’s a windsock and it works. See, not everything nuts is bad. Besides it will be so much easier to describe the location of your house on your street as the one with the tree in front that has a plastic bag windsock in it.
March 5th, 2010 at 6:42 pmJust a simple thank you….good to know that your days aren’t all baseball games and cookie baking:)
March 5th, 2010 at 7:02 pmI once took an overstressed mom on a tour of the UPSTAIRS (no-man’s land) of my house. I couldn’t let her leave thinking I was all that just because my family had recently done a “leave no trace” in the common living areas. We had to kick our way through the master bedroom to see the closet, but it was worth it. (We couldn’t go INTO the closet, too dangerous.)
You know what you can see from MY front door? The kitchen sink. Direct line of site.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:05 pmChris, this is why I have always loved your blog. You are obviously an attractive woman, and you have beautiful children. Your homes always seem beautifully and tastefully decorated. You have it all. And yet, you let us see the imperfections…you are not afraid to share your not-so-perfect moments (thinking neighbor troubles or your haircut disaster)…and now you let us see that like most of us, your home sometimes gets away from you. Thank you for the honesty, and making the rest of us feel somewhat normal!
March 5th, 2010 at 7:08 pmI can hear the sighs of relief coming from moms all over the country. It seems we always think everyone is so much more together than we are and it just makes me feel good to know that we’re all fighting the good fight together.
And for what it’s worth, I am 38 and still slide across the kitchen floor in my socks. Especially right after it’s been mopped..that’s when I get the best speed.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:08 pmgreat post…and, yes I feel better, but I am sorry that you guys have been trading illnesses…I only have one child…teenage boy…there is crap all over my house…
March 5th, 2010 at 7:12 pmYou made me feel so much better. My house is littered with boxes right now. Moving sucks.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:19 pmHoney, that’s my house on a good day.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:42 pmOh my gosh! You ARE normal!
March 5th, 2010 at 7:54 pmMy hero! I wonder ALL. THE. TIME. how you manage to do stuff like “cook” and “breathe”. I sure have a hard time doing both and I only have a husband to take care of (the 5 month old in the house is totally pulling his own weight).
I still harbor the urge to come live at your house. My laundry pile would complement yours well.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:06 pmI’ll add another thank you to the mix. I have to laugh at someone’s comment that they “only” have five kids. HA! I “only” have three and it’s enough to make the same pile of detritus everywhere all the time!
March 5th, 2010 at 8:41 pmNow I can finally take you off the pedestal I had you on for so long!
March 5th, 2010 at 8:54 pmthank you thank you thank you I am so tired of feeling like the only sub-par housekeeper/mom in a world of perfection.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:55 pmYou made me laugh…for me, it’s the pile of recycling that just hasn’t made it out the door (where the recycling bin lies, just. outside. the door.), the pile of dirt tracked in by hubby’s workboots (that I pile daily, but get rid of weekly), and the “hidden” pile of (my) crap that prevents us having guests over for dinner because you can’t get to the other two seats…and that’s just what you see from the front door!
March 5th, 2010 at 8:58 pmSomeone stopped by from our Sunday School class after church the other week. It was then that I realized how dirty and messy our mudroom was. EVERY coat the kids own was on the floor, along with 12 pairs of shoes and the hubs clothes from the previous day of work. I looked at him and said, “Pretend you never saw this.” He just laughed. Thanks for sharing.
March 5th, 2010 at 9:08 pmMy mom had a theory - you could tell that people who designed houses don’t do the laundry because the laundry rooms were usually in an inconvenient place (basement, foyer) and as far away from the dirty clothes as possible. My laundry room is also off the foyer. I can only be grateful that it’s not in the basement!
March 5th, 2010 at 9:32 pmThank you for your “revelation!” Our big house problem is the laundry…I have a 13 month old son and nearly 6 year old daughter…and I do at least a load a day on average and since I work 10-12 hour days, I NEVER have time or the energy to put the clean stuff away. We have what my daughter nicknamed, “the clothes couch” - yes an entire 3 person couch in the living room that is a mountainous pile of clothes. On the weekend I may (or may not) semi-sort it into 4 smaller piles (one for each of us) but I pull out all of our clothes off of it the night before so its easy in the morning. Crazy yes - but it works for us and saves the frustration of trying to endlessly put away laundry in our non-existant closet space. Thanks for making this seem maybe a little less weird
March 5th, 2010 at 9:50 pmI am beyond jealous that you have what appears to be a cloudless blue sky outside. We in the DC metro area haven’t seen that since… geesh, I don’t even know when. I wouldn’t care about the laundry if I could see blue sky.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:00 pmYou are not alone, so don’t be sad. LOVE the cough drop dish! If my four children would ignore it, I’d copy that. I self-upholstered one cushion of our cloth couch recently with piece of denim which has worked only slightly better than the iron on patches I tried two years ago (and burned my arm with the iron in the process). Why do the kids bounce on it even though they know I will be catching them momentarily? After three years of watching my living room rug become increasingly sad and frayed in one corner, I’ve finally duct taped it. And, my laundry is off the kitchen by the garage door, so I cannot run in my kitchen or I will trip on my pile! And no one wants to trip on the way to the vodka tonics.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:26 pmThey put the laundry room just inside the front door? WHAT WHERE THEY THINKING??? Must have been a man.
The most clever thing I’ve ever seen was a two-story house with the laundry room on the 2nd floor with the bedrooms. Think about it. Where does the bulk of your laundry originate and need to be stored. BEDROOMS!
I think Erma Bombeck said it best. Something like, “Cleaning house while your children are still growing is like shovelling the walk while it’s still snowing.”
March 5th, 2010 at 11:20 pmThank you for sharing this. I only recently started blogging but have been wondering just how on earth so many amazing Moms find the time to run a home, write an amazing blog, homeschool/write books/attend a million conferences/work/have a life/twitter all day etc etc
I have just one small child and can relate to so much in your life. We had a plastic bag in the tree in our front yard for four months (I kid you not). It seemed resilient to all attempts by the wind to blow it away and could be seen and heard every day waving and rustling as if it was proud to be there. (No one in our household ever attempted to take it down). It took a tornado warning strength storm and 75 mile an hour winds to eventually dislodge it. I wonder where it is now….
This strange habit of walking into things is just simply the result of being a Mom constantly on the run who at the same time is distracted by having a million and one things to do. Since becoming a Mom three years ago I have found myself to be constantly covered in bruises. It took me a while (so distracted and sleep deprived was I) to realize it was because I was bumping into things - kitchen counters but also car doors and countless other immovable objects.
So thank you again - I feel much better now having read this!
March 5th, 2010 at 11:28 pmNobody has it all together. Some just have it visibly more together than others but inside they are a damn mess!
March 5th, 2010 at 11:39 pmI kinda love the duct tape on the couch.
I think that we all have this in our lives, in different ways. Most people I think choose not to share it. I love that you did.
March 5th, 2010 at 11:40 pmI have no children that live here full time. just a step child on the weekends… and your home is cleaner than mine. I know this was supposed to make people feel better… but somehow that just didn’t work for me. Your house looks fine. Trust me. Just fine. Sigh. I need a ‘house cleaner’ trainer… or some such… sigh.
March 6th, 2010 at 1:08 amYou rock!
March 6th, 2010 at 1:17 amThank you for sharing this! My house looks exactly the same everyday. As my mother always said, “dull women have immaculate homes!”.
March 6th, 2010 at 2:56 amthese are the sort of things that really depress me as well, and i feel much better having read your post.
i have about two weeks’ worth of clean laundry stored in the kids’ room, unfolded, in a pile that comes up to the middle of my thigh and spreads over three square meters. i would put it in our room out of sight from visitors and from my MIL (who lives next door), but we have an old cat who resides solely on our bed and who likes to pee in laundry baskets. the clothes, although i do laundry every single day, just never seem to make it back into the drawers. our socks rarely match and getting dressed in the morning is like a scavenger hunt.
our laundry room, btw, is also next to the front door. thankfully it has its own doors and hides a multitude of other things that never get done.
March 6th, 2010 at 3:05 amI am a SAHM with only one child, but my house still looks much messier, like one giant dorm room.
If you could see it, you’d not only feel much better, but really, rather superior.
March 6th, 2010 at 7:28 amOh boy, we just bought a leather sectional for our family of ten… so what happened to make it split?
March 6th, 2010 at 8:49 amI think you are doing a great job, Chris. My house does not look that good when I am sick, that’s for sure!
The bag on the tree isn’t catching ‘dew’ is it?
My kids had to do that once for an experiment at school…..
March 6th, 2010 at 8:59 amOh wow…we have the same couch and it looks like the same problem with that couch?! I never considered duct tape as a solution!!LOL As of right now, the stuffing is just showing!
You definitely made me feel better. As I look around, I see there is a lot to be done around here. Guess I’m going to try to clean up our act this morning!
March 6th, 2010 at 11:33 amI now feel 200% better. Thank you Chris
(mainly because I feel guilty I am sitting here playing with my new iPhone whilst the stuff from our holiday (from which we returned a week ago) still sits on the spare bed.
Tell me Chris, what iPhone Apps do you waste your time with / increase your productivity? (delete as appropriate. For the former, check out Angry Birds but don’t expect to wrestle the phone back off your children for a while…)
March 6th, 2010 at 12:49 pmp.s. I still have Christmas decorations up. Albeit homemade ones that I need to pass past the kids’ radar before they are ‘recycled’, but still. In my defence, we weren’t in the country for the whole month of February, so as far as I am concerned it’s only Feb 6th now in my house
March 6th, 2010 at 12:51 pmI can’t thank you enough for this post. Most of the time I feel like I’m the only one in the world who can’t get it together, let alone keep it that way. I found your blog about a year ago and haven’t stopped laughing. Today I feel like I got a much-needed big hug…so here’s one right back at ya! Thank you so much!
March 6th, 2010 at 1:39 pmEveryone has clutter some are just better at getting rid of it in a timley fashion.
GREAT POST
ps Fingers are getting cramped but the waiting will be over on wed.
March 6th, 2010 at 2:05 pmI too appreciate your honesty. Laundry especially never ends at our house. And, I also wonder how in the world some bloggers do all that they do…
March 6th, 2010 at 3:06 pmI agree with the comment, “That looks like my house on a good day”. In my case, a very good day. I have learned to make no apologies for my home. I have two sisters with very clean homes, one sister who cleans as much as I do, and another that has a very trashed house ALL the time.
March 6th, 2010 at 6:10 pmYou are very funny. And ditto to it all. Life’s too short to stress over everything.
I always find it so depressing how quickly the kitchen looks a mess again though, after hours of cleaning and tidying. And the hallway; THE magnet for my children to dump bags, shoes, coats etc - we have pegs and shoe boxes for those; save the floor! I’m beginning to hope they don’t have bags in Heaven and Hell.
March 6th, 2010 at 7:18 pmI totally relate to the inconvenient laundry room scenario. We built our own house and like a dummy I put it in the downstairs hall, what a nightmare! I finally convinced hubby to build a laundry room right off the master bedroom out of a walk-in closet — HEAVEN let me tell you!! We are planning to build another house in the near future and I plan on two laundries — one in the master and one in-between my teenage daughter’s rooms.
March 6th, 2010 at 7:24 pmThat’s why I love reading your blog! Reality!! Everyone always tries to pretend their lives are perfect, when in reality no one can do it all. I love that you admit that!
March 6th, 2010 at 7:27 pmWhen I worked in Baltimore, MD we referred to tree bags as Baltimore Christmas Decorations. that was before we escaped to the black Hills of South Dakota…
March 6th, 2010 at 8:05 pmThank you. Really, thank you. Because when you posted the photos from your former home I seriously looked around my war torn by TWO small children family room and it made me feel kind of defeated that our house was a disaster when you have SEVEN and managed to post such pretty pictures. When I worked full time and our kids were in daycare, our house was clean almost all of the time. But it used to make me feel sad when I came home to a clean house. Because a house is meant for memories. When a house is clean 100% of the time, what that really means is that nothing beautiful was created that day. At least that’s what I tell myself when I spend an hour straightening up every night when the kids go to sleep.
March 6th, 2010 at 8:37 pmthank you so much for sharing….
March 6th, 2010 at 11:03 pmYou’re definitely not alone. My unrealistic husband mentioned once that he wished that our house had the “model home” look. I paused, looked at him and said, “Are you kidding me?” We have three kids, loads upon loads of laundry, children’s activities, etc. Needless to say his wish has never been granted and he definitely lowered his standards. From my current vantage point in my master den, I see two empty laundry baskets waiting for someone (besides myself) to roll them back to the laundry room, a stack of towels and clothes ready to put away, a box set out for donation items, an empty cup, bottled water half full/half empty, sheet music on the carpet, and a pair of my hubby’s shoes in front of the bookcase. Model house it is not.
March 6th, 2010 at 11:58 pm:gasp:
I would never have guessed the duct taped cushion, and love it the most, because we all have laundry, the cough drops are just plain practical (and yet still attractive in that dish), but the duct tape defies your style and I love knowing that about you. My whole house is in disarray, because I love to cook, cuddle the kids and write, but housework is low on the pole.
March 7th, 2010 at 1:16 amGood - VERY good to know that even though your bed is made -and the accent pillows are put on - every day - you do run out of time and energy.
And stress incontinence (that thing you get with coughing, running or yelling at the kids) is a totally repairable thing. Chris - take the time out of the unbelieveable schedule you keep and have it done. You will be so happy you did! Then next year at Lent you won’t have to give up wine and sugar you can just give up … um … well you know!
March 7th, 2010 at 8:28 amIt does make me feel better, because I’m in one of those nothing I do will ever be enough funks. And now I feel like it’s not just me, which is nice.
March 7th, 2010 at 11:17 amThank GOD. Your seemingly flawless life was depressing ME. I am so relieved to know you’re human like the rest of us.
Hope you all feel better soon!
March 7th, 2010 at 12:20 pmI’ve never understood why laundry rooms are on the 1st floor or basement. When I design my first house the laundry room will be with the bedrooms/dressers/bathrooms. Whatever floor that may be.
March 7th, 2010 at 1:55 pmI do feel better now… I always feel like I’m trying to catch up but never do…someday when the kids are gone and the laundry is done I will be so BORED that I will take up sewing or something creative and productive like that? Actually I should be doing laundry RIGHT NOW!
March 7th, 2010 at 2:51 pmThe couch with duct tape sealed it for me. You ARE real LOL. We dream about what our house will look like when our kids are gone. For now I’m enjoying the lived in look.
March 7th, 2010 at 4:40 pmI loooove your throw pillow on your ‘held together with duct tape’ couch….
Chris says: It does distract you from the duct tape a little, right?
March 7th, 2010 at 7:40 pmIt’s not just the Moms in the USA sighing with relief, I’m in England and cannot tell you how much I am smiling after reading this post
Thankyou.
March 8th, 2010 at 7:30 amWhen my kids get sick, they pull out the couch bed and throw up on that. That was what greeted me as I returned from working out last week. It was so delightful.
March 8th, 2010 at 9:56 amI love you! you are awesome, and the best writer online — all others step aside.
March 8th, 2010 at 11:34 amOne friend of mine asked how my husband and I work fulltime and have two children. My answer: Lower your standards.
March 8th, 2010 at 12:39 pmThank you! It does. (What does that say about us, really?) Your site is always one that makes me wonder, “What is wrong with meeeeee?” even though I know you hang it all out there and tell us that there are things that slide. Thanks for making your flashy lifestyle seem much more attainable.
March 8th, 2010 at 6:34 pmBack when you used to write, when you first started, I used to like to read about your typical days. For the record, I liked your blog when you wrote about your days. I remember wondering how you got all that done with 6 kids (yes, I know she now has 7) when I couldn’t get anything done with 2. I remember one in particular about cleaning tracks for windows or doors with a toothbrush. I still haven’t gotten around to doing that, and I resolved that day I read it to do mine.
Chris says: I know that I was talking about my SIL who cleaned her window tracks with the Q-tip… not me.
March 8th, 2010 at 7:26 pmThank you for showing me your reality!!! Because I have only one child and my house is clutter city (though the public portions are much better now).
March 9th, 2010 at 8:56 amThank you. I have a friend with an only child who admits that she spends her free time, when her child is at school, cleaning the house. All she does. And THAT’S why her house is so matchy-matchy and orderly every time I see it.
I’d rather be me, with a house like yours. And mine is, minus the duct tape on the couch. I have paw prints stained into mine. GREAT post. Truth!
March 9th, 2010 at 12:56 pmLove it! Nice and homey.
I just got rid of piles of bedding in the garage where my washer and dryer are. In the top of Texas it’s felt a lot like well Connecticut this year. Way to cold to do anything but cloths, so I got some new bedding.
Love the couch and the little pillow.
March 9th, 2010 at 9:52 pmThat looks like my couch. I have begged for a new one and Bill cannot bring himself to spend the money knowing the next one will have the same fate.
March 10th, 2010 at 2:01 pmWe hold our couch together with duct tape too! We finally got creative and start buying the red tape and the purple tape. Maybe next: The camo duct tape.
Infinitely more cozy than a puffy new couch, that DOESN’T have seats worn into it.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:12 pmI started out with “only” two kids…and then added two parents…and then added two grandparents. Having a second story to throw something off of would be a definite plus around here.
I just had to return to college to be around, well, more kids. Can I borrow your duct tape?
March 11th, 2010 at 11:52 amTHANK YOU! Yes I screamed that. I read this blog because I think you are hysterical and wonderful and have beautiful children and honestly, I want to be just like you because you are perfect and then I end up feeling bad about myself, ha! Now that I know you aren’t perfect, I love you even more!
March 12th, 2010 at 10:57 amWhat a great post! I’d have similar photographs of my home and belongings.
March 12th, 2010 at 2:38 pmYep. Shades of my house. And my life.
March 22nd, 2010 at 7:52 am