Blog Envy

This weekend, I figured out how to customize the appearance of my blog a bit.  Yes, it was boring. Now, I'm quite sure it's too busy.  Before long, I'll be tired of it and change it again. Change is good. Color and chaos - GOOD! (Nine hours after publishing, and I've already changed it. Shocking!)

I spend a bit of time looking around at other blogs - following pinterest links to instructions on how to do this or that - usually driven by food or crochet projects. And yes, I'll admit it. I have Blog Envy.

Why do so many blogs out there look so darn perfect? It's like these people live in a Better Homes & Garden magazine, not in reality. The colors are balanced and beautiful, photography looks professionally done.  The projects are lovely and displayed to make them even more lovely, and the entries are well-written, amusing, entertaining, yadda yadda.  They are not the ramblings of a woman who's life is filled with organized chaos and stress.

Confession - my home, my blog, my life - will never be so beautifully organized and perfect. My photos are taken with the camera on my phone - because I don't know where the "good" camera is right now.  I have to clear away a spot on the table, the couch, or the chair to lay out my crochet and get a picture. (I work hard to get a photo that doesn't show the clutter nearby.)

We aren't hoarders, not by any stretch. I'm constantly tossing things out, donating, putting things away. But I always seem to be in the middle of a project (bulk mailing appeal letters for work, crocheting a giant blanket, handmaking holiday cards) and these projects make things look messy! The house is clean.  But the house is 85 years old, small, and lacks sufficient storage space.

And dangit - we LIVE here. There is STUFF around. There are dogs and there are kids. (Okay - the kids aren't little anymore - but anyone with college students in their life knows they are just as - or perhaps messier - than toddlers.)

The dogs: Ellie Mae, Fat Gertie, and Isabelle the Varmint, track in dirt and debris. They shed and shake that dirt everywhere. My husband spends about 2 hours a day sweeping it up. Not even kidding.

The girls come home from university and drop their things in the entrance hall.  Bags of laundry, heavily laden backpacks, shopping bags - whatever they have on hand - placed everywhere except where they belong.  It generally only lasts a few days, and then they return to school, but those days are ridiculous.

When I look at these blogs of perfection, I used to feel inadequate. But no more.