pinterest fail

It's the second week of February and I am having nightmares of last year's Valentine's Day when I got a crazy notion that I should send a snack into the kindergarten Valentine's party that was both healthy AND cute. Yes, I do know that no child willingly chooses a healthy option at a class party. Still, we have our motherly ambitions.

Enter Pinterest, with its eye candy photos and links to the unimaginable. Pinterest and its simple inspirations for every occasion. HA! I settled on yogurt parfaits with blueberry and strawberry toppings in a waffle cone. The picture was adorable. All of the ingredients were readied the night before and I woke up early on the day of the party to be sure I had enough time to assemble the treats.

Friends, Pinterest is not mother-tested. I knew we were in trouble as my husband was carrying the parfaits out the front door in my clever egg carton carrying case. It was too late. We were already committed. I tried to ignore the wavering waffle cones, slightly losing their shape as the moisture began to soak through. I wanted to hope for the best. Let's just push them lower down into the carrier, I suggested as I ushered my husband out the door with the treats and my daughter, Can't be late for school drop-off on a special day like today!

After the ten minute car ride only half of the waffle cones looked edible. By the time the party rolled around mid-day, the entire tray of soggy mess had to be tossed. My contribution to the class festivities went directly into the trash can. Nowhere, I repeat NOWHERE, did the Pinterest-popular recipe mention that these treats must be eaten within 5 minutes of assembly lest they collapse and taste like a leftover bowl of cereal. That kind of information is apparently not Pinterest-worthy.

I had a similar experience making cake pops for my daughter's birthday. I will spare you the details, but if you want to know what happened just try making your own cake pops. If I ever want cake pops again, I WILL BUY THEM. They are worth every penny. (In defense of the cake pops, they at least still tasted good after falling apart.)

All this striving to impress 5 and 6-year-olds. The same 5 and 6-year-olds who have glue dripping off of every project and who don't always feel like coloring in the lines. The ones who are still learning to make their letters all the same size. The ones who think that when it comes to glitter or sprinkles, more is always better. Or was it really to impress them?

The worst part of these experiences was the way the word "failure" played on repeat in my head. There was the failure to create what I intended to create. There was also the failure to create the perception of perfection.

Pinterest gets a lot of slack for causing feelings of inadequacy in those of us who are less-than-perfect. For example, me. Pinterest itself is not doing anything inherently wrong. Pinterest only represents the ideology of women in my generation:  appear creative, original, trendy, or a perfect blend of healthy and cute, in order to give the illusion that we have it all together.

I am here to tell you that the perfect blend of healthy and cute does not exist. I do not, and will never, have it all together. I am admittedly far less-than-perfect. As proof, I will stand proudly behind my Pinterest failures and hope it sparks change in the ideology women subscribe to. There should be no more sleep lost or wrinkles gained over achieving an illusion. Failed crafts and projects do not define me, and neither do successful ones. I would much rather be known at school as the mother who would never judge others for their lack of presentation. The mother who would laugh at and learn from mistakes made, full of grace for all, especially herself.

For Valentine's Day this year, instead of Pinterest-perfect try something tested by time... like candy hearts and a paper Valentine. It just might be the most original thing the kids at school have ever seen.

projects

Six weeks to go in this pregnancy and the pre-baby panic is beginning to set in as I look ahead to the hundred and one things I would like to accomplish before rounding out the third trimester.  The panic comes from the thought that I will never ever be able to get anything done again once I have three children, which is only mostly true.

This knowledge that all organization in my home will cease to exist with the arrival of Baby gives me bursts of energy from time to time when I feel exceptional motivation to clear out the laundry room disaster area and sort through the linen closet and move the living room furniture around by myself so I can vacuum underneath it. This is a source of great confusion to my husband, of course, who wants someone to explain his manic wife - is she really as exhausted as she keeps claiming to be or has super-woman claimed her when I wasn't looking?

 

My answer: How can you expect a pregnant woman to answer that legitimately?  I have no idea where a single one of my moods comes from. Third time around, he should know this already.

Instead of focusing on the things that really need to happen before the baby arrives... like cleaning Sommer's clothes out of her room so we have room for Baby's clothes and finding a new place to put Sommer's clothes in Annike's room which means finding a dresser for her and redoing the furniture arrangement in Annike's room so the dresser fits along with a new toddler bed that we don't have yet, forcing out some other pieces of furniture that need to be moved to other places in the house... okay, I am trying not to panic. Instead of focusing on the inevitable reorganization, I am throwing myself into an urgent redecorating of my house. Smart, I know.

This last week has included some painting projects. I have been hearing all about Chalk Paint, which is completely unrelated to chalkboards or chalk, and after using it, it is still unclear to me why it was given this confusing name. Since it is also completely unrelated to getting ready to have a baby, I decided that now was the time to try it out.

In case you are not caught up in the DIY world, here is my opinion on Chalk Paint (FEEL FREE TO SKIP AHEAD IF YOU AREN'T INTERESTED). First you need to know that the paint is famous for its use on furniture without any need for prep - no sanding, priming, or any of the most labor intensive parts of trying to paint varnished wood furniture. It dries fast and comes in 30 awesome colors, and since choosing the exact paint color I want usually causes me to make four or more trips to Home Depot, these features were a definite upside to the paint. If you are feeling extra creative, the paint can be antiqued or distressed rather easily, which I did not try on these pieces, but have a wall hanging that is just crying out for me to try it... after I get the baby clothes organized, that is.  The downsides to the paint are that it seems very expensive to me ($35 dollars for a pint! Seriously? Are we paying for a brand name here?), it can only be purchased through a few dealers (though we do happen to have one here in Soquel... open only 3 days a week, slightly inconvenient) or certain places online, and even though there was no priming or sanding involved, there were still a lot of steps because the paint needs a few coats and then needs to be waxed once or twice after the paint is dry (but I suppose that ANY painting project involves a lot of steps, so I should quit complaining.) The Annie Sloan brand would like you to buy all of their special products which each seem expensive to me. Since the whole point of a DIY is for it to be CHEAP, I did a ton of reading online first and found some inexpensive products that worked instead. I highly recommend this. Okay. Done now with my rant on Chalk Paint.

Pictured above is the end table that will actually be used in the baby's room, boy or girl. So this project was not a complete waste of precious third trimester time.

The week before last I updated some hand-me-down wicker furniture for a sitting area. This involved ordering a roll of replacement wicker from Amazon, re-wrapping the legs, and giving the set a few coat of fresh spray-paint. Almost as good as new!

Under normal circumstances (meaning not pregnant), I would have attempted recovering the cushions on my own. But I decided I had better save some time for the reorganization of the kids room, making space for the baby, and all of that other stuff hanging over my head. So I ordered replacement cushions.  The box they came in was the best thing that ever happened to my poor toy-deprived children (insert sarcasm here). The rest of the room will be pulled together soon... on another day of procrastinating the inevitable.

All in all, I think there is some sort of energy that drives pregnant women. It is that survival instinct that used to be dire to a woman's ability to care for herself and her family while pregnant... and in the 21st century just causes panic or anxiety, and can sometimes be channelled into useless housing projects. I am actually thankful for it, because without it I truly would be napping on the couch all afternoon instead of finding the energy to accomplish possibly one last thing before my life changes... forever... in a good way, of course... but perhaps in a less productive, less project-accomplishing kind of way.

... and now, on to the baby's room...

finishing touches

Many of you have asked me for the latest pictures of our project, I mean, our house. I admit that lately I have been seeing a lot more of what we haven't done than what we have done - classic empty glass syndrome. But yesterday I unpacked the last of the boxes. Yes, that's right, there has been a box in my living room for the last 9 months that I have stealthily avoided opening because it contained our pictures. Pictures need hanging, and hanging them involves putting holes in the freshly painted walls, and putting holes in the walls feels very permanent. Yesterday, I finally felt ready to open that box.

Pictures are the finishing touches in a house that transform it from a generic structure into a place where we live. Not just any ole' family, but us. Gradually we have been adding memories to the house, making it a place that I view more and more like our permanent home. Adding those finishing touches yesterday was fun, and made me feel like our family belongs here more than ever.

Here is a glimpse of a few of the finishing touches we were working on this summer. Projects that may not be dire, but make the farm feel more like our place. Finishing touches like planting flowers in the rusty fountain out back.


We had the house painted country yellow... it seemed fitting.


Christian has been maintaining and upgrading the landscaping. He gets especially excited about rocks.


We added a porch to the cottage,


and replaced our front door.


Curtains are bringing life to some rooms,


we finally have enough furniture to fill our living room,
and yes, now there are pictures on the walls.


We still have plenty of work left to do on the house, and big projects continue to pop up unexpectedly (Surprise! We have to redo the Master Bathroom shower due to a big leak rotting out the floor!) But at the very least, maybe taking small steps of improvement is a pace we can keep up. Unlike the exhausting hours of work we put into the place a year ago, we are now tackling manageable projects one at a time. Those finishing touches are turning this house into a home.

I, too, am an unfinished work. It is a good thing that God does not just reveal to me everything that is wrong all at once, and then tell me to go fix it. He chips away at me, one issue at a time. Gradually, with a lot of patience on His part, some of those finishing touches begin to make me look more like Him. Maybe the majority of my structural stuff is finished, but oh boy does God have a few more unfinished projects to tackle! I am glad He sees those finishing touches as a worthwhile endeavor. I may never be a fully completed work, but I am in the process of becoming a woman more like the one He intended me to be each and every day.