Uncategorized Archives - Page 310 of 437 - Enjoying the Small Things

i’m just gunna come right out with it.
and i know people are gunna eat this up…because we all just love imperfection.
i’m gunna be real.

ready?

remember my bedroom?

my bedroom is this perfect haven of a room when it’s clean. the afternoon light comes in this lovely stretch of glass doors and bathes the room with its splendor. and i have a reading nook–a real reading nook–with a table and lamp and the perfect little chair–and by perfect, i mean not-so-perfect because the left arm is a little loose and the seat is a bit squished, but it worked many a night when i used it to nurse lainey in the dark and actually appreciated the little give the left arm had because it would bend just the right amount to support my sleepy recline…without dropping a baby. i love my dresser and the line-up of polished perfume bottles arranged like dominoes on their mirrored tray positioned in perfect symmetry on the dresser between my silver wedding frames. i love the framed picture on my wall that i drew and the shelf that displays my little treasures–the rock from my grandma’s burial, my grandpa’s collage, the shell that was on my pillow the night we got married, lainey’s hospital bracelet… i like the way each of our nightstands says so much about us: brett’s simple and clean with only his watch, a bottle of nasalcrom, a very anassuming alarm clock and a picture of his kids taped over one of me in my wedding dress (it’s okay, i’m over it); mine with a graveyard of pacifiers, a stack of books i’ll never read, an old diary, a glass of water from three nights ago, four pens–three of which don’t work, a handful of hairties (hair included), lainey’s one-year scrapbook (which I look at every single week), and a lone earring.
and then there’s the whole issue of the bed. our bed is just grand, and we have really good cotton sheets and a quilt i love and heaps of down pillows that sandwich your head just right.

together, it makes a very lovely bedroom.
which is why i can’t understand my issues with keeping it clean.

i have a slew of justifications i use to make myself feel better, which include the following: both brett and i have a hard time parting with anything sentimental value can be attached to (and for the record, everything can have sentimental value attached to it), i’d rather do something creative than necessary tasks and often, regretfully, make the choice to do so, i do a phenomenal job of keeping the open areas of the house clean…but the bottom line is, there is no excuse. because having a beautiful bedroom grants me a more beautiful life. i enjoy my room too much to let it get so messy, and i certainly owe it to my hard-working husband.

so, with that said…i’ll get a little honest here.
in the course of my day, if i don’t want to bother with making a decision on where to put odd things, i put them in my bedroom. in addition, i often do laundry, fold it, and then lay it in a pile on my bedroom floor. in addition, i often try three to, oh let’s say seventeen things on before i go out…and sixteen of them may land on the floor.

so, in an intimate moment of friendship, i exposed my mess to a few friends the other night during my party (dede lives across the street)…and it garnered laughter of the unexplainable sort.

i have nothing to hide. we’re talking frat party gone wrong.

so, as intimate moments of friendship often go…my friend heidi says something on the lines of, “dude…i’m coming over this week to help you, and we will have so much fun gettin’ this bedroom back in shape.”

so, today was the day. and it was the most wonderful experience.
confined to the frat-party-gone-wrong, we watched movies. we folded. we hung things. and we did it bird by bird.
and i can’t tell you how many times we were rolling on the floor in fits of hysteric laughter. like, literally, my knees gave out on me once i was laughing so hard. and i hit my head on the nightstand.
the randomness of objects in the heap? i kid you not, this is exactly how it went: folded shirt, folded skirt, folded shirt, attachable cat tail from halloween costume, lone sock, lone sock, a receipt from target. washcloth, tablecloth, dishcloth, crumpled piece of paper scribbled in marker the words “WAKE ME UP” (don’t ask), broken hanger, broken hanger, lone sock, broken hanger (tally stands at nine). and it went on and on.

and our two littles were body-slamming piles of clothes while lily played with socks and we talked and laughed and folded and laughed.

and tonight, several hours and many beautiful vacuum lines later, it was clean.
which simply deserved a toast. so, we sat in the driveway, watched our littles climb on trikes and bikes, and we celebrated. not so much to a clean room, but to having these kinds of friends…the ones you can safely let in to see all the imperfections…laugh about them…and somewhere in the course of it all, make them better.

my room is clean.
and vacuumed.
and the perfume bottles stand dustless once again.
and it feels…delicious.
my haven has returned.

and i didn’t want to leave it tonight. just wanted to curl up on the bed and enjoy it…so we did.

i love real life…and always getting better, ya know?
i am thirty and most certainly, thirty-year-olds can have very clean bedrooms. and cook. and be really, really great moms. and wives. and take pictures. and write. and document their child’s life. and have friends. and read. and love. love a lot. yes we can.

oh…and throwin’ in lainey’s superbowl attire…

and her everyday loveliness…

she woke up with a runny nose last night and fell back asleep on top of me…just wanted her little body completely embracing mine. and it’s those moments, with her heavy chest pushed right against mine, her hand tucked right under my chin, the wisps of her hair right where i can breathe them in…that i think in the dark how much i’ll want this moment back. and i close my eyes and pretend it’s twenty years from now and i’ve just been granted my wish to go back–just for a moment–and i open my eyes again, as that future me…and i just can’t hug her close enough, can’t breathe in her littleness as much as my heart wants to. and it just hurts to love her.

so there. an honest blog post. an imperfect one. and, best of all…a loving one. ‘cuz you can’t escape without a little love.

we rocked out last night.
that’s all i can say.

this….

…is my dear friend, dede. and she just put every cell of her being into throwing me the most beautiful party.

i heart her and her big, amazing heart.

no one throws a party like dede.
no one spends five hours doing this to her kitchen:

between the candles and bogenvalia petals in the pool…

…and this amazing array of completely delicious food and drink, arranged, garnished, and displayed much to the likings of martha stewart herself… it was just…well, perfect. but that’s dede.

my favorite?
…my favorite part was this house full of people i love.
all these people who fill the nooks of my soul with goodness and humor and love and contentment…the ones who challenge me to live a big life…the ones i thank my lucky stars i have the privilege to know. to love. to call them mine. they were there, finding comfy spots on the floor to huddle in warm little circles to talk about life. and then there’s the way they all just nonchalantly ladle up my baby and go about their conversations, lainey propped on their hip like their own. and she just knows they love her. and my heart completely swells watching it all. so, we talked, we laughed, we drank, we mulled and lingered amid the greatest gathering of candles in the history of mankind…and a whole lotta love.