Oh, the embarrassment of it all....

Okay, so I was reading an article by one of my favorite bloggers (http://crunchycatholicmomma.blogspot.com/) and she has a post about keepin' it real...which I greatly appreciated because I suffer from the same presumptions as her friend...that other moms/bloggers "have it all together."  So I'm responding to her request to share the reality of how my home looks when no one is coming over... 

Now I have to preface this with a few things...  First of all, our home has extreme variances in cleanliness that usually have nothing to do company coming over - it's more of my energy level and mood that affects how the house looks.  You know I'm kinda feelin' down if the house is a disaster.  Second, I'm ONLY showing you the messy parts of the house and the picture of the living room turned out just awful so it's not posted, but for the record, there are toys EVERYWHERE.  Scattered to the four winds, I'm tellin' ya.  Third, these are areas of the house that I struggle with CONSTANTLY.  I swear, if there's a flat surface to be had, it will never be cleared of junk.

...and my biggest confession?  I'm what my mom called "a stasher."  Rather than actually put something where it belongs, I have a serious tendency to stash it in a drawer to get it out of the way so I can clean the surface.  There should be a "stashers anonymous" group for people like me. 

 I have lots of books and sites bookmarked, etc, to try to help me with all of this, but it all boils down to self-discipline, which I lack.  I know what needs to be done, but life gets overwhelming sometimes and I fall off the track.  At this point, I've learned that this is how I am and rather than be constantly obsessing over my faults in this regard, I'm just going to do my best to overcome and keep priorities in order...that's all God cares about.  Him First (that's hard enough, isn't it?), Husband second, children third, other stuff, and myself last...as long as those things are in line, I'm willing to let some of the other stuff slide.

Dining room table after breakfast and a small craft...and mom having some Teddy Grahams with Patrick (can't help it, I love those things!)

Been meaning to get this cleaned up for about 3 weeks now and it just keeps accumulating stuff from other parts of the house...Patrick helps a lot with that part - the toothbrush holder thing came out of the bathroom, courtesy of him ;)

My desk has extreme variances in cleanliness because the stuff just piles up so fast if I don't deal with it IMMEDIATELY!

Miriam's room is a perpetual mess and most of it is usually on her bed or under it.  I rearranged her furniture a bit yesterday and need to tweak it more, but we found all kinds of stuff and Patrick helped with removing all of her clothing from her drawers.  This is totally normal and adds to my resistance in putting clothes away in drawers.  If we had the space I'd do the "big family" thing and just keep it all in the laundry room.  I love that idea...work in progress.

The piles of laundry are now a mess from being gone through.  This was once sorted on our bed and it got so late that we just moved it to my dresser.  This is another constant source of irritation and humiliation for me.  Oh well, maybe it'll make someone else not feel so bad about what they think is messy :)

Finishing off with my most favorite picture in our home.  It depicts so well how Tracy and I feel about each other and is very "Theology of the Body."  I think of this when I'm kissing my husband goodbye in the morning as he heads off to work and I stay here in the safety of "the castle" to tend the home and our children.  He comes home and I hope he feels some welcome relief from "doing battle" out in the world all day :)  I love my husband!!!!