Keepin' It Real

I don't think I've written a non-books, non-goals related post in quite a while.  I could say "all year" to sound more dramatic, but let's give the drama a rest for now, shall we?

If you look along the sidebar, you will see that this is my tenth year on this little blog.  Tenth.  Count the years.  Hard to believe.  This blog has gone through some phases.  I'd say now I'm deep into my "reading phase."  But reading has been a lifelong pleasure for me; really the linking up and recording what I've read is the phase part.  You can see that there was an intense crafty phase, with quilting and sewing clothes and totes and knitting and crocheting.  And always there has been parenting. 

We are in a much different stage of parenting than when I first started blogging here.  Then, the kids were 7, 5, and 3.  Now, they are 15, 13, and 12.  I have one left in elementary school, and the oldest will begin looking at colleges in earnest next year.  The years really are short, even though some of the days are painfully long.

I've been trying to re-dedicate myself to this space, and I've had a burst of clarity.  Through all my phases--crafts, gardening, reading, the one constant about this space (and probably about myself) is that I try to keep it real.  Yes, I try to be optimistic and view my life through as rosy-colored a lens as possible.  But I openly acknowledge that I am an imperfect human, with more laundry than I can possibly do in a week and tumbleweeds of dog fur drifting through my home.

So what I hope I'll be able to continue to convey to you moving forward is more periodic check-ins in the "reality" department.  Not to complain or to bring us all down, but more to build a sense of community, a sense of "me, too!"  I take comfort in knowing that I'm not the only mom in the world who can't understand why her children are unable to hang up their wet towels--don't you?  We'll all get through this together, and in the meantime, maybe we can all have a good chuckle at ourselves when we discover we've turned into our parents!

I'll let my parting words be shared in the picture below. This was our Christmas card for 2015.  This was the first year I ever included any kind of note about what we're all up to, and more than one parent told me that it all seemed very familiar to them.  That made me happy, and I hope it will make you smile, too.

Happy (belated) new year to you all!