picture me {im}perfectly

Picture Me {Im}perfectly with Hilly of Capturing Motherhood is a weekly project to reveal that we don't have it altogether. Not even close. I love Hilly. She inspires me with her story. And with her honesty.

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I was driving home from the reading program yesterday, wracking my brain for imperfections to write about.

"Welp, I can't think of anything today!", I thought.

Insert huge SNORT >>>here<<<. If only I knew what imperfections my evening would bring...

I pull my van into the driveway, and I'm reminded of a DIY project sitting in the garage. It wasn't working out properly and was actually starting to stress me out.

I went inside to ask for John's help but he had no ideas.

Enters my imperfections... my husband slaving away in the kitchen for me, while I'm distracted out back trying to salvage the DIY that has gone severely awry. 

Ho-hum, where is that wife of mine?


And yes, he was feeding us hot dogs.


My poor project. I can't tell you what I'm doing because it's s'posed to be a surprise for someone.

What I can say is this. Sometimes I bomb out on projects. Like I'm totally kicking myself for my stupidity here. I made quite the error of judgement. Like 'hello McFly', it was that air headed. I'll tell you about it later.

While my project was marinating, I decide to peruse the house.

Let's just pretend I'm walking around my house with a video camera, recording life as I see it. The unedited version that you rarely see on this blog.

I have no idea why I thought it would be hard to come up with imperfections.

I was met with disaster at every turn. Here is my junk drawer. Let's just close that back up.

I am no Martha Stewart. This much is obvious.

I walk out back and find an unfinished painting project on the patio.

You must know, I am that parent who hates paint. I know, I know, big party pooper here. Finn actually set this up and was teaching Twain and Ollie to paint. It was quite sweet. Well, for the first 5 minutes, I guess.

But they leave quite the untidy mess. *Note the black paint--this becomes an important piece of evidence in the crime scene later in the night...


Not only is the back becoming untidy, but the front room is quite messy as well. In fact, this is a first for ya'll getting to see my beloved desk in such a state of disarray.


If you look close above the desk, you will notice a roll of toilet paper kleenex on the shelf. Because we are classy like that. Snot anyone?


And to the side of my desk you can see my cricut and sewing machine haphazardly strewn about... And my bulletin board just waiting to be nailed up.


I walk into Ollie and Twain's room and am met with this sight.

I can't even show you the rest of their room, it's that bad.

I walk into Finn and Cal's room... and promptly shut the door and walk right out. Sigh.

In fact the only bed in the house that was made was Finn's...and it still looked like quite the jalopy.

My room...just wow.

In fact every room in the house(except the family room) looks like a bomb hit it.

I am starting to feel very overwhelmed by the the state of my house. I want to crawl in a corner. But I remind myself that it's Tuesday...my crazy day...deep breaths. I can clean this mess later. 

We start dinner. Twain looks at the hot dogs disdainfully...and with his hand extra-animated asks, "why did you make me yucky hot dogs on my birf-day?" And then John has to leave to go tutor. So I turn on The Hobbit, as a coping mechanism. Yes, I like to watch movies while I eat dinner. John is traditional and does NOT.


Ok this part is a little bad....after dinner  I served up left-over cupcakes from the reading program to celebrate Twain's 4th birthday, even pink ones. Don't judge.

We are taking him to Chuck E Cheese, per his request, later in the week to officially celebrate. Twain told John last night, "I can't wait to see what Santa brings me for my birf-day!"

After dinner, the boys are running around like maniacs, and I notice a wooden paint box/kit sitting on my new couch. I kind of hold my breath as Ollie picks it up and says "There is black paint on the coach".

ON MY NEW COUCH.

There are no words to describe how I felt. Only emoji:

There was steam coming out of my ears, of this I'm sure. I feel that life would be better if we all just spoke emoji.

This is where I want to stop the recording of this week's "Picture Me {Im}perfectly" and call it a night. But alas. For the sake of honesty and the true spirit of this post, I will fess up to what happened next.

I kinda sorta totally yelled at the boys and literally threw the box of paints outside onto the ground of the patio.

Two boys started crying...the other two boys must have hearts of stone. Or are immune to crazy-mama-turned-hulk.

I dabbed the couch with a wet wash cloth and tried to get the paint out.


And then it hit me: I totally lost my temper.

Over a couch. A stupid couch.

Now, I do think they were being reckless to leave paint on the couch. And I realize it's understandable to be upset over new stuff getting destroyed.

But it was an accident. My boys weren't being destructive on purpose.

And I felt really bad afterwards. I don't want them to inherit my bad temper. I apologized to them for yelling and throwing the paint. And asked them to forgive me. Which they did...quite readily in fact. Kids are awesome like that...so willing to forgive and eager to look passed any imperfections in their mama. If only I were that eager to do the same for others.

Today at bible study I felt extra convicted.

The speaker(David Arthur) was talking about our relationships. And how they indicate what is going on with our relationship to God. And how we can be jerks. Insensitive.

Ouch.

And how we have idols. Um, do I idolize a clean unblemished couch?

Double ouch.

Ollie skipped his nap today and has interrupted me a million times while I was trying to type this up.

And I'm tempted to get annoyed.

But I'm not going to. He is one of my top priorities...not this post...nor anything else on my agenda for that matter. Life has seemed extra crappy lately because I have allowed myself to say "YES" to too many things...My list-o-things to do seems to get longer every day. And as Hilly shared last week, I always "try to squeeze in just one more thing" before I'm supposed to be at the next place.

And I'm running late and dragging the kids at such a fast pace...it's stressful for them, it's stressful for me.

And it's selfish of me to keep trying to get things crossed off my list at the expense of everyone else. I've reallllly been thinking about that a lot this week and really working hard to just STOP. And get to things on time without sneaking in "just one more thing!". So thanks Hilly!

Linking up with Capturing Motherhood.


p.s. the paint came out of the couch. yay!