Today I found myself deep cleaning the space that was the home of our dog, Poly, in preparation for our Christmas tree.  (read more about that here) I scrubbed on hands and knees the dog hair and grime from the grout lines between the stick-on floor tiles we applied in haste upon our purchase of this home in 2012.

You see, this house is as old as me, and had a floor plan and finishes to show that fact!  We knew that we wanted to make big changes in the semi-near future, but I was expecting Camden, Carter was a busy toddler, and I was working full time in a physically demanding teaching position.  We needed some quick, easy, and cheap facelift tactics to make our house feel more like home, pronto, so stick-on floor tiles it was!  Imitation marble replaced parquet, and on we marched.

As I scrubbed I reflected, planned, and dreamed.

I have big dreams for our family, as I’m sure all do.  This blog came to be as a method to help catapult some of those dreams into reality, but I’ve been stuck in a world of perfection trying to make it all come to life.  Some of the functions don’t work just right.  A bit of the formatting isn’t spot on.  I couldn’t see investing time in something that wasn’t yet perfect. These days we’re bombarded with curated feeds on all social media outlets and it is easy to begin to think that all of the feeds really reflect the owner’s pristine every day life.  Since my life is far from pristine, carving out time to share is near impossible. Scrub, scrub, scrub.

That’s when it hit me.

Who needs another perfect looking blog or social media feed?  We’re all just looking for some reality.  It’s the reason my lifelong friend, Kim, and I are always messaging each other with our latest story.

We’re always asking – “it isn’t just me, is it?”

We want to know that we aren’t alone.

So with that, I ditch the idea of perfection.  I embrace the messiness of life, and vow to share it with you anyway.  Even if the background colors of my Instagram don’t flow just so, or if there’s baby snot on my shirt. Because that’s what’s real. That’s my crazy, wonderful life.

With that, I know that sometimes it might really be just me. And I’m ok with that – I just ask for your grace in those moments, because we all need a little more of that, too.

Scrub, scrub, scrub.

 – Nikki