Monday, October 26, 2015

My Perfectionism is Confused

Have you met me IRL?

I'm kind of that mom that doesn't have it together. Usually sort of frazzled, usually running late, and often looking like I just rolled out of bed with yesterday's makeup still on (guilty!). I'm a mess.

If you've been to my house, chances are you've had the same impression. It's sort-of-kind-of-clean-ish, but there are always corners & shelves with nondescript things sitting around, and dog hair and dishes and the occasional small pile of goldfish crackers. It's a mess.

I do not have a show home. In fact, I am lucky enough to be living in the ugliest house in the world. The 'architecture' is 'interesting'. The 'landscaping' is California wilderness, and while we love it, we're pretty hard-pressed to find time to keep it brush free. And the poultry thing (FUN FACT): apparently chicken feathers just fall out of them and get stuck in the brush and never come out. It's a mess.

And yet... we're mostly happy here. It's hard work and far away and there's always something needing done, but it can be so peaceful. It can be so fun. It can be actually, literally living the dream.

I think the reason that it sometime isn't is because of my misguided, misaligned, leftover oldest-child pull toward perfectionism. At some point my mindset of high achievement & meeting goals turned into "if it can't be done perfectly, don't bother." It sounds so lame when I write it down. It's so ridiculous to not do any dishes because I won't be able to finish all of them, including scrubbing the entire room, floor, counters, and cabinets. It's so lame to not enjoy our house and the beautiful things about it because some walls have scratches, the deck is tired, and the outside is scrubby.

Living in a fixer-upper (with SO MUCH fixing yet to be done) on five acres that all need fixing-upping is a challenge. But it's a beautiful, wonderful challenge. We spent the afternoon yesterday doing yard work. I didn't take before pictures because I'm a bad blogger, but there was an awful lot of waist-high, dead, brown mustard, and some awful weeds that have the worst "pokies" ever. It was really only about two hours of me & Jake working, but it ended up looking like this:

I mean, come on.
Sure, it's a bit brown and grey and crunchy, but it sure as hell ain't anything to complain about. There are lots of other spaces in our square that need work, but just look at this. It's beautiful. It's peaceful. It's the best place in the whole wide world for our boys to explore, and the chickens went crazy eating all of the bugs we scared up when we were chopping the weeds down.

I think I chase perfectionism in a lot of areas of my life, and tend to only see how things aren't perfect. My boys are healthy and smart and relatively well-behaved, but I sometimes focus on their bad-attitudes (while ignoring my own, of course). My husband is hard working, kind, intelligent, and hilarious, but sometimes I forget that when I'm annoyed at how much he works (to support ME staying home with our boys, for the love). Our house is big enough that we're able to open it to refugees, but I'm uncomfortable with things I don't know and I'm afraid they'll be uncomfortable with how weird it is, ignoring that pretty much America is going to be weird to them. I have been saved by the grace of God, and the blood of Jesus has made me clean & a daughter of the Holy One, but I can't/don't always act in a way that is pleasing to Him or worthy of my calling, so obviously I'm the worst and I'm definitely going to hell and taking everyone who has contact with me along. 

When I'm not being a perfectionist, my family is wonderful, my house is rad, strangers are always worth talking to, and Jesus still loves me. 

The funny thing is, all of those things are true, even when I don't feel it. 

My life isn't perfect, but when it comes down to it, I really like it. It's beautiful (and probably much too easy). I found some pictures to remind me of that.

Piles of concrete are perfectly acceptable play structures, right? We have snake fencing.

"Dancing/wrestling/spinning" is a perfectly acceptable form of exercise, right?

It is figuratively insane how cute this is, right?

Helping me feed the chickens, in full safety gear, of course. 

I'm just saying, I never found weird-ass wizard king moths when I lived in a pretty house. 

Dat sky, tho. 

Mmmm... probably safe. Ish. 

I can see sunrises like this any time I'm awake enough (so like twice a year).

And sunsets FTW.

Wild fennel looks and smells like magic.

So technically he picked this from a gardening box, which we could have anywhere. He's just cute. 

Tiny, pretty things make me glad. This was on our enormous century plant after rain.

Ghostlights. They only turn on after the rain.

So happpppppy, making out with that bone. 

It's a wonderful life. 

So what do you think? Is your life just as 'perfect' as mine, or am I an asshole for my privileged perspective? Tell me all about it in the comments.

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Why I'm Giving Myself Screen-Time Limits

That's not a click-bait title. I'm pretty sure if you're an American over the age of 11, you know exactly why.

I'm not going to include this blog in that, because it's not like I ever blog anyway, and I'm a better person when I'm writing (probably).

It has been a solid year since I last blogged. Pity, really, because we've done lots of interesting things, including raising a barnyard variety of poultry, starting to homeschool, and slowly descending into a life of madness.

I love writing, but I don't have the discipline to do it regularly. It seems that most of the problems I have in my life are caused by my lack of discipline, diligence, and patience. These things have been brought to my attention in a constant, tiny, steady stream (sarcastic-but-heartfelt thanksChris & Larry), in a way that I can't brush off or ignore.

For now.

Give me a week or two without encouragement and I'll be right back in my spiritual and lifestyle rut, thankyouverymuch.
I prefer doing whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it. Shocking, I know.
But it's starting to seem like maybe this isn't the best way to live. Again, it's a real shocker.

I lack discipline and I like my phone. It's a lovely way of finding surrogate connection and "unwinding".

Here's the problem. I stay up too late, looking at my phone. I wake up unrested & irritated, then check my phone, in case something(?) happened overnight. I feed the boys and make myself food, but they eat quickly so I'm left at the table, finishing up alone, yelling for them to stop fighting, and looking at my phone. I drink too much coffee, which turns me into a jittery, anxious mess. THEN I try to be a loving, patient, intelligent teacher and mother to two sensitive little boys.

It's amazing how shocked I am when it doesn't go well.

It's also amazing how I want to cover this up. I want to tell you, friend, that I'm not like that every day. That I totally have it under control. And honestly? Some days I do. But not most days.

I have no plan in place to help my self-control on days that I feel like crap. You know, those bad days where the world (and your children) are against you, and you need and deserve to zone out for a minute. Instead of pushing ahead and working through hard things, I use my phone to do my best to escape them. Instead of using hard things as an opportunity to improve, I use them as an opportunity to retreat. 

I really don't think that's what God (or common sense) wants me to do.

So I came up with a plan. I am going to do my best to make it work, though Lord knows that following through on things isn't my strong suit (damn you, diligence!). I made a box. I got to use pretty paper and play with words, so I got all excited about it. Now that it's made, I have to do the hard work of actually using it, and breaking my cycle of addiction to constant, mostly empty 'connectivity'.

Don't be jealous of my mad photog skills

It says,
"When we have worked hard & cheerfully
When we have talked long & lovingly
When we have played true & thoroughly
Then we may enjoy screen time freely"

It's all a bit crookedy and I want to fix a million tiny details, but when you know your kids are waking up from a nap in 20 minutes you do what you've gotta do. It makes me smile to see it, and since making it Sunday I've managed to leave my cell phone and the tv remote in there for hours at a time. I'm going to make another one for the dinner table, because the phones/tablets have been creeping in and making occasional appearances there, too. I feel like the dinner table should be a sacred space, sacred to food and talking and probably coloring and crafts, too. It's a tech-free zone, but those damn electronics seem to really want to be there. 

So just in a few days my house is cleaner, my emotions are steadier, and my boys are happier.

Huh. It's almost like connecting with the real world is the way I was meant to live.



Do you have a 'little problem' with constant connectivity? Do you think I'm just a crazy person and taking a step back from social media is madness? Let me hear ya in the comments!