Life, interrupted. The beginning.

When I first began writing this site back at the very bitter end of 2013 I was a stay at home mom of three.  I had never in my adult life been unemployed and I had never spent my days, nights and weekends catering to such a demanding audience. I was wholly unprepared for what it would be like.

I imagined long, lazy mornings complete with a warm hearty breakfast before walking my son to school. There were play dates at the park, with loads of friends for my girls to play with and other mom’s for me to drink coffee and gossip with. There were home cooked dinners filled with vegetables and roasted meats. A sparkling clean home where the laundry was always clean and the floors are always freshly vacuumed. And lots of free time to pursue my hobbies. Basically, I was going to be Mary Poppins. Ha.

In reality, it was an early morning hustle to get kids dressed enough to walk to school. These walks were sprinkled with a healthy mix of making sure the kids didn’t run too far ahead of me, and trying to coerce them into walking just a little bit further.

There were trips to the park. Although, they were usually filled with me pushing the swings, rocking the boat, or cheering while someone slid down the slide. Usually while I chugged what was left off my, by then, very cold coffee. And inevitably they ended with someone in tears and a mad scramble to get home before the scene got even worse.

The laundry was never done. Do you know how many pieces of toddler sized clothing fit into a laundry basket? It’s just short of 386,769. Seriously. By the time you get halfway through the basket, you realize that the kids have turned your perfectly folded pile into a shower of confetti, making it rain clean laundry down on you while you silently weep into the basket.

And dinner. While there may have been vegetable and meat, most of the time both of those items went directly from the freezer into the oven. Heaven forbid I serve my children food that had not been filled with preservatives and other ingredients I can’t pronounce. Broccoli spears? Not unless they’re covered in cheese sauce and come from a pouch. Homemade macaroni and cheese? Nope, they prefer the neon orange kind. And while we’re at it, can I get those nuggets in dinosaur form? Because that’s obviously how they grow, on the chicken plant.

Needless to say I was desperate for something that would bring me a connection. And for so long that’s what this site was for me. A lifeline to the real world. Then somewhere along the way things changed. I stopped storytelling. I stopped connecting. I became so focused on this Pinterest perfect image of what my site should be. What I should be creating, what I should be writing. Somewhere along the way it stopped feeling like me.

If you’ve been around for a while you might have noticed this. The less it felt like me, the less frequently I added to it. Now to be fair, I also returned to work. I suddenly had a job that was incredibly demanding on top of having a family. My time to share my thoughts, my crafts, my recipes, became slimmer and smaller until it was only found during the wee hours of the night while everyone else slept. In fact, I am writing this post in a dark living room while every other member of my family sleeps.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried it, but photographing anything in the middle of the night is hard. In fact it is so hard I have given up trying to do it. And what’s a girl to do if she can’t get a Pinterest perfect image to go along with whatever it is that she made?  Well, if you’re this girl, you don’t share it. And the weird thing is, the more things you don’t share, the less things you want to share. Suddenly, instead of creating things to show other people I am creating things for me.

Honestly I had forgotten how much joy there is in that. In making something, just to make it. Not photographing every step in perfectly lit detail. Not writing a step by step how to for everything you do. Taking a 20 minute project and finishing it in 20 minutes!  Not 2 hours, because oops there was a stray hair in that photo, or a shadow in this one, or heaven forbid the sun hid behind a cloud for 6 months and everything had to wait for it to come back out.

So why am I telling you this?  I guess I missed you. I missed this site. I missed telling an authentic story and connecting. So, “hi!” I’m still here, and I plan on being around more. But it’s probably going to look a little different than it has and that’s okay with me.