My day started with phone call from daycare, a teething clingy baby and a missed status call. It could only spiral out of control at that point and I had 2 choices, control it or embrace it. So when I started taking pictures of the mess, I had clearly embraced it. It might have helped that a friend sent me this article: Stop Instagraming Your Perfect Life and the fact that D and I went to our first class of Financial Peace University.
Honestly doing a post like this has never crossed my mind. Why would it?. All of us on the internet, on blogs, on facebook want to display the best version of “us”. Myself included. The problem with that is it’s not the whole story. And somehow we forget this. We think “oh they are so lucky; they don’t have messes or craziness.” And all of that breeds discontentment.
And so here’s something different; untouched and unstaged. Here was my day today. In real life.
Oh and I’m tagging all of you to do a post like this too! Don’t be scared – then you can go back to posting about cool, beautiful, pinterest-worthy things. Like I will ;).
I love this! Refreshing. When I saw the title, I immediately thought of that article and wondered whether it was inspired by that. Ha! Good for you for the well-photographed honesty. You’re mess is still pretty beautiful 🙂
What an honest post. Thank you! I am to the point, where I don’t even clean up my living room. The blocks and all are now a permanent fixture and we just had to adjust. Groundhog day, everyday xo
Wow! Even in these unstaged images it still shows that life is beautiful. I read the ‘stop instagraming your perfect life too’ this weekend and found it so refreshing. It will undoubtedly inspire a lot of people. Love seeing the ‘real life’ as much as the edited one. 🙂
In my blogging experience, readers love these kind of posts the best. Thanks for a peek of your mess. It is lovely.
I have always found it interesting that readers are way more interested in blogger’s being “real” and showing their mess or imperfections, than projecting the “perfect” image we often want people to see. Every so often I will Instagram a picture of a mess in a room of my home and say something like “I’m just keeping it real” because I figure, who’s going to buy that I have it together 24/7 anyway? Because I really don’t! And I don’t know anyone who does. Thanks for sharing, and honestly, your photos are still beautiful!
We are taking FPU too! I love it, it is definately making me more disciplined and organized not just in finances but I feel like overall! I also love how you show the mess at your home, I thought I was the only one! 🙂 It is refreshing to see “life as usual”
As a woman/mom/wife without a blog, I’ll admit I “blog surf” and see the seemingly perfect lives you all live and become discontent! Thank you for being “real” and sharing what most of us need to see…who wants to be perfect anyway?!? Well done. (I agree with the other posts…mess or no mess, you, your home and your family are still beautiful!)
Wow thanks everyone for saying my mess is still beautiful! I felt a little exposed posting this but glad I did. I may have to post “real life” more often. Thanks for your feedback and honesty 🙂
I loved this! I hope you don’t mind but I took your challenge and posted my own “in real life” pictures. I’d read that article recently, too, and it’s so refreshing not to worry about editing out the mess that’s becoming a permanent fixture in our home.
I hope you don’t mind but I posted a link to your blog on my real-life post, http://sneakersandspice.blogspot.com/2013/04/32-weeks-honest.html. I wanted to show where my inspiration came from! 🙂
Awesome Courtney – loved your shots! Especially of the little man playing. Thanks for the mention 🙂
it’s real. real mess. not perfection like I’m used to on instagram with it’s bright sparkly images of places like Prague when I’m living in Wisconsin with snow coming and dishes piled up.
This post was so refreshing Kelly! And thanks for linking up that must-read article!
Love the honesty!! We’re BIG fans of the “lived-in” look!! 😉
I love your post! I too read that article and loved its message. Thank you for showing a glimspe of your not-so-perfect moments. I think your little boy looks quite happy though despite what might be labeled as “not Pinterest-worthy”. 🙂
I will try to do a post like this sometime this week, thanks for the inspiration!
That first picture is so funny because you can tell he’s being stinky!
Love this Kelly! Its so true. I saw one of those ecards that said ” I hope one day your life is as awesome as you make it seem on Facebook” or something like that and its so true. No one is perfect and looking perfect doing fabulous things everyday. We are all just living and we need to be present in our lives and thank God for what we have. Glad you agree. Hugs. We are all just mamas trying to do our best to be the best moms and wifes we can be till bedtime 🙂
[…] way I like it. However, we all know life is not always that. Sometimes it’s confusing, hard, messy, overwhelming, and frustrating. I hope you realize that what I post is just a tiny bit of my life, […]
this looks A LOT like my real everyday life days!
thanks for sharing this 🙂
Just going for a year of being a mother, homemaker and graphic designer and I completely understand what you mean by “real life”.
I admire you for quite a while.
Kelly Greetings!