Happiness is...a little boring

So you may have noticed, I have a tendency to bitch and moan.


It’s not just a blog thing. I admit I do it in real life too. It is my husband’s (and his family’s) number one complaint about me (although it’s possible that’s a long list).

But I can’t help it. I am not a “la la la I love rainbows every day is heaped with blessings" kind of girl. Which is not to say I’m unhappy. Or that I don’t appreciate my life.

I just like to kvetch. And I think it’s kind of funny.

And, come on. If every day my blog read “Finn is SO cute. I love his chubby cheeks and his little elbows” it would be dull. True (he has phenonenal elbows) but dull.

So, yes, motherhood and staying home with my son is often fun, but I think it’s more entertaining to blog about the recent lesson I learned about not giving a one year old part of a chocolate chip cookie ten minutes before bed. Or the ensueing two hours it took him to go to sleep. And the fact that I didn’t realize that was going to happen means I’m so bizarre combination of a masochist and an idiot.

So laugh at my pain. I do. Or find a cheerier blog. Just don’t complain about mine. No one likes that.

Are you the adult you’d thought you’d be?

Sometimes I have this vision in my head of adult me.

She’s delightful, I have to tell you. Her house is clean, she’s well put together – groomed and dressed, she cooks delicious meals, her time management is amazing, and she is always sweet and happy with her husband and child.

I keep waiting to grow up and be her.

But then I realize that I am grown up and I am nothing like that. And when I start to compare us, I don’t look so good.

My house is a mess. It was never that neat, but the addition of a toddler means it always looks like you’ve walked in in the middle of a robbery. And I’m being robbed by people who rolled in mud and dog hair before they came into your house.

There are (many) days when my version of dressed is most people’s version of pajamas. Make-up and done hair? Not so often.

I hate cooking dinner. I do it, but it’s not pretty. And I really struggle to come up with something healthy and well balanced.

I feel like I can’t get anything done. I run around all day, but have I finished my Christmas thank you cards? Managed to get the enormous laundry pile under control? Not so much.

And, finally, I am often snappish and a little mean to Kevin and frustrated with the little one.

I don’t know how to become the woman I want to be. Sometimes I feel like everyone has it down but me. Or is everyone faking it?

This is not me.

A very Etsy Christmas

I was a little Etsy obsessed this Christmas.

Pretty much everyone I bought for got something from there. But in my defense? Etsy is awesome.

And so easy to personalize, which I like. Plus buying stuff from there is more involved, which my husband hates but I love (a girl who spends much of her time stuck in her house with a toddler needs an outlet).

Some of my favorite Etsy bought gifts:

My very favorite two presents for my husband, a collage of pictures of him and Finn and pictures of Finn from every month of his first year.

I also got him an art piece made from a picture of Finn, which he says makes Finn look like a Vegas dancer, but I love.

I even got some non Finn related gifts as well, like a UK throw for Kevin’s sister who is a student there and a necklace for my sister with the names of her husband and kids.

All in all, quite successful. Or at least I had fun shopping, which is really the only thing within my control.