Dark Corners

So. Let's talk about REALITY. Seriously. Isn't is so easy to prepare a blog post, tell your stories, add your photos, and in the end, never give the WHOLE picture? The REAL picture? Don't we all do some self-editing before putting our life into cyberspace? I know I do. I mean, I will often get down to real TRUTH and discuss things that are hard or frustrating and such... And I have sometimes posted photos of myself with morning hair and yesterday's makeup... And who can forget this post, where I worked on a photo-checklist of my messes and updated them with clean photos? Or even older, THIS post, that REALLY showed the scary side of my home?

But more often than not, we keep those corners of our life safely hidden, and try to put on the happiest, cleanest face for our viewing public. I definitely omit some of the darker days from my blog posts. Like this week-- I've had at least two emotional breakdowns. One related to breastfeeding and one related to Noah's sleep-deprivation... But I never planned to come here and let it all out. I guess most of the time, I deal with it privately, among a small group of people who can lift me back up, and then leave it at that. No offense, Blog World... some of it is just too much to get into here.
But I do appreciate the glimpse that blogs give into a person's life, which is why I try to keep a lot of it real. No fakey-fake cheerful chirping, "I'm fine! Everything's fine! We're fine! Life is FINE!" if it really isn't. And no pretending I am skinny and beautiful and rich, either. I'm me, and I like me, even with the flaws and blemishes, so I promise you I will keep as much reality here as I can.

Which brings me to Jodie's blog and her recent challenge. She talks about how we all too often only post the good stuff, and one day will not have any evidence of the bad stuff to remind us or our children that life IS hard and houses ARE dirty sometimes. And having evidence of the "UGLY REALITY" is a valuable thing... something we all can benefit from and learn from. So she challenged anyone daring enough to photograph the "not so appealing" parts of life.... Include the "bad" and the "ugly".
She even went so far as to post a photos of her stretch marks. Wow. Since mine are on my upper, inner thighs, we'll probably NOT do that here. Sorry, Jodie. You're still alone on that dare.
So without further ado, and with no excuses (okay, I'm lying. I will TOTALLY be making excuses as I show these), here are my current SCARY corners:

Let's start with me, in the morning. No makeup, frizzed hair pulled back, dressed to work out, old, tired-looking face:

And move on to my BIGGEST yuck. The HALLWAY. This is right outside my apartment, and sadly, the first thing you see as you come to my place to visit. Sad. That doorway in the background is NOT our front door, though. Luckily, our main door DOES have a clear path to it. But still...YUCK. This happened when we rearranged our apartment to make room for Noah. All the extra stuff got "temporarily" put here, and now, one year later, here it still is. I've actually made plans to start chipping away at it tomorrow, with the help of my mom. Wish me luck. Because I HATE this hallway:

The Storage Room-- the catch-all room, slowly growing beyond its borders, so this will also be tackled a bit tomorrow, **fingers crossed**:

The Scrapbook Cabinet-- not because it is a mess. No, this is a Place of Shame because I have invested so much money into collecting the supplies I love and buying the doodads and all... and I haven't touched any of it in a year. What a WASTE. Of money, mostly:

See the message I wrote to all of you here? Yeah. Gotta work on that.

The "Project Room", a.k.a. the other half of Noah's room. This is another result of moving our apartment around. This was going to be an "office" and craft workspace... But silly me, the only time I have to DO projects is when Noah is SLEEPING, and since this is in HIS ROOM.... Needless to say, instead of being a productive corner of the house, it is another catch-all:

My dressertop-- I will get this all sorted and lovely... and two weeks later it is back to THIS:

The "Hidden Side" of our bedroom-- our bedroom is visible from the rest of the apartment because of the open floor plan and the fact that we are using the living room space for our bedroom... so we usually keep the visible part of our bedroom pretty presentable-- made bed and everything. But around the corner, here is what you find:

(the futon gets covered first, then the pile grows out from there....Often this is stuff that needs to be sorted and filed in Noah's' room, but again-- when we have time to DO that, Noah is IN there, ASLEEP. Duh. So this pile grows. It's another goal of mine. Maybe this weekend??)

Anyhoodle... I definitely have other "dark corners", but they are the ones you can't photograph... My Mom Anxieties, my self-image, my ever-growing-Type-A-ness, my jealous and competitive alter-ego...
but for now, let's work on what we can see. Maybe the rest will follow once a bit of outward order is achieved.

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And I should call that a post and hit "publish". But I have two more things. First, I blogged about my amazing baby on his blog today, and I'm mentioning it here because 1.) It is pretty much an account of my life this very minute, so it could, in fact fit nicely on THIS blog, and 2.) I have makeup on and look cute, and I really can't leave you with that first, saggy makeup-less photo seared in your brain. It's that ego thing. So click HERE.

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And lastly... I just wanted to say that I have a circle of love and support in my life that is my LIFELINE to sanity. Jodie-- thank you for the six-hour girltalk and caffeine binge the other night. It was as good for MY soul as it was for yours. Stefanie-- thanks for being RIGHT THERE to talk me back into hope. Melanie-- same... thanks for texting back right away, and letting me be sad and dejected. You both helped (and continue to help) me so much. Genny-- you are irreplaceable and I am so lucky to have you. Joe-- thank you for the LOOONG hugs, the text-message check ins, and just being my BEST FRIEND always. Beth and Heather-- your emails both talked me down from some DEADLY emotions in such wise, loving words. I cherish you both. Sarah and Kate, you are always so reassuring and calming.
And everyone else... BBC mamas, my Utah Girls, my family....
I am so grateful to have all of you.

Thank you.