#whatourhouseandmyheartreallylooklike

If you've known me for any period of time, you'll know how much I value good ol' fashioned honesty. But me saying that doesn't mean that it's something that always comes easy for me. So I'm challenging myself to be more open and honest in this post about something that I get very frustrated with: our home. 

Now wait, you're thinking: Why would she get frustrated with her house? It's all cute and stuff, I've seen pictures and everything!

Well...if you thought that, I'll just stop you right there and say that I'm photographer. That means I know how to work angles. I know how to 'style a shot'. And I'm pretty handy when it comes to using an editing program. It's true. If there's a telephone pole ruining the back of my shot, or I'm having an acne breakout in that portrait, I can whisk it away with no problem. 

Whoosh! Voila! Perfect images. Snap! snap! snap! 

Now don't get me wrong, I try to make our images (professional or personal) as real and as beautiful as they can be. I love being able to edit pictures but I don't believe in 'over-editing'. I simply adjust or remove things that deter from the message I want our pictures to convey. It's what I do, my form of art. But sometimes, in our day-to-day life pictures, it can come across that we always have a clean, uniquely decorated and cozy little house. 

Ha. hahaha. haha. 

In a word….nope. 

So I'm taking time to share some views of our home that you maybe haven't seen before 

(let's get down to the nitty-gritty's).

Here's a shot from our living room. Not too bad, right? Look closer. Please notice the adorable yard-sale chair. It sadly doesn't match our walls and I put it there for the lame reason that I don't have any other place for it right now. You might've also spotted Sadie's rawhide bone on the wooden chest. She just leaves it wherever and picks it up later. And finally, that's not cool bokeh effect in the window, that more gifts from Sadie. I desperately need to clean where she's smudged it up so badly. 

Sadie in her typical spot in the living room. What you don't see it is that the floor is probably coated in fur. She sheds a lot and keeping up with it is a daily battle (that I often lose).

Two images that are very normal around here. The couch cluttered with random things that I'm working on and part of our unfinished wall in the dining room (notice the renovation residue + artifacts). 

Ah…the baby's room. It's quickly becoming my favorite part of the house and has had the most improvements of any room in the house lately. If you've been following me on Instagram, you've seen little peeks of it and you might think you know what it looks like. I just haven't shown anyone the mess that's in there right now. His crib is full of curtains that need to be hung and a giant stuffed animal lion. There's boxes on the floor full of his clothes/toys/baby supplies and it's going to look like that until I clean out the one closet in there that's full of assorted junk. 

Also, here is Sadie pictured with a random kitchen chair (that was here when we moved in) and a piece of the sectional in our living room that (once again) doesn't have anywhere else to go right now. We're getting rid of the chair and eventually buying a new couch so both these things are on their way out. Sometimes plans just take longer than you originally thought :)

 With the baby due in July, comes with it a small bit of anxiety. I'm not just referring to labor and delivery here, I'm talking about our house. It's not finished. There are many projects that we're chipping away at but I know we don't have time to finish them all up before our son arrives. That means that everyone who's coming to see the baby will also see this house in all of it's unfinished-unpainted-untrimmed-and-unmatched glory. And you know what? That's ok.

But I'll be honest. Getting to that point (and I'm not all the way there yet) has been hard for me. Really hard. I've complained to Jonathan a lot, to the point that I've flat out discouraged him by how ungrateful I am for the house God's provided for us. Isn't that sad? I suppose this post turned out to be not so much about the 'unattractive' parts of our house but more about the ugliness of the sin in my own heart. 

Thank You Jesus for Your forgiveness and grace.

And praise God for helping me to see, not what makes this place our house, but what makes it our home:  Our bed that sags more on one side than the other because we sleep so close together there. The worn down pillows on the couch from where we've watched many movies and tv shows and laughed and snuggled through them all. The smudged up stove from meals I've been able to cook for us. The dusty tables, the never-ending laundry and all the repairs yet to come. It just shows me that…hello…we live here.

 We live. 

Here. 

In all this right now. 

Isn't that amazing? And wonderful? And something that I need to stop missing out on because I'm waiting for something better? 

No, this isn't what I want things to look like forever, and no I'm not giving up on bringing everything in this house to it's beautiful potential but I am giving up on the pursuit of perfection and trying to impress everyone.

The curtains that don't match, the walls that aren't finished and the floor that needs replacing is our life right now. It just is. We're working on it, but we're choosing to live in it too. So when you come over this July to celebrate our son's arrival, don't expect a completed work of Home & Garden, Pinterest worthy perfection. I may blush when you see the size of the dust bunnies under the table, I may apologize for that hole in the wall but I do want to welcome you here despite all that. This is our home and I'm so glad you're here. So come on in, let's just do real life together, ok? 

Whew…if you're still reading this after all that, bless you. I wish I could give you a high five right now. Instead, I'll end this post with some up-to-date baby belly shots because I know you are just dying to see how big we're getting ;) 

33 weeks

34 weeks

And just to keep this whole honesty thread going, look at the right picture. See my tired, kinda puffy eyes? Yea, I noticed them as well when I went to edit that picture. But I posted it anyway because I look happy. Really happy (psstt…that's because I am). Sure, I'm dealing with house frustrations and life frustrations. And sure, I'm at the point in the pregnancy where sleep takes planning, back rubs from Jonathan and many well-placed pillows but...I'm happy and I'm living. More than that, I get to live this life with Jesus walking beside me, my husband holding my hand and our son tucked all snug inside me. 

Wow, just...wow. I truly hope I never recover from the wonder of living in all this. The honest-to-goodness beauty for me to treasure, all of it, a holy gift.