My Imperfect Perfect: Our Enchanted Life

I've been stressed out a lot lately. I have 4 kids, 2 dogs, 1 parrot, 1 bunny & 4 chickens. Oh.. and a Husband. All of us together make up our family and each of us is very blessed. I have the house I never could have dreamed up, the swimming pool that I dreamed of, but never thought I could have, we are our own boss and to anyone looking in from the outside it may seem that we might have a somewhat enchanted life.

Since I've had my first child I've had a really hard time trying to figure out what my role is. I know that sounds funny, I mean, if I could, I should just be a Mom right? Somehow it's just never been that easy for me. I always felt... guilty... like maybe I wasn't contributing enough to my household or to the world or... whatever. I always felt like I needed to be successful on several levels. An awesome Mom, a successful business woman, (In not just one but several different businesses) a great wife, a daughter that her parents would be proud of. I hired maids to help with my house so that I could accomplish all of these various ambitions. Things were going OK... crazy, hectic, stressed out and nuts... but OK.

Well... whenever my kids lose something they blame the maids for "hiding it". I see them carelessly make messes all over the house... after all... they're not the ones that have to clean it. I go crazy when they treat their toys or clothes like it's garbage and then nonchalantly say... "You can just buy me another one." My favorite is when I got out the iron and ironing board and my daughter didn't know what it was and said she had never seen it before and asked what it did. Wow, she was amazed that such a clever thing existed!

I decided that things needed to change. I decided that maybe I wasn't doing the most important thing I should be doing. I decided that my kids needed to know how to earn money, how to take care of it, how to work hard, how to clean, wash their own clothes and how to cook a meal with stuff from our garden... (because I LOVE it when I set food on the table and they say... "I didn't want this" as if there should have been some menu for them to choose from.)

My Real Estate License expired and I decided not to renew it. I let it go. I said "No" to directing the school play, I told the maids that we were no longer in need of their services and I got busy creating a chart of "chores" for our family to complete. I made things simpler and now... I feel like things are starting to click into place. For the first time in my married life I feel like I'm doing things right. Not that I've ever had any complaints, especially not from my darling husband but it's nice to feel like things are going in the right direction.

I was looking around at our house this Saturday. My family had worked VERY hard to clean it. Things aren't perfect, I have yellow crayon that I still need to get off my Living Room Walls.
Tiny finger prints still need to be erased from light switches. Dry wall needs to be fixed where door knobs have been pushed through from my son "energetically" swinging open the door after my youngest daughter discovered that she could twist off the door stops. (She's fascinated with door stops!)

I look upstairs in my daughters bedroom and I see that she's recently discovered that her wall paper border (that I so lovingly put up while I was pregnant with her) can peel right off if she gets her nails under it! My son's room can never be completely clean, after all, cars don't really belong in drawers.

My 6 yr old daughters room has a collection of stuffed animals that need to be "free".
My oldest daughter collects "treasures" (shoe boxes, old ticket stubs, etc...) that she just can't part with. She sees potential in every thing. My house is clean but definitely not perfect.


I'm lying on my bed looking at a pillow and I notice the stitching on it is not... right. I realize that it's why I like it so much. It's not perfect, it's not symmetrical, it would drive an OCD person crazy. I love it and I think it gives it a human feel, like it was stitched by someone that was making something they thought was going to be beautiful. It is beautiful.



Well...this is like my life. This is my family, this is my home. It's not perfect, the stitches of our lives aren't perfect... but it's simple, and it takes hard work to make it, and it's beautiful and I love it.

To anyone looking in from the outside that may be thinking we have a somewhat enchanted life I would have to say... yep, we do. It's not because of anything we have though. It's not our house or our cars or my pool and it's for sure not the 2 dogs, bunny, parrot or chickens. My life was enchanted the moment I married the man of my dreams and we lived in the tiniest of tiny apartments in Ogden.

It was enchanted when we came home from our honeymoon only to find that our water-bed broke (flood all over) and we had to use all of the money from our wedding to buy a bed. My life was enchanted the first time I held each of our children in my arms. My life was enchanted when we were so poor that I had to cut back on groceries and cutting coupons became my full time job. My life was enchanted even before all of those people were in it. It was enchanted when I was 8 and my Mom would do my hair in a fancy braid. Or when I was little and I would ride on the back of a motorcycle with my Dad. All of these things are what make my imperfect life... perfect. I could lose all of my "stuff" and go right back to living in the tiniest of tiny apartments in Ogden and I would be just as happy as I am now... more crowded (maybe even more scared) but happy. It's not what I have in my life, but who I have in my life that makes me happy. Those people make my life enchanted, it's what makes everything that's imperfect... perfect.

I think I had so many other distractions in my life that it took me and my family getting down to the basics (growing our own food, cleaning our own house, my kids making their own money, etc... ) to bring it into balance. My kids are happier, they feel more important, more confident, less... bratty. hahaha It's good to have them work, it's good that everything isn't given, it's good for them to watch a garden grow that they helped plant or to watch chickens grow or to see how nice things look after they worked so hard to get it clean. After all... You can't see the magic that's happening around you if other people are sweeping up the pixie dust for you.



The day our whole entire house was clean (and we were the ones that did it) I took pictures. It was a momentous occasion and one that needed to be recorded for posterity. I thought it also might serve as proof that we did work hard because 10 minutes later it didn't look anything like this. Everyone take a peek because you may never see it this way again! : )


The outside of our house with our newly planted trees. (Thanks Jeff)

In our entry. Notice that there's no dust. I'm sure you're very impressed.

Entry again. Yep the kids even cleaned the mirror.

There are still cobwebs at the top of the entry... we're workin' on it.


My favorite room... the kitchen. Notice how there's no...I mean... not very many dishes!

Our family room. The TV with neverending finger prints but...

it was vacuumed very well.

Even the piano was not just dusted but polished! Oooh!! Wouldn't it be nice if it was like this all the time? We do too much living here to keep it perfect. Oh well!!