(A sunny corner of my perfectly imperfect kitchen.)
Last month I wrote a bit about how my own high expectations can sometimes get in the way of my willingness to step outside of my comfort zone. Since blogging is something that sits firmly on the outer edge of said zone, I'm often pushing my next blog post aside for something that feels a little easier or more familiar to work on. I am determined, however, to get over this nervousness eventually, so I've been spending some thoughtful hours these past few weeks mulling over what I would like to share here if I knew that it would turn out perfectly every time. The more I thought about it, the more I began to realize I was caught in a bit of a Catch-22. I want to share things that I'm passionate about - things that are real and honest - but also things that are pretty and inspiring and measure up to my expectations of what a blog should look like. Unfortunately, those things don't always go hand-in-hand! See, the things I kept coming back to over and over again all seemed to revolve around this beautiful, quirky, perfectly imperfect old house my husband and I bought just over a year ago. I want to share it all with you, I really do! But there's something intimidating about doing just that - because there's still a part of me that feels like I should be embarrassed that my kitchen isn't pristine white subway tile with perfect open shelving and shiny brass hardware; that I should feel ashamed of every last bit of 90s wallpaper, wood paneling, and lumpy plaster. But I love this house! Like, SO much! I love it all! And I know it's not perfect, but honestly, that's half of the fun. Because it means there's room for improvement, and creativity, and daydreams. And while I don't have the budget to post jaw-dropping before and after photos of total room overhauls, I'd like to at least share my excitement over a new switch plate or freshly-painted wall. So today I'm sharing a small corner of my kitchen that I think perfectly sums up my feelings on all of this perfection vs. reality stuff (baby steps, right?). When you walk in the back door of our home, you're welcomed by this vintage needlework in our kitchen:
Home is where the heart is... It's also where the beat-up wallpaper and weird wire-filled wall holes are.My hubby and I bought this little cross-stitched cutie at a thrift store together on my birthday, and I knew right away that I wanted to hang it on the rusty old nail sticking out of this very wall in the kitchen. In my head, that little dangling heart was going to perfectly cover up the unsightly mystery hole just below said nail - the hole is filled with weird corroded wires (?) with a patch of damaged wallpaper surrounding it, and well, it's not very pretty. But as you can see, the hole is still there in plain sight, and is perhaps even more noticeable now that the colorful needlework draws your eye right to it. We thought about hanging our our little treasure somewhere else in the house, but ultimately decided to just embrace it. We love this house with all of our hearts, weird holes and all. Next week I'm going to share another little piece of our home with you all, I promise. I'm putting it out there today so that I'll stick to it next week. And there's a chance that you might mistake a picture or two as a 'before' photo without its 'after', but I'm okay with that. Because ultimately, this whole house is one great big 'before' - we plan on living here our whole lives, and making plenty of changes along the way. And someday, we'll probably even get around to fixing up that weird hole in the kitchen. 