My thoughts on perfection during the holidays

About 10-12 years ago I had a close friend who was a pastry chef (yummy perks right?!) and a perfectionist in most areas of her life. One day, when she was having a group of us ladies over to her home for an informal, but well laid out, party she told me something that really stuck with me, she said “If I waited until everything was perfect I’d never have anyone over and my home being perfect is just not as important to me as you guys are”… wow! The idea of not having to have everything perfect went off like an explosion in my brain! For you see I had always felt like our home needed to be somewhat “perfect” in order to entertain people. You know, perfectly cleaned, painted, decorated etc…  maybe I thought people were judging me based on how well I could “keep” a home, I don’t know.. I thought a lot about what she said and realized never once have I gone into someone’s home and judged them based on their surroundings… so why did I think my friends/family would judge me on mine?

It was almost like a switch flipped in my head that day… In general I do keep our home picked up and if someone is coming over I would like for it to look decent, but not to the extent that I wouldn’t open my door to a friend or family member who happened to drop by because I was concerned about what they would think of me.

There’s a reason I’m telling you all of this and I will get to it soon I promise…

When I was young my dad seemed to always want to start (but NEVER finish) a home “improvement” project right before the holidays. Now I’m not talking any little project, I’m talking taking walls down, renovating common rooms, exposed ceilings and shit, you know the big stuff. I hated it, my mom REALLY hated it and the memories have stuck with me like taffy sticks in the back of your teeth.

So here I am many, (many) years later doing the SAME.DAMN.THING and wondering why I have chosen to repeat a pattern I hate…

While it is not a HUGE deal, I know it could be MUCH worse, I currently have the wall over my range in the kitchen tore open…

When I could be here, if I’d just left it alone and waited to start the project after Christmas.

But I have plans for this kitchen and I’m ok with where I’m at (well sort of)… I am hoping to be farther along in the kitchen updates by Thanksgiving. I am trying to make the kitchen look as good as I possibly can given the circumstances I have put us in, but it will be a work in progress for a while.

When I showed my youngest sister the photo of the current state of the kitchen she asked me if I was going to get that done by Thanksgiving, to which I quickly replied “hell no” and then she laughed, like REALLY laughed. You see my sister (admittedly) has some OCD about her house looking just so and it would be a cold day in hell when she would let anyone in her home with it in the same condition as mine currently is, but she says she envies my ability to not let it bother me… I will take her at her word on this…

So here I am getting around to my point… THAT IT IS OK… IT IS ALL OK…. if you like your house to look perfect before having people over fine, if you don’t care if it’s messy fine, if it’s a partial construction zone fine.. your real friends don’t care and your family has to love you no matter what (right?) so you just keep on being you and I’ll keep on being me and that’s awesome! Perfection is so highly overrated and all but impossible to achieve, so why put that kind of stress on you during the holidays? While it is nice to see pretty rooms in the magazines all decked out for the holidays with all of the latest decor, I don’t think that’s what the holidays are truly about… shouldn’t it be about spending quality time with the ones you love no matter what you have or don’t have?

My plan is to make a fabulous Thanksgiving meal, have my family over and enjoy the shit out of the day because that’s what it is all about to me…

BUT I DO HOPE…

… to have a range hood installed (please oh please)

… to have some more sheetrock installed

… I don’t burn anything

AND the hot rolls rise

But above all I hope that everyone has a great time, including me!

Thanks as always for stopping by and I hope you all have a wonderful, stress free Thanksgiving!

From my family to yours!