Beautiful, Beautiful Blogland

I am a regular visitor to Blogland.  It's a beautiful place.  Almost like a fairytale at times, which only leaves me to conclude that...some blogs lie!  Well, at least I think they might stretch the truth a bit.  Or maybe they just don't include the bad stuff.  That is the only explanation I can come up with for what has happened around here these last couple of days. 

You see, sometimes as I peruse Blogland I see all kinds of neat things going on.  Fall traditions galore:  kids crafts, carmeled apples, pumpkin butter, and roasted pumpkin seeds just to name a few.  And then I start thinking (which is never a good thing) "I'm not doing anything special...Not a craft in sight...What kind of fall traditions do we have around here anyway???"  Then I start feeling (which is worse).  I feel bad for my kids and I feel a little/sorta like a bad mom, or at the very least not a very creative one, and I always thought--when I pictured myself as a mom--that I'd be the kind that would be creative and delightful.

I want to be creative and delightful.  I want fall traditions, especially the kind that are pictured in Blogland.  They look so fun and festive, and everyone is happy, and the pictures.  Oh, the pictures!  They're beautiful.  Creativity never looked so good or so clean.  Not a speck of spilled glue anywhere.  And the kids, all scrubbed and coifed in their JCrew sweaters, look angelically joyful.  See?  Right there.  That's the life I want.  And I was sure I could get it at Hobby Lobby. 

All I needed was an idea.  Then I remembered:  Somewhere during this last year I saw the most adorable halloween lanterns made from paper mache.  I had never done paper mache, but I was sure my kids would love it.  My craft, at last!  I gathered and bought the supplies, which in and of itself took far longer than I anticipated.  (After 8 years, I still forget how little I can get done with kids in tow.)  By the time I was finally ready to start the project, I was already behind in laundry and dinner wasn't started. Perhaps that should have signaled a warning bell in my head.  It did not.  My friends call me unrealistically optimistic.  It's a fitting description.  I plowed ahead.

The next day, Sunday, we had a rare afternoon with no meetings, choir practices, home teaching visits--nothing.  A perfect time to do a family craft!  And so it began.  Almost immediately there was paper mache everywhere.  I wanted to take a picture, but Mr. Wicke and I couldn't clean up fast enough.  Logan insisted on washing her hands after every strip, and Griffin was...well, Griffin was Griffin.  Dirty and messy and going a mile a minute.  Wait a second.  Blogland pictures don't include dripping paper mache and messy countertops.  What was I doing wrong? 

By the time we finally worked out a system, the kids were bored.  "Okay, we've done one.  Now can we go play?"  The kids in blogland never get bored.  Crafts out there are exciting and the kids finish every project with gusto.  In my house it was a little more like this:  "Hey.  We've got to get five of these done.  Now get back here."

Mr. Wicke and I spent the next two hours paper mache-ing together.  He loves being married to me.  It's fun.

Tonight it is three days later.  I'm still not finished.  Not with my schedule.  And in the little free time I do have, I'm so busy repairing, painting, and modgepodging paper mache lanterns that my house is a disaster.  I have yet to decorate for Halloween.  It's two days away.

Look, either there's something really wrong with me, or someone out there ain't tellin' the whole truth.  As much as I'd like my life to look like it stepped out of Martha Stewart magazine, that's just not my reality.  And I could feel really badly about  myself if I tried to live up to those glossy photos every minute.  Life is just messy, especially when you're busy living it, and that, I think, is okay. 

Just don't expect any pictures.