Stumbling reality

I love going on Houzz and looking at all the gorgeous homes they have on there. How wonderful if my home could look like that! Formal dining rooms always set with beautiful china and seasonal tablescapes. a bathroom counter with nothing but a vase of flowers on it. kitchens with fancy cabinet organizers and granite counter tops and again, cleared counter tops. And those enormous craft rooms!

Sadly, I live in the real world, where finding enough room for the things we use everyday is hard enough in a 1500 sq ft, 3 bedroom home. I have no room for formal dining rooms or clear counter tops, and every room must serve several purposes when you have 4 people living together.

Our master bedroom currently sleeps 4 (did you know you can fit 4 people in 1 king-size bed? How do kids take up more room than the adults?) to our familyroom, which is currently the children's room (no wonder they sleep with us, right?) to the guestroom/laundryroom/craftroom/linen closet/classroom/occasional mommy-needs-10-minutes-alone-before-her-head-explodes room. And our third bedroom, which shouldn't be called that since I haven't found a way to fit even a twin-sized bed in it it's so small, which is my poor husbands office.

Why does he get his own office? Well, because his job is almost 2 hours commute, each way, from our house so he works from home a lot :)

So forget about manicures, and tablescapes and fancy-shaped cutout sandwiches in my kids lunchboxes. Forget date nights and schedules and swapmeets. Sure, plenty of moms can have 6 kids and send each to school with a perfectly balanced homemade lunch, keep an immaculate house and cook homemade meals every night and all the other things a housewife is *supposed* to do.

Some of us just aren't proper housewives. But thats okay, because we can still be great moms and great wives! Hopefully I can help a few other "accidental mommies" out there escape from "how you're supposed to do it" and be able to be a mom AND retain your sanity.