Monster Hoodie Refashion and an Uncalled For Blog Rant

I have a guest post over at My Own Road today with the tutorial to make this little monster hoodie:

I've mentioned before that I don't do many holiday crafts, but I like this one because it looks Halloween-y enough for now (heehee . . . halloweenie) but I don't think it'll look out of place if he keeps wearing it later.

And just so no one decides to come back and mock me in the comments . . . yes, I do realize now that one of my sentences in that guest post contains the word "few" 3 times. Yesterday was a bit of a long day. The sort of day that ends with me writing a sentence with 3 "fews" without noticing.  And with that as my intro, now I will wax a tad too philosophical and get into one of my blogging pet peeves. 

I love reading blogs because they can be so inspiring and hilarious and fun and uniting . . . hundreds of women all over the world are making me laugh and cry with them, helping me to think in new ways, getting my creative juices flowing, educating me on new topics and ideas . . . but they're also, sometimes, making me feel unbelievably frustrated, annoyed, dissatisfied, and unworthy. Some blogs--ones that I purposely no longer visit, even if friends gush about how much they love them--make everything look so perfect and styled and glamorous and idyllic that I can't help but click away in a worse mood. 

Maybe their lives really are that nice and they're truly spending every day in a totally stylish new outfit (a size 2 outfit, thank you very much) that they somehow found time to professionally photograph in some gorgeous location, and maybe their husbands (hubbies!) really are their perfect heroes who bring them breakfast in bed every day while reciting them sonnets, and maybe their kids really are as adorable and well-behaved all the time as they make them out to be, and their houses really look like they were taken from the pages of a magazine, and every DIY project is completely effortless and mistake-free, and if all that is really true, well, good for them. But why on earth would I want to read that?

Because at my house? At my house, I repeat the same outfits, quite often. And some days, I don't even make it that far, and I stay in my jammies all day. Want to see that professionally photographed in a wheat field? And my husband is great and I love him (that's precisely why I married him, and I don't feel any compulsion to try and convince you that he's better than the one sitting on your couch picking his nose right now), but you know what? We argue. Quite often. And he burps and farts and has never written me a sonnet. And that's just fine with me, so why would I want to read about how perfect someone else is pretending their husband is? How is that supposed to help me feel happier about the one I have? And as for their perfect children . . . well, they clearly would not be allowed to play with mine:

But I sure love him! He cries, he throws tantrums, he mushes food into his hair, he tries to grab his poop out of his diaper every single time I change him, but what's the point of pretending that all he ever does is give me slobbery kisses and draw me kooky pictures and sing like the Vienna Boys' Choir? And you know what? I'm not always completely content and blissful as a mother. Gasp! Some days, I sure miss heading off to work in the morning and being done with my days' tasks at 5:00. And sometimes I think back fondly on the old days, when we could sleep in as late as we wanted on the weekends, and head out on a vacation or even just a date without making massive arrangements first. Sometimes this kid makes me want to pull my hair out and just take off running and never look back. That doesn't mean I love my little boy any less than any other mom loves her kids, but I simply can't pretend that everything is always perfect, even though I can definitely see the temptation to only post the angelic photos like this and let you imagine that this is how he is all the time:

My house is messy more often than not. My attempts at being creative are often failures. I ruin dinners, and I have yet to put up a holiday decoration . . . not just for this season, but ever. My child watches The Cat in the Hat instead of sitting on my lap while I read him books, I didn't breastfeed very long or cloth diaper and I don't feed him organic produce, and I don't feel bad about it.You know what he had for dinner last night? Red Vines. 

I have bad days. I have doubts about my choices in life, and about myself. I'm not 100% deliriously happy 100% of the time. And I never think there's anything wrong with that until I start reading certain blogs that give me the feeling there is something wrong with that.

You wouldn't hang out with a friend who made you feel fat and ugly and called you a bad mom, would you? If someone came into your house and snickered at the throw pillows you tried to sew for your couch, and cringed at the sight of toys scattered all over the floor, would you invite them to stay a while? No! So why would I want to read blogs that make me feel worse about my very ordinary, very unglamorous, very imperfect life?

All that to say, I hope I'm never that blog. I hope I never, ever, ever make anyone feel worse about themselves, their family, their life, or their work. I'm not interested in making everything look perfect and easy, and I doubt I could pull that off convincingly, even if I tried. For me, as a blog reader, there's a fine line between inspiring, optimistic, uplifting and plain old depressing, and I hope as a blog writer, I never cross it.

(Big sigh.) That was quite a jump, from check out my monster hoodie refashion to holy blog rant. Maybe that gives you a hint of what kind of day I had yesterday, while trying to work on that hoodie. I didn't start out this post with any intention besides directing you to My Own Road for the hoodie post, but it all just came out . . . word vomit. I guess I just want to put that out there . . . the idea that imperfect is fine. Ordinary is okay. Maybe it just needed to be said.