Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Best Foot Forward

When I wrote the title for this blog, I misspelled "Forward."  My fingers started moving too quickly and the "r" got in front of the "o."  Since I've been typing this, I have made about 12 mistakes and had to go back and correct spelling, punctuation and grammar.  Five more mistakes were made typing that last sentence.

I am nowhere near perfect.  (I had to google "nowhere" to see if it was one word or two.)

I am realizing, through a book that I am reading, that when I always put my best foot forward, I can actually be quite a discouragement to others.  We live in a Pinterest world now, a world where we imagine that every other mother/father/employee/family is doing amazing things. 

I might post one recipe about the bread that I made by hand...  But right now we're eating store-bought bread because my kids got tired of homemade bread and my bread-maker paddle broke and I don't want to knead bread every day.

I might share a cool craft/snack that I did to teach my kids about music theory...  But more often than not we're not doing music theory!  I'm just happy that my kids are tracing Super Mario characters from the Wii game case.

I might talk about how I get my kids cleaning around the house...  but right now there is urine dehydrating itself on the downstairs toilet seat and I am not planning to do anything about it.

I might plan fancy meals to serve my friends...  But I'm lucky if I can figure out what to make for dinner each day, let alone have a balanced meal.

I might have a Bible verse to share about a certain subject...  But I probably googled it because I couldn't remember where it was or exactly what it said.

And I may have a Bachelor's degree in Egnlsih  but this is what this post would have looked liked with a out any editing or red lines to tell me whern I misspelled something.


Let's be real with each other.  It's okay to share some awesomeness that just happened, but it's also good to be real about our struggles and imperfections.  I propose that being real is more likely to build someone up than putting our best foot forward all the time.


I made these pictures extra big so you could see how amazing we are...

These smiles on my children were only given when I threatened to not give them Christmas presents if they didn't smile with Grandma and Grandpa.  They may have thought I was joking.
Most pictures of me look this awesome.

My boy and his most natural behaviour. (See any resemblance?)

 
Why do I try to photograph these children?  It looked so cute when those other kids did it on Pinterest.


7 comments:

  1. I love this post, Wanda!! I agree, perfection is discouraging, being real is so much better. May we all have the courage to be a little more transparent!

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  2. I loved this post too. You put into words excatly what I think !

    That's why I complain more than my share on FB, to counterbalance all the good thing I tell too. ;-)

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  3. Margaret-Ann SampsonMarch 6, 2013 at 11:04 AM

    That's my sister! .... and I'm so glad.

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  4. A balanced meal is one that fits on the plate and you can hold it balanced on your hand right?? :)

    My husband cleans our bathrooms, I have never done it. I claim that it is because of the fumes from the cleaners (which is certainly a huge deterrent, do not suggest natural cleaners, i like he does it LOL)

    You would not believe my unfolded laundry pile. At the moment, I am rather thrilled it is bigger than the dirty laundry pile.

    I actually really appreciate your honesty, but I also cherish your witty and creative postings on other days as well.

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  5. Love it and it was very encouraging. Brene Brown says the path to joy and creativity is through vulnerability.

    http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

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