finding myself?

I've let my house go since Handsome passed away. I used to pride myself on having a clean, organized home for my family, but a few months ago, I just quit caring. It was one of the many things in my life that I just let slip, recently. Not that I've let it get dirty, because it's still very much clean. It just... it lacks what it used to be. In my opinion, a person's home is a reflection of themselves. I look at my house like a representation of the type of person I am. I've always wanted my house to send a certain message to my visitors... That I'm not lazy. That I take care of what's mine. And that I'm well organized. But after Handsome passed away, I felt like it was excusable to not have a perfect home. People expected a messy, cluttered home from me, so that's what I delivered. I felt like for the first time in a long time my home was no longer part of the way people perceived me. I was the woman who lost her son. No matter how clean or how dirty my house, that fact would remain the same. 

But as the days keeping passing since Handsome earned his angel wings, I find myself wondering when is it no longer an excuse. When will I get a visitor who thinks that my not- so- tidy bathroom makes me careless housekeeper? What about the people who are visiting who don't know I lost a child, like the sears delivery people who delivered my treadmill yesterday? How long can I just get by with "picking up" every day? When will people start expecting my baseboards to be bleached, my floors freshly mopped with pine- sol, or my beds to be made and laundry put away? 

And then there is the feelings of self worth, or should I say the lack of. I might not feel like decluttering my house, but I feel so... inadequate as a wife and a mother, if I don't. My husband had to return to his job, after losing Handsome. My children had to return to school. Why should I be the one who doesn't fall back into her routine? What makes me special? I sit during the day thinking about the clothes in the dryer that haven't been folded. The dishes in the washer that haven't been put away. The toys scattered in the kids' bedrooms that need to be picked up. It's not that I don't want my house to be the way it used to be, because it bothers me to the point that I lose sleep at night. I just keep telling myself, though, that it's okay, because I lost my child....

I want to be who I used to be. The person I was before I had to watch the life fade from my toddler's eyes. I want to be happy again. I want my house to represent what an organized and clean person I am. I want to come home after going out with the kids and my house "feel" the way it used to. It's not fair that I had to lose my child and it's definitely not fair that I had to lose myself, too. 

prized possession

Every time Handsome has been air lifted to the Children's Hospital, my whole drive to him all I can think about is that we don't have any family photos. I know it's probably not what most parents in that situation would think about, but it's what I think of. I think of how I only have one picture of all five of my babies together. About how I have only two photos of my husband and I with Handsome. I think how if something happens to him, how much I would regret not getting photos done. Maybe it's just the photographer in me or maybe it's my way of coping, but it's something that has always bothered me.

We were blessed when the doctors let Handsome go home last month. I remember every day in that hospital, every time someone new came in with more bad news, thinking that this could be it. This could be my last chance to get a family photo done with my whole family. I promised myself if he overcame this obstacle and he made it home, I would not put family photos on the back burner ever again. 

Then my good friend and favorite photographer, Michelle, offered to move her schedule around and to accommodate our family's hectic routines and Handsome's crazy health demands. She came out to our house, since traveling with Handsome isn't easy and she made our tiny backyard, that faces a BUSY street into a perfect backdrop. She captured my family in a beautiful light and I don't just mean with her photography skills. She gave me the most precious gift anyone could have giving me. She gave me a photo of  my family. She gave me a captured moment in time where we were all together, all happy, grateful and loving. 

You can see more of our family photos on her facebook fan page! Michelle Elise Photography

Welcome Home Wednesday Wardrobe

This week's Wednesday Wardrobe features something a bit more old fashioned. I know when I pictured my first military homecoming, it was a world war II setting with me in pin curls and pearls and my husband in his military uniform. I envisioned something straight out of the movie Pearl Harbor, only I'm not as thin as Kate Beckinsale and my husband isn't as tall as Ben Affleck, but nonetheless...

My dreams of my first homecoming are what inspired this week's Wednesday Wardrobe. The dress comes from modcloth.com, my absolute favorite place to shop! 

Operation: Get Organized!

One of my resolutions is to get more organized. Organization has never come easy for me, no matter how hard I try. I'm that person who sticks clothes in whatever draw they will fit in and I buy organizers, like shoe organizers to hang behind the door, but the shoes still get thrown in the closet and other miscellaneous things get put in the shoe organizer. My lack of organization skills never really bothered me up until recently.

I guess, lately, I'm so hard- pressed for time, that being unorganized has started to take more time away from my day then I can afford. The other day I "misplaced" my camera battery charger and we spent 3 hours, yes 3 hours, tearing our house apart looking for it. Then it took the rest of the day to clean up the mess we made while on our search.

We decided to take Operation: Get Organized! slow. Each month we want to work on a different room and after we get that room organized, my goal is to spend thirty minutes a week in that room making sure everything is still organized. I'm hopeful this will make our future moves easier, as well as our small living space more livable.