When I mentioned in my post about how we are fitting in writing the book in our schedule, I made a joke about making a list of all that I don’t do….people seem to be asking a lot and I thought it was funny.

But then y’all laughed and said I should.  I got a couple of emails and Facebook comments, and I thought we should put it out there.

First, a few things:

–I never, ever want to give the impression on this blog that I’m some kind of super-mama or that we have everything figured out and under control all the time, or even that we never have down days or feel overwhelmed or stressed.  This is life.  It’s imperfect–and so is our family and our schedule.

Our normal and your normal may not look the same.  How we fill our lives is all up to us…so while we’re “busy,” it’s only because we choose those things, and leave others out.

–I am, by nature, scattered and passionate about lots of things.  This is good, but it can lead to taking on too much, not saying no often enough, & doing lots of things, but not all of them well.  I (and Matt) have to keep me in check on these.

–Because of that random scattered/i-want-to-tackle-everything-as-fast-as-i-can-nature, I am slowly learning to accept imperfection and the fact I can’t do everything I want to every single day.  Some days are for loads of homeschooling and lesson planning and some days are for cooking better dinners, and some days are for blogging marathons, and some are for writing the book.  It’s my weird way of balancing…not trying to tackle everything every day.

Disclaimers and understanding aside, here’s my shameless list of “I don’t.”

what i don't do: confessions of a blogger, shop owner, & homeschooler

I don’t wash my face every day anymore…I know, it’s terrible.  I don’t use under eye cream or anti-aging serum.  I don’t clean my car out daily…in fact, it’s pretty gross and very messy.

I don’t pluck my eyebrows but have them waxed every 8 weeks.  That means Matt starts giving me disapproving stares around week 6.5.

I don’t buy the groceries every week.  Matt loves that (really??), so he helps out with it when he can.

I don’t wear real clothes every day…in fact, my typical uniform is gym shorts and some random t shirt that’s clean, because, oh yeah..

I don’t keep up with laundry like I should.  In phases, I stay on top of it, and then all of a sudden, we have 10 loads to do and it feels like a mountain of work, so I do it, dry it, and then promptly dump it in a pile on the floor.  Wash, Rinse, Dry, Pile, Repeat.

what i don't do: confessions of a blogger, shop owner, & homeschooler

I don’t make my kids clean up every mess they make immediately.  Sometimes, we do, but sometimes, we wait until the next day.  There’s flexibility in that for me…which means, our house can either look amazingly tidy or horrifically messy.

I don’t bleach my slipcovers enough, and so they’re about to retire.

I don’t panic at ALL about stains and marks and spills.  My mom’s face starts twitching when she sees the kids painting in the floor or my stack of brushes on the kitchen counter.

I don’t keep up with every single item we need to buy like lightbulbs, Brillo pads, or extra razor blades.  Sometimes we run out for a few days before we go get them again.

I don’t fix everything in our house that needs fixing.  We like to finish big projects, but we’re not great with small repairs.  Case in point: when we had the whole downstairs painted white, the painter put the door handle on backwards so you have to lift up instead of down to open the door.  It’s still like that.  That was a year and a half ago.

what i don't do: confessions of a blogger, shop owner, & homeschooler

I don’t deep clean our house anymore.  When the blog was a full-time job & then we began homeschooling & opened the store, we decided it was time to enlist help to keep the house from being a life size terrarium for dirt and grime and creatures.  I clean the kitchen almost daily, and do lots of organizing, cleaning out, and straightening, but we have the biggest blessing in the world come to the house to combat the terrarium. (P.S. SUCH a hard decision for us, but it was the right one so we could have some family time at the end of our days)

I don’t have pedicured feet or manicured nails.  No need for explanation.

I don’t take the kids to the zoo, or museum, or big field trips every week.  And that’s okay.  We go when we can, but we try to include them in our work, not exclude them, so our days are fun for them, too.

I don’t quit work at 5 or 6 or even 10 p.m.  (It’s Sunday afternoon, and I’ve written 4 posts for this week)  Now, don’t worry about me…

Because I don’t work every moment of the day.  Or everyday.  Or if something comes up and the kids DO want to go somewhere…we stop what we’re working on and we go.  There are exceptions (like right now working on the book for 4 months).

I don’t “do lunch” out, or have girlfriend movie dates, or go have coffee a lot.

I don’t wash my hair everyday or do things like keep the back porch tidy. #pollendustmagnet

what i don't do: confessions of a blogger, shop owner, & homeschooler

I don’t drink enough water a lot of the time.

We don’t take our kids to lots of birthday parties or activities like gymnastics.  They do a few of their favorites throughout the year, and we go to close friends’ parties and sleepovers, but we like quiet family-focused time on the weekends.

I don’t answer all of my emails.  I want to…I didn’t clean out my 3 inboxes for 3 months, and there. were. 11,000. Yikes.

We don’t mow our yard enough.  We try to get help, but then they don’t come, so guess what?  It doesn’t get mowed.  #blacklistedneighbors

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I hope that’s enough.  I’m starting to feel crummy about myself.

All jokes aside, our schedule, what we do…it works for us.  But, it’s not for everyone.  At the end of the day, we’re happy when we’re spending time with our Creator, introducing our kids to Him, giggling with them, and working on the things we love…as we can.

So that’s what we do, and the dishes wait until tomorrow.

“Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.”

–Colossians 3, the message