Paralyzed Perfectionist.

Confession time: I am a mess.

Specifically in relation to my weight and the current state of our home.

Some examples of my internal dialogue for your reading pleasure:
"Man, that bookcase looks awful - there are things piled up in front of it, and the kids shoved some of the books on there backwards, because I can't even read the title on the spine.  I really wish our bookcases were pretty.  But the shelf itself isn't cute, and I don't think I could ever arrange all the stuff to make them look like the ones I see in magazines and on Pinterest.  Sigh."

"I can't believe I just ate that muffin!  I was supposed to go home and have oatmeal.  Sheesh, why do I have no self control?! I clearly have blown the entire day - might as well just finish running all my errands and grab drive-through for lunch."

I have this idea of how things should be in my head, and it seems unattainable, so I basically just throw my hands up. Oh, and whine.  Yes, I *do* get that this is incredibly stupid.  I can work through all the logic, but for some reason I still am having a difficult time actually DOING. It's a ridiculous cocktail of being overwhelmed, guilt that it's gotten to this point, and years of bad habits.  I tend to THINK about things entirely too much rather than just getting to work.  I even hard a hard time sleeping this weekend as I was thinking about the personality types that my husband and I are, and how it affects our family dynamic (FYI: I'm the only introvert in our family.)

This approach is not doing me - or my family - any favors.

I've read countless books and articles about organizing, de-cluttering, and house cleaning schedules as well as diet and exercise plans.  They've added to the aforementioned bookshelf issue ;)

In all seriousness, though, it truly is a struggle for me, and I've been praying about this a lot.  The past two weeks, our pastor has been speaking on "The Plow." Allowing ourselves to be broken and pruned.  The hardness we've developed prevents God from filling us with His Goodness.  No, it's not easy, but very necessary as part of the sanctification process.

I am baby stepping.

As far as the body thing goes, I am working my way through Trim Healthy Mama* and leaning toward adapting many of the principles shared.  I'm only on page 60 and feeling pretty overwhelmed, but I keep telling myself to just do one thing at a time.  And I will mess up - the key is to just.keep.going.  We attended a birthday party yesterday at a pizza place - I had two bites of a slice along with a giant salad.  The Italian buttercream cake was unveiled, and I wanted to do a faceplant in it (while my brain was telling me not to participate in the sugarfest whatsoever) but I chose to have two forkfuls and move on. Baby. Steps.

On the home front, I am setting SMALL goals.  Instead of looking at the entire bookshelf, attack one shelf.  I actually cleaned out my cookbooks last week (and even made $10 selling a few on the yard sale site). Go me!

Do the best you can, with what you have and with what you know NOW.  Repeat.

Image from The Nester, whose mantra is "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful." ❤ (and yes, I know that the name should be spelled Schuller, and yes, his theology is screwy, but this quote is spot on).

*I had mentioned this last week, and I promise I really will do a more in-depth post on it soon.