Embrace the Mess

Not long ago I came across a quote that instantly spoke to me, "Embrace the Mess!" These 3 words nearly slapped me in the face when I read them. You see, I'm a bit of a neat freak. Okay, maybe not just a bit; I'm a total neat freak! (I get it from my mom, she's the same way.) Some people would call it OCD. I like things to be in their place and for everything to be clean, picked up, and neat. While this can be a good quality to have, it can also sometimes drive a person crazy. As other moms know, it's almost impossible for everything to be in order all the time when you've got a busy toddler at home.

So, I decided to make this "embrace the mess" a new goal for myself. I even had the above print made to hang in our gallery wall in the living room as a reminder. I'm slowly trying to teach myself to embrace the mess. It's often much easier said than done, especially when you prefer things to be in their proper places. My husband often reminds me that Southern Living isn't coming for our home photo-shoot. The fingerprints on the doors, stainless steel appliances, and windows, along with the toys in the floor, are little reminders that our house is filled with joy and love. These little things are also reminders that we are blessed with the gift of being parents to a healthy and precious child. Once every other week, the fingerprints and smears are gone for maybe a day or two after the housekeeper makes her stop by our house. During the time in between her visits, I'm learning to let it go and embrace it all. Our house is a home, and it's the place where we live. I want Mac and our other future children to have good memories from home. I want them to feel like we lived in our home, and have fond memories of it. I want them to remember the times that their mama played with them or cooked their favorite meals, not all the times she spent cleaning up their messes.

Now don't get me wrong, I am still a neat freak. I struggle with embracing the mess almost daily. At the end of the evening before I go to bed, I pick things up and put them in their proper places. We're also teaching Mac how to pick up after himself, and put things away once he's finished with it. I'm just trying to loosen up and live in the moment instead of worrying about the house being in perfect condition all of the time. Because as much I hate to think about, I know deep down that far too soon this little boy will be a big boy and one day our house be too neat and too quiet, so for now we will embrace the mess.

Creating Our Gallery Wall

As a lot of you know, we moved into a new home this past April. With time, patience, (which I'm always short on), searching, and funds, it's slowly coming together!

I knew once we got our new living furniture that I wanted to do a gallery wall on the big wall in our living room. In our previous house, I had very minimal things on the walls but since this will be home for several years I want it to feel that way. I searched Pinterest pinning lots of different pins, and finally found my inspiration to create our wall.

I created this whole gallery wall, from frames to photos for under $100. I already had a few of the frames I used which were wedding gifts from our Pottery Barn wedding registry. After 4 years, I finally put them to use! I purchased all the other frames at Target. I had a picture on my iPhone of a layout I liked, so I kind of used that to "guide me" when creating the layout for our wall. I laid all the frames out in the aisle of Target to ensure I had what I needed before heading home. I'm sure people that walked by wondered what I was doing. Ha! After purchasing the frames, I then went home and filled them with our photos. I laid everything out again, this time on our coffee table. I used it because it's big and is close to the width of the space I was going to fill on the wall. I then added a few initials and a couple of small starburst mirrors to the arrangement. The G's came from Hobby Lobby and the starburst mirrors I already had; they were purchased a couple years ago at Target.

Once I got it all laid out, I took each piece and traced on the back of wrapping paper. I didn't have any craft paper, so I made what I did have on hand work. After tracing each piece, I then cut everything out, and arranged the paper on the wall how I had it laid out on the table. This is what most of the "how-to" posts I read showed to do.

After I got it all taped up on the wall, I made a few minor changes to the arrangement. I then got my hammer, nails, and command strips to start hanging the pieces where the paper was. Once the nail was in the wall, I took the paper down and hung the frame on the wall.

I am so pleased with the finished product! It adds so much to our living room, and makes this house feel more like home. I'm also pretty proud that I did this project all myself! It's exactly what I was wanting.

The 3 G's hanging on the wall are symbolic because we're a family of 3, and obviously our last name starts with G. There's a variety of pictures, and a print that states "embrace the mess". As our family grows in years to come we can add to it, and as we get new pictures all the frames can be changed out and updated.

This is one house project done on my to-do list of many. I'm planning to do another gallery area in the hall way one day. The next two projects to get completed are our home office and entry way.

August wrap-up.

It's hard for me to believe we're already almost half through September. Fall is my favorite season for many reasons; football, pumpkin spice everything, boots, and sweaters just to name a few. 

August wasn't too crazy around here. It was a pretty subtle month, and was pretty low key. We kicked the month off with Clete's 10 year high school reunion. That was a fun filled weekend spent with his friends from HHS and former classmates. Mac and Honey went to my parents' place at the lake that weekend, while mommy & daddy had some adult time. 

Other highlights of the month included; Mac's second hair cut, the Campbell wedding, Mac bringing home his first artwork from school, lots of time playing outside, Mac's first school pictures, a VIP lunch at a new local restaurant's grand opening, and at the end of the month we found out Clete got a promotion at work! 

Overall, August was a good month! We're looking forward to the cooler temperatures September should be bringing. Until next time, that's a wrap.  

Asian Turkey Lettuce Wraps

I was recently searching Pinterest for some new clean recipes since I've burned us out on grilled chicken and veggies. I came across this one and snapped a screen shot on my phone and put it in my recipe folder. It was a huge hit at our house, and with the response I got from my insta-pic of this delicious dinner I decided to share here. I'm not certain where the original pin came from but the actual recipe I followed was slightly different. I always like to add my own twist to things and can never fully follow a recipe verbatim. We had this meat mixture as lettuce wraps in butter lettuce and also over the top of brown rice. It was tasty both ways, and it will be making an appearance on our menu again.

Asian Turkey Lettuce Wraps

ingredients

1 lb extra lean ground turkey

1 package broccoli slaw

1/2 yellow onion, chopped

1/2 cup teriyaki sauce

1 tsp black pepper

2 tsp garlic salt

1 head butter lettuce

reduced sodium soy sauce to taste

instructions

1. In a skillet brown turkey until cooked through.

2. Once turkey is cooked; add broccoli slaw, chopped onion, 

and teriyaki sauce to skillet. Place lid on top of mixture 

and let simmer (occasionally stirring) until broccoli slaw and 

onion are soft and tender.                                       

3. Serve in butter lettuce or over the top of rice. Enjoy!