Good news on the ‘feeling poorly” front: I am feeling much better today. Still a bit puny, but much better than earlier this weekend. Clearly, I had some sort of bug. Yesterday morning, I thought I’d never stop sweating…I had to throw my pajamas in the wash for the second day in a row. But by mid-afternoon, that had finally stopped. I managed to make mashed potatoes last night, but that finished off all my remaining energy for the day. Tired this morning, still a bit wimbly (Don’s favorite word for this kind of thing) but feeling like I’m slowly crawling out of the muck.

Don’t worry. I’ll take it easy today.

I have entitled this: The Un-Pin Worthy Photo.

But it’s real life. There are photos on this blog of my fabulous Vernor’s crate and Riley’s Dish Garden that are Pin Worthy. But this, my friends, this is the way this table is ninety percent of the time.

Likewise this:

A picture of the house shot at an overly sunny moment in the day. But if we back up a bit, we get this:

The chimney wrapped in a blue tarp, which has been there for several months and will continue to be there until we can save the money to get the masonry re-done. (That’s what was causing the leak in our bedroom.)

Un-Pin Worthy. And, often, Un-Blog Worthy. But you know what? The more I read blogs (and I’ve been reading them for about 7 or 8 years) the less interested I am in always seeing pretty pictures. Don’t get me wrong, I love a pretty picture as much as the next person and I like to take pretty pictures. But what draws me to a blog for the long run is substance. Stories. Real life. Adventures. Not just beautifully dressed children looking as if they popped out of a catalog. Or beautiful photos of the blog author looking like she stepped out of a catalog. Or, most often, beautiful photos of living spaces with nothing out of place that look like a magazine spread. Every once in a while? Sure! We all like to put on our best dress or show off our living spaces. I’ve done it here. Although, to be perfectly honest, every photo like that on this blog has something out of place. Or several things out of place. (I can’t help it.)

I just prefer the real. I like to know the person behind the blog. I like to see real life. That’s what keeps me coming back for more because pretty only does it for a short while. Then my eyes glaze over. You can show me pretty, but give me some substantive text and you’ve got me.

But, of course, there are all sorts of blogs out there and some of them are meant to be full of pretty pictures, are meant to look like magazine spreads, and more power to them. I’ve been known to while away 3 or 4 hours gazing at those photos. Those blogs are a nice little escape from real life and we all need that. They are the equivalent of what a magazine used to be for all of us.

‘Pinterest Worthy’ is nice, but it isn’t always real. And it’s easy to fall into that trap and feel less than worthy yourself because your table is piled high with mail and your garden has weeds and your bed is unmade and there is laundry to be done and no one has cleaned up the kitchen yet.

Hey, I’m not about to show you all the ‘real’ in my house…you don’t need to be privy to everything that goes on here! But I will try to show you as much of it as I can. Just so you know that all the pretty flower pictures (and that’s Mother Nature’s doing, not mine) are well and good, but we have a big old tree that fell in the back forty and we have poison ivy growing up several trees and there is a dead tree in the front yard and I’m overdue on weeding again and the Japanese Beetles decimated my roses. And the shot of the Vernor’s crate that was momentarily styled and free of clutter is a rarity. And the paint on my kitchen cupboards is chipping and they need cleaning and there is dog hair everywhere and every wall in this house needs painting.

That’s my real and imperfect life here at the cottage.

(New post up on Just Let Me Finish This Page.)

Happy Monday.