IDHTBPTBB

See that blinkie over there? There, on the sidebar. The one that says, "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful"? I got that from Nester, who writes one of my favorite blogs, Nesting Place (there's a link over on the left). She has challenged her readers and fellow bloggers look around them to find things in their homes and lives that may not be magazine-perfect but that are beautiful nonetheless. So this morning, after Derek left for work and the kids lay in their beds for a few more minutes, I took Nester up on her offer. Here goes...we'll begin in the bedroom.

Here is that toile bedroom I wrote about a while ago. See those BLOOD RED walls? Sigh. Hopefully they'll get repainted soon. But, I digress. The IDHTBPTBB in this isn't actually the paint (although my paint job is far from perfect!). See that bedside table? Its a folding tray table that my kids and their cousins have eaten off of in the living room countless times. The tablecloth? A remnant of fabric that doesn't come close to fitting it (its only about 4 inches long in the back and is actually paper clipped and clothes pinned to keep the front corners from being too long. Not perfect at all.

Hey! Look over there to the right...see that beautiful famed art that is surely from a high-end art store? They're actually postage stamps from my collection that I put in frames I got on clearance about 15 years ago at KMart (they had Christmas prints in them-I ripped those out and, voila!- new frames!).
Now to the living room. See that lamp? Spray painted. Used to be gold. It even has some places where the black chipped of and the gold is showing through a bit. But with the new shade, I love it.

And finally, the end table. Now this table belonged to Derek's Mom and Dad. It sat by Pa Smith's chair for years. He had pictures of all his granddaughters lined up on it and a bowl of candy that he'd sneak into on occasion. It has lots of little scratches, but I treasure it because it was Otis and Beulah's.

The timing of Nester's challenge is funny, since this is an idea that Derek has been trying to get through to me for a while (maybe not as elequently as Nester). "Honey, quit worring about it. We don't live in the Smithsonian! It doesn't have to be perfect!" Of course, he's a man, a man who never thinks about cleaning or fixing things up-what did he know? Well, maybe more than I gave him credit for. Thanks Nester, for driving home an important point. Stiving for perfection will drive us crazy (and to the poorhouse) in the end. We don't have to have a home that looks like it came straight out of a Pottery Barn catalog for it to be peaceful, warm, and comforting. What matters is that the things (and people) in that home make us happy and feel loved. And that definitely is beautiful.