At first I was disappointed when I grabbed yesterday’s photos from my camera.  I was looking forward to seeing some gorgeous images from our cloudy morning at the water’s edge. But my exposures were all messed up and I still don’t exactly know how it happened. So instead, the images are all blown out! Boo hiss. But when I spent more time looking at the photos, I started to see the beauty in the mistakes. In the rushed moments.

The other day I received a message from a friend who said that she admired how I seemed to have it all together. Ha ha ha! I replied that it might seem that way from a carefully-curated glimpse into our world via this blog, but that usually means that I haven’t taken a shower in two days. Or if I made a great meal, it means that there is likely a mildewy pile of laundry awaiting me in the basement. Or if I meet all my client’s deadlines, then the little birdie is probably having a meltdown right behind me as I e-mail the last ad off to the paper. Or if the house looks clean and organized it means that I’m procrastinating my client’s work. Or if I somehow (miraculously) am wearing a clean outfit and have some mascara on both sets of eyelashes, you’ve got to know that I probably had some help with the little birdie that day, which enabled me to find time and energy to think about what I was putting on… Balance, schmalance.

And you know what? Some days this juggling act drives me (a bit) crazy. But most days, I just accept it as my version of “normal” and do the best I can with the cards that are dealt that particular day, with the deadlines that are ever-looming, with the tantrums that maybe could have been prevented, with the raspberry jelly stains on my growing bump.