I need double sided journalling tags:

(Image from Shimelle, part of the Everyone Has A Story course I'm apparently doing!)
You know I read a lot of blogs. A lot. You probably might also know dear interweb that a lot of those blogs belong to 'celebrity' crafters. On some of these I have noticed (well, you can't fail to, really) that real life never, ever interferes with the creative process. Photographs that may include their personal spaces never, ever show wrinkled upholstery, disarranged cushions, half dead flower arrangements, bad lighting, cable frenzy under a table or any of the things that I often live with. They never, ever show a picture of a child that isn't happy and isn't dressed in clean, beautifully ironed clothes (unless it's to illustrate a FUN point or activity). This is like the American dream - every picture is a potential commercial. Which I guess it is really, because they want you to revisit their blogs and be inspired huh? And why not; they are for the most part, very inspiring. The use of white with a teeny tiny accent of a colour in a home, in clothing or on a LO is utterly aspirational for me - and how do their houses stay so damn clean and tidy? Really - glittering wooden floors, smooth glazed surfaces - all spotless. Really I think it's heeeelarious and I wanted to give you my take on this; so imagine a LO of a bedroom, empty but for a bed covered in dust sheets:
The non-blogger way to tell it:
Well, Miss Dunnit and I have spent the last two days prepping her room for a total redecoration. It's taken me 4 weeks of frustration and some shouting to get the room actually cleared and some badly needed sorting out done. We've washed, scraped, filled and sanded down. Yesterday we re-glossed the paintwork. It took ages, I was bored rigid by the job, but quite enjoyed singing along to Lady Gaga at the top of my lungs with my daughter, who thought we were incognito in the bedroom with both windows wide open! We had a spirited conversation about the radio phone-in show which we would not otherwise have had, which I must say put my mind at rest about certain teenage behaviour that I don't even want to think about, let alone deal with! Today, after Miss Dunnit got up at 12.30 (!), we finished the woodwork, cut in with undercoat and then rolled undercoat onto the walls. There's only a bed left in the room, but we've had to work out a way to share a paint tray or pot without stepping over one another or leaning on some portion of wall or wood that has been freshly painted while your back was turned. There is no doubt that Miss Dunnit has had enough of me saying 're-load your brush, you're working it to death', 'don't let it drip' and other such advice! Having called it a day, we both immediately ended up in different parts of the house, looking, no doubt, for some space! Man, it was much harder work than I thought it would be! I'm typing with painty fingers and my ribcage is barely holding me up in the seat! I just know that tomorrow my arms will be dead. I'm glad that I'm helping out in the LSS tomorrow, it might get me out of doing another coat!

The celebrity scrapbook journalling:
Miss Dunnit and I have had the best two days. We've sorted through her bedroom and set aside that which she does not want to keep from her younger years and will be delivering to charity shops and recycling as much as possible in the coming week. Meanwhile, we've started to redecorate her bedroom; it's coming on really well and for me, the benefit has been the quality time that we've spent together. We've had conversations prompted by radio shows that we wouldn't otherwise have had, and we really work as a team. It's coming together and I'm really looking forward to celebrating the achievement of a new look bedroom with her. It will certainly compliment the next new stage of her life.

It's all true....I mean every word in both paragraphs, I just think the erm, glossed up (geddit) version is so much more often what we see or at least read. Life isn't perfect, and with 5 children under 10 you can't go through life without exhaustion and shrieking. You can't. Where you get the time to do anything other than maintain sanity is beyond me, I'm full of admiration. But I laugh my socks off every time I read of an 'achievement' and of how Blessed the author is to be so enabled. Believe me, I have one child and in her early days, it was an achievement to put washing on the line and get it back in on the same day. Now is that under achievement or reality? You decide....I think I'm too busy reading the glossy blogs of the over achievers!