An Imperfect Blogger

On Lauren's wonderful blog Wearing History Lauren has posed a challenge for all bloggers - to show the imperfections behind the beautiful images we like to put forward for our readers. Lauren was able to match up images with concurrent events to show the contrast. I'll just pass along a little of my context, mainly because I am having trouble finding the pictures I want from past blog posts.

I don't have an aspirational lifestyle blog with pictures of a perfect life for others to envy,



but I still pick and choose what to show. I choose my angles so as not to show the little gypsy camp around my chair when I am knitting and have everything strewn around. My outdoor pictures do not show the amazing chaos of my neighbor's yard or closeups of the garden beds that are looking bad and that I am not sure what to do with. I'm happy to highlight garden failures that are not my fault and to soft pedal the ones I brought on myself with laziness or ignorance. I don't post pictures of myself looking like a weasel (very often) or pictures that show me looking really tubby.

My knitting is often going awry - things get started and ripped back time after time. I make bad yarn choices and have to start over with different yarn. There are yarns in my stash I should never have purchased. There are finished objects waiting for me to block them that I am too lazy to tackle. There are finished objects that are waiting to be torn out because they are butt-ugly.

Everyone loves beautiful pictures of Cape Cod. I don't show the tatty touristy spots and souvenir stands. I don't show the drug problems, the unemployment, the homelessness, the groundwater issues. You can't tell from the beach pictures that the lovely young things lounging nearby are enjoying a long, loud and vacuous conversation dotted with vulgar language to a background of loud music. Seals bite. Flies bit. We are tick central.

I buy too many books and sometimes read too few of them. I go back to reread old favorites when I could be learning something new. I'm fallible and idle, like everyone else.  My dogs bark when I want to sleep. My "baby angel" get lost in the back yard now and eats cat poo (with gusto). I sometimes want to kill "The Little Woman". My car is unremittingly dirty. It's just life.

Read your favorite blogs, enjoy Pinterest, congratulate your Facebook friends on their book publishing, their family achievements, their new house or car, their new job, their Nobel Prize. Just know they are showing their best selves and are not sharing their hemorrhoids, the stupid fight they had with their kids, the leaky roof, the overdraft charges,  They may suspect their spouse is cheating, they may be hiding abuse, they may be posting the only good thing that happened all week. Be kind. Kindness is always the answer.