I would be a failure IF!!

i would be a failure if you my faithful readers walked away from my blog and/or emails and felt like i was not authentic or honest with you about ALL the areas of my life. that's the thing about blogging, i can pick and choose all the words,  phrases, and pictures that i put on my blog. i can create this allusion that "everything is fine!" in the littlejohn house. but if you have known me for any period of time, i do not, cannot function like that. it's my strength as well as my weakness; i wear my heart on my sleeve. please do not become cynical towards me with the false assumption that i don't have struggles, that my children aren't rotten to the core, that i don't raise my voice and lose my temper, that i don't serve mac-n-cheese more times then i would like to admit, that i dishonor my husband more times then a wife should, that i have selfish desires that consume my mind, and by-golley i have a disgusting kitchen and piles of unfolded laundry :) :)  sometimes i walk away from people's blog thinking, "well crap, my life sucks and i better DO better next time!" i hope and pray that you don't walk away feeling like that. and if you have, i am so very sorry.

the beauty of this life is that all the things that corrupt our hearts, and all the things that purify our hearts are intertwined in the residence of our hearts. i could blog just as much about the corrupt... but often i just want to talk about the things that ignite joy. i want to write stories about my amazingly sweet children, because that's what i WANT to remember. i want to record memories for them, and for our family and friends that are far away, so that while they can not hold their grand babies, their nieces/nephews, they can KNOW them through my words and through my pictures.  that is why you read a lot of the happy in the littlejohn house :)

so here is to my dirty kitchen, my piles of unfolded laundry, and being authentic!
~s