My Linens Don’t Match

 

Arrrgghhh…. My Linens Don’t Match

This is the time of the year when I want everything just so and in the picture-perfect way.  Organized bedding to me means you are organized, you are a success.  My mother taught me to make my bed daily so when I watch Dateline or other crime shows and the victims’ bedrooms and bed-sheets are always in a disarray, I’m horrified at how their room looks.  I work daily to dispel this myth.  However, when you have kids, this, often, is not the case.  There is a Hot Wheels car here, a Barbie or single sock there.  And Lord forbid I now have to come to terms that this Barbie Oven will be sitting in my living room which I once dreamed would look like a picture article from Real Simple, the magazine, that makes everything look ‘Real Simple’ and Really amazing.  This, again, is not the case.

I loved to have nice linens and good bedding.  It meant to me success and order in my life.

And strive every day to make it that way.  While I’ve been out of work for almost 3 years, with contract assignments here and there, when I’m home I am pushing for order.  But once I’ve done a complete straighten and creating order for downstairs – I trek upstairs where I cringe when I walk in my master bed room, where again, I dreamt it would look like something from Architectural Digest but it doesn’t.  Having nice linens and good bedding was my thing. And bedding that co-exists with my comforter and chaise lounge and floor rug has always been my THING and when it doesn’t I throw my forehead onto any surface and cringe at the horror.  Again, it’s my thing.  My husband once asked me when we were dating what is it that you like.  I said non-chain food and nice linen. It’s that simple.

Well when you get married… sometimes your husband has his own habits that don’t coincide with yours… and no matter how many times I put all the same pillow cases on all the pillows, my husband magically manages to find a pillow case from another set and demand that it goes on his pillow.  WHY??!!!

Then he removes all my throw and show pillows nightly and I reapply them every morning when I make the bed… He doesn’t like to sleep under the covers so he’s added a blanket that he prefers to my comforter/sham set that does not match at all.  Often a semi cotton or flannel throw that makes me turn my nose up even more.

I say all of that to say it makes me feel like a failure, because it was something that really really mattered to me.  However, in the big scheme of things, my new attitude with Kids and a Husband, I had to establish that the sheets not matching does not mean my life is falling apart or that I’ve somehow failed, but that I will have to creatively figure out a way to hide his hideous pillow behind my arrangement and picturesque-ly place his “blanket” on his side of the bed to incorporate it into my vision.

For all of the kids toys and other out of place items I have an array of baskets that are throughout every room in the house so that everything that doesn’t have a home can be placed there.

As I tell my family daily–and something I learned from a former co-worker–I want the house to look presentable when we leave in case I get hit by a bus.

What is something you’ve learned to accept that isn’t necessarily how you’d like it?