On Being Messy

I have a confession to make. I am a messy person. I wo the "Messiest Room Award" my junior year of high school. It takes me days if not weeks to unpack from a trip. There is a pile of clothes on my chair right now. There are dust bunnies the size of dust mammoths looming underneath my couch. It is a problem and I have yet to deal with it.

I should preface this, post a little before someone misconstrues what I am saying . The mess that I am talking about is not coming from creative endeavors or enjoyable activities. Those type of messes I fully support! I love doing creative projects and there is certain amount of stuff and mess that comes with doing them. What I am talking about is clutter. A more accurate title would be "On Being a Slob." Just being all around messy and untidy.
I have struggled with this problem for a long time. I was not a neat kid. I maintained a decent room in high school and for parts of college because I had RAs and I could get written up for not cleaning. Now that I am married and I have my own home, I do not have that external pressure pushing me to clean. My husband is messy as well and he really does not care what I do. It is nice because I can blow stuff off and he does not get mad but it is bad because he does not push me to get better in this area.
Most of the time the mess does not bother me. However, as life gets more hectic and I become more stressed, the mess starts to pull me down. When things are fine, the pile of dirty clothes on the floor is no big deal. When I am running late and I have "nothing" to wear, that pile is the bane of my existence.
It also limits my social life. Even though I am usually ok with the messiness, I do not want people to be at my house when it is messy. Getting ready for visitors can take days if I have let it get really bad. It makes me self-conscious when people come over and I have not cleaned. I know that my value is not tied to the cleanliness of my home and I should feel comfortable being "real." The messiness is not what causes me to feel awkward. It is the fact that the mess is a visual sign of how lazy I am.

I think that is why the mess bothers me. It throws my flaws in my face. My house is messy because I do not use my time well. I used to not think that it was just a personality trait but lately I have been really convicted of that fact. I am not that person who is frantically trying to make time for the important things. My life is jammed packed with activities or work.  I am simply lazy. I watch too much TV or stare at Instagram too long. I am also horrible about not putting something away as soon as I am done with it. I will drop clothes on the floor instead of put them in my hamper. I do not go that little extra mile on the small tasks that would make such a difference. This is incredibly frustrating to me because on the whole, I am a pretty conscientious person. So why can I not do this?
Part of me says, "Just embrace the mess!" Life is not about spotless floors or perfectly put together room. Plus, if I am just ok with stuff then it really knocks our. Another part cringes though at the sight of everything. That is why I cannot let it go. On some level it does bother me so I have to deal with it.
I am not perfect. I will not ever be perfect but in this area, I need to change. I am much more content when my house is clean and organized. It is just hard to stay motivated to get there. Maybe putting it out there to the world will be the fire that I need to get going.
We shall see.

Anyone out there super messy as well? Or are you a neat freak who is having a heart attack looking at these photos? What is your strategy for staying on top of house work?

Freezer Meals

On Friday, my mother-in-law and I decided to make some freezer meals. It was kind of a spur of the moment decision but something that we had talked about wanting to do for a while now. We headed to Costco with a grocery list in hand and several recipes on our phones. A couple hours and a LARGE cart later, we headed back to her house to begin the prep.

I mainly pinned recipes that did not require any cooking. The two recipes that I wanted to make were the Slow Cooker Honey Sesame Chicken and the Crock Pot Red Pepper Chicken.  All you do for these recipes is portion out your raw meats, vegetables, and seasonings into bags. You then seal and freeze the bag and you are done. I liked the idea of having essentially a fresh meal ready to go. It is just a matter of throwing in the crock pot. My MIL wanted to make jambalaya and turkey burgers. The jambalaya was a bit more involved. It required prepping and cooking the entire thing so that once you were ready to eat it, all you had to do was thaw and reheat in the oven. We decided to tackle them all. I am glad that the jambalaya was the only recipe that require cooking because it was definitely the most time consuming. 

Still, I was amazed at how much we accomplished. We worked nonstop from 4:30 pm till 8:30 pm and we made fourteen entrees! Not bad for 4 hours of hard work. It was so rewarding to get stuff done. I love that I am better prepared for busy days when I would probably cave and order pizza. Having stuff ready to go in the freezer builds a little bit of a buffer into my meal planning routine, which I am still working to flesh out. Now I smile every time I look at my freezer. I am really thankful I have a mother-in-law who wants to spend all day shopping and cooking with me. 

Have you used freezer meals in the past? What do you do to be better prepared for hectic schedules?

Over the Weekend: Flourless Chocolate Cake

During one of our meals at Disney, I had a flourless chocolate cake for dessert. It was AMAZING. So when I was hit by a major chocolate craving on Saturday, that was all I wanted. I found this recipe on epicurious.com. It seemed simple enough and I already had all of the ingredients which was a plus. Since I was going to be baking, I decided to pull out my DSLR and practice some food photography. I am really trying to up my manual shooting game. It is a slow process but I am enjoying the challenge. Food photography can come across as frivolous. People make comments about taking pictures of food verses actually enjoying it. Wherever you stand on the food photography "debate." you cannot die that the pictures can be stunning. My photos are definitely not there yet, but hopefully one day they will be.

It does not count as a good photo session if LM or baby do not show up.

All photos shot with Canon 70D
edited with VSCO

Friday Wrap/Round Up

(found via pinterest, southern curls & pearls)

While fall has officially arrived on the calendar, it is still pretty warm around here. September is such a weird month in Georgia. I am ready for sweaters and boots! However, in the spirit of weather appropriate dressing, I will not pack away all my shorts and sandals quite yet. 

Here are some things that have been on my mind lately:

1. Fourth Quarter Goals: I like setting goals for myself but sometimes I am too vague with the timeline in which these goals should be accomplished. I am going to try out a quarter system for my more immediate goals. The fourth quarter starts next week. Here is what I want to accomplish before the end of December.

• Completely read one book: It may seem like a small task but I have not made reading a priority lately. It is hard to sit down and read when I know there is 15 other things I could/should be doing in. I need to read more, though, for my sanity and for the mental exercise. The book that I going to try to read is Shepherding a Child's Heart. It is a parenting book my mom left for me. It should be very interesting. 
• Paint hallway and guest room: If I can get these two areas painted, I will have successfully painted half of the house. This would be a HUGE improvement. 
• Finish baby room: The baby room is painted and the floors have been replaced, but it is a mess. There is not a lot of organization and there is no decor. I really want to get his room done before the end of the year so I can actually enjoy it. No more ugly rooms! That's my new motto. 

2. Baby outfits: I am loving putting together little outfits for my little guy. I did not think I would get that into it actually, especially since boy clothes do not have a lot of variety. Surprisingly, I really enjoy picking out his clothes everyday. I get to do it a lot because he is very messy and gross baby so he gets a lot of outfit changes. 

3. Bangs: Yep, I am taking the plunge and getting bangs again. This comes at the request of Scott but I am pretty excited about it too. Should be an interesting change. I have been pinning a lot inspiration. We will see how they turn out. 

Well, those are few things that are oing on around the house. I hope everyone has a great weekend! 

P.S. I can't decide on the name for this post. Wrap up or round up? Hmmm.... what do you think??

Non-Outfit Post

You would think that with a blog named "When In Doubt, Wear Stripes," there would be at least ONE outfit post. Well, I tried to photograph one this afternoon and it went horribly. The lighting was off, I was being attacked by mosquitos, and I frankly felt like I looked fat in every photo. I admitted defeated and headed inside and changed into my "around the house" clothes. A long sleeve t-shirt and athletic shorts. I love to get dressed up for the day but when I am home it is all about comfort. I decided to not let the defeat of one bad shoot get me down and I attempted another outfit post in the house. This is my usual attire when I am getting stuff done. Easy, casual and above all cozy. It is not glamorous by any means. Maybe one day I will get a good outfit shot but for now, this is what I have.

Summer 2015

Tomorrow is first the day fall. Where did the summer go? My family is back in Slovenia. It was wonderful to have them here, especially for JW's birth. I cannot believe that he is going to four months old next week! It still feels like yesterday we brought him home. This summer was very eventful. I had a baby, my family was visiting, we drove out to Texas. we went to Disney World. I feel tired just thinking about it all. So many good memories were created and I am incredibly thankful that I got to make them. I am looking forward to a little slower pace over the next couple of weeks. There should not be as many things on my plate going forward.
I am going to miss being to drive 5 minutes and hang out with my mom and sisters or talk to my dad. Still, they are just a Skype call away.

Monday, Monday

Today, I am/was exhausted. My family left early this morning. We said goodbye last night. My sisters cried. I do not cry that much when I say goodbye. It was still very sad to see them go. We probably will not get to see them in person for about two years. Thank goodness for things like Skype and FaceTime.
JW is getting over the sniffles and is off his sleep pattern which has thrown me off my sleep pattern. I think I am getting whatever sickness he had. So yeah, I am very very tired.
I took him into the office this morning. We have the little nursery/office setup ready to go, which is a Godsend. It makes it a lot easier to get stuff done when everyone does not have to tiptoe around the sleeping baby. I am still wiped out from taking care of him and trying to get all of the office work done.
Well, I am going to try to not to fall asleep before bed time. I just cannot lay down. I almost dozed off once already since getting home.
All of that to say, I am looking forward to going to bed tonight.