3...2...1...Contact

I put contact paper on the shelf in the laundry room. A small victory. Some might question calling this a victory at all. But it is. Because I bought this contact paper when we first moved into this house. In July 2012. So...yeah.

I bought it because my mom had taught me that's what you do in a new home or apartment. You put down contact paper. In the cabinets. In the drawers. You clean the surface, you measure, you cut, you carefully place down this strip of magical paper that...what? Is easy to clean? Is pretty? That puts your personal stamp on your new home? Who knows. But that's what you do.

And I never did it. I bought it. And it sat. In the basement. So much was overwhelming me- the move, unpacking, our finances, my son, then my pregnancy, then being a SAHM for TWO tiny boys, and where I fit into this new Home with a capital H I was trying to create. The project, the PROCESS, of the contact paper was just too much fuss with too little reward in my mind.

But as I declared 2015 The Year I Pull It Together, that contact paper taunted me from the corner of the basement. My mom was a perfectionist. Hospital corners when she made the bed. Pictures hung with measuring tape and a level. And she was GOOD at finding perfection in her home. She enjoyed it. But why was I waiting and waiting and putting off and putting off doing this task because I didn't  have time to do it perfectly or completely. The way my mother would have. I'm not her. I don't need to be. It won't make me crazy if the paper is crooked or not just right. But I do like a little order. Just a little. There's nothing wrong with just a little if it's all ya need, right?

So there it is. Just a little.

It feels good. It feels right. It feels silly that I didn't do it earlier. It's a little (a lot) messy, but it's cute, it's fine, it's functional.

I think I'm going to lay some down in the drawers in the bathroom we put our tooth brushes in, too. Because that's been driving me nuts as well. It won't be pretty. But it will be fine.

And sometimes "just fine" is fine. Is okay. Is actually perfect.