Baring My Fridge

June 29, 2011September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. Brackett1 Comment

A friend of mine sent me a link to her daughter’s new blog and the first post I read was this one. The idea of baring the inside of my fridge for all the internet world seems to be the perfect Perfectly Imperfect post. See if I told you that last night I made some awesome “Kicked Up French Toast” with cream cheese and blueberries and fluffy scrambled cheese eggs on the side and then I posted this picture:

you might mistakenly think I have a fully stocked fridge filled with all sorts of yummy goodness. In fact, my fridge looks like this:

It’s pathetically empty. And that half-drunk gatorade is at least two weeks old. Thank goodness this week is two paychecks and awesome grocery store sales. I might even brave our new Wal-mart in search of items to fill our shelves. This make up dinner from what’s on hand gig is getting more challenging everyday.

On a side note, today is Joshua’s birthday. I didn’t buy him a gift. What do you get a man who has everything and this morning when I ask again what he wants, says, “I’d like some coffee.”

Done. Now let’s see what else I can do perfectly today.

Imperfectly Perfect for Wednesday

May 12, 2011September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. Brackett3 Comments

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve let you picture me imperfectly. Not that there haven’t been lots of opportune moments for it in the past few weeks.


I don’t know. Maybe it’s a talisman to ward off Daddy’s truck running over their bicycles?

But today I’m linking up in celebration of many imperfectly perfect motherhood moments. Like this discovery when I undressed Amelia for her bath tonight.


Her daddy maintains that she lost the other purple sock on the way to church this evening and the truck ate it. Since we’ve lost pacifiers that way, I don’t doubt his word.

On Mother’s Day, Ann Voscamp wrote about the mismatches and messes of motherhood and how we are all, thank God, covered in grace.

“I haven’t got anything together and I can stop looking for some hidden door that’s going to someday open up to my real, perfect life and I can stop waiting and I can start laughing praise, because this wondrous mess, this is it.”

There is great joy in surrendering to the mess and the imperfections and the mismatched socks and the realization that if I had it all together, why would I ever need a Savior?

Yet He tells us we are fearfully and wonderfully made, these messes of glorious humanity. And everyday I have to search for the perfection in the imperfect….and be so thankful for what I find.

birthdays · Paynes · perfectly imperfect · sisters

Imperfectly Perfect Birthdays

April 13, 2011September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. Brackett4 Comments

I wasn’t going to blog about this at all. I was ashamed. I was embarrassed. I was mad.

Then, I got convicted.

I’m NOT perfect. Deep breath. I wish I was. But that would be boring and everyone would hate being around me, right? At least that’s how I feel when I’m surrounded by people who do things so much more perfectly than I do.

So the first part of today’s installment is confession.

We celebrated my sister Calley and my brother Corey’s birthdays this past Sunday. Their birthdays are ten days and six years apart and they both wanted fried chicken. Seemed like a plan. Then, disaster.

(This isn’t the embarrassing part yet. This is just what led up to it.)

Mama got sick. Really sick. 102 degrees and shouldn’t be out of bed sick. We descended anyway. Side note: I think I get this perfection thing from her. I mean, really, she should have cancelled instead of believing she’d be better in twenty-four hours.

So I got put in charge of a few things. Like the cake. Another side note: My mother makes perfect cakes. See example below.

Well, obviously I can’t compete with this.

But I thought I could reasonably pull together a pretty good chocolate cake for Calley. After all, last week I whipped out the Pioneer Woman’s Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Ever and it was pretty darn good if I do say so myself.

I intended to make that sheet cake again but changed my mind at the last minute and instead tried a chocolate fudge cake from one of our many cookbooks that we have more for decor than actual use.

Well, evidently this cake is not meant to be made in two round cake pans with the purpose of layering.

Nope, didn’t work. So there I was on Sunday morning, no more butter, an imperfect cake and a failed attempt at making cream cheese icing with Philadelphia cooking cream cheese which, FYI, doesn’t work because the cream cheese is thinned. For cooking. Not baking. Duh, it says that on the package.

This is the picture I took and figured if I did post this would be the view you got.

Gee, doesn’t it look great? Yeah, this is what it really looked like.

It was…a little flat. But it did taste good. I should know. Half of it came home with me and I’m trying to get that plate cleaned off so I can wash it and I hate to see good ingredients go to waste….

I also made this for my brother. Nothing like pre-packaged assembly. Well, I did have to mix the cream cheese and whipping cream. And of course my mom had the perfect cream cheese because she would never make such a mistake.

Actually, I’m sure she’s messed up plenty, but I don’t remember it because she somehow makes things work anyway. Maybe one day my girls will feel the same about me.

Here’s a preview of our Sunday afternoon at Paynes-a-Plenty. Picasa slideshow to come if I can figure it out.

48 pieces of fried chicken….

Loving the swing.

Well this looks good at least.

Happy Birthday Calley!

This so captures the moment. I think I was telling Corey that I didn’t want to hear about the chicken if it wasn’t done because that’s what microwaves are for.


Uncle Bubby loves his nieces.

perfectly imperfect · reflections

Imperfectly Perfect

March 30, 2011September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. Brackett1 Comment

This is our beautiful Bradford pear tree just before it burst into full bloom a couple of weeks ago.

It doesn’t look like this now because all the wind and rain have washed away all the lovely pink and white-ness and left it all over my driveway and lawn and carport mat so it gets tracked into my house and makes a mess and I forget that I thought it was beautiful on the tree in the first place.

I took this picture a few weeks ago with the intention of writing up this post.

Then stuff got in the way. You know. Like play rehearsal. And dishes. Lots of laundry. And Amelia’s thumb. Oh, and reading the dozens of “books” my kindergartener brings home every Friday. And watching movies of old TV shows with my girls. And Belle’s birthday and lots of other important and memorable (but only to us) moments that have kept our lives consumed. This is also why the second image for this post is this:

Because the trees are blooming and the sky is falling (or so it seemed at 5 a.m. this morning when the thunder woke everyone) and the grass is greener and the days are longer……

but there is still a Christmas wreath in my laundry room. I hung it there to get it out of the way when I took it off the door. In January. After the big snow. It’s still there.

Why be perfect when it’s so much more fun to see all the imperfections make up a quirky random life?

Link up your imperfections at Capturing Motherhood and celebrate the undone to-do list, empty fridge, and rainy days.

perfectly imperfect · reflections

Like a .99 Burger

March 3, 2011 Lindsey P. Brackett3 Comments

Forgive the title. We’re working on understanding figurative language in my super-exciting 7th grade reading class, so as I thought about what I would post tonight, I considered how I feel smooshed.

What? It’s a word. You know, smooshed. Smashed down. Flattened. Like a .99 hamburger that’s not worth much because, let’s face it, it’s hard to get quality for less than a dollar.

Unless you’re stacking a store coupon with a manufacturer coupon on triple coupon week and its B1G1.

That’s never happened to me because couponing is one of the many things I attempt but don’t do perfectly.

My problem is I’m doing too many things. This has been a flaw of my life. I was in nearly every club and organization in high school, but I wasn’t outstanding at anything. Nowadays, I juggle home and church and school and play practice and blogging and quiet times and friends and facebook and family and laundry.

Oh, the laundry.

This is last week’s picture. That laundry basket is still in the same place. It’s just full of different laundry. It never ends, does it? And I just remembered that I put a pile on my bed thinking I would fold it. Yeah, right.

I’m not perfect. But I’m always trying to be. I have this misconception that perfect people can handle lots of activities and still have a clean house and a happy family.

I think those people only live in my tv.

Unfortunately, I’m as flat as they are right now because I’ve let life flatten me out rather than letting love fill me up.

I’m beginning to make commitments to things I love. Family. Friends. Writing. Scripture.

But I’ll never be perfect.

Thank goodness, because if I was, what would I blog about?