31 Days Of Simple Hospitality {Day One}: Why Our Hearts Need This

For the next 31 days, every. single. day. in October, I will be writing, sharing, going on and on about simple hospitality.  About opening up our homes, pouring out ourselves, to serve and love friends and strangers.

Simple Hospitality. Honestly, this doesn't come easily to me. Simple is not my default setting. I stress. I complicate things. I iron tablecloths at 1am and worry about meaningless details.  

 But the more intentional I become about entertaining simply, the more I realize how much my micromanaging and my desire for glossy magazine inspired parties was really robbing me of an opportunity to connect.
 

Connection.  Community.  Sharing friendship, laughter and the occasional tear over good coffee.  Who of us doesn't need a little of that?
 

Simple hospitality.  Not haphazard, not without beautiful touches and careful planning, but intentioned, purposeful, simple gatherings.  Because we don't want to feed people perfectly presented canapés if we aren't feeding their souls. Because we want communion with our friends and family and neighbours more than we want to impress people with our tablescapes and braised pork.
 

Because when it really comes down to it, we entertain because we know that we need one another. Deeply.  I know I do.

So will you join me? For 31 days of exploring what it means to entertain simply? Will you let me dare you to step out  of your comfort zone and invite people in? I'm excited!

Thanks so much for visiting The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking.  Please take a moment to "like" me on facebook or sign up for my RSS feed.

Posts  in this series so far:
Day 1- You're here!
Day 2- Perfect Is A Lie
Day 3- White Dishes
Day 4- Simple Invitations 
Day 5- Nacho Supremo! 
Day 6- Impromptu Hospitality 
Day 7- A Scented Bathroom Trick
Day 8- Nine Great Board Games for Breaking the Ice
Day 9- Take-Out is Okay
Day 10 - 8 Ways to Simplify Kid's Birthday Parties
Day 11 - Use the Good China
Day 12 - Easy Bruschetta Appetizer
Day 13 - Fun, Simple, Elegant Napkin Folding Ideas
Day 14 - You are Enough
Day 15 - Simplest Holiday

Postpartum Depression

It took me months to find a name for what I was feeling. Tired, listless, unmotivated. Wildly swinging back and forth between adoring these little people in my care and immobilizing fear that I can't do this motherhood thing for another day.

It didn't even occur to me that it was postpartum depression. Sure, I cried a lot after Ruby was born 9 months ago, but I told myself that it was just normal hormonal swings, and then the busyness of Christmas, and then a long winter that never seemed to end. I got my thyroid checked and took a multivitamin and swept it all under the rug.

And then all of a sudden it was the middle of summer and somehow I had missed the arrival of brighter days. Somehow I was still in my pajamas waiting for life to make sense again. This was definitely depression.

Depression is exhausting. It's anguish. It's wanting to crawl out of your skin and having nowhere to go. And it's loneliness, because no matter how committed you are to living life out loud and being real and honest you can't make people understand the invisible chronic pain you carry around in your heart and head and gut, the suffocating inside oneself. But so many of you already know this; You don't need me to tell you how much depression hurts.

I've got a support system and a plan. Help from good friends on long days. Prayers. A better diet, regular exercise, fresh air, and a prescription. Because if this little pill will help me to be a better mom, a better wife, a better friend, then I will take it.

The truth is that I don't know if I'm getting better yet. When I am feeling well I can't remember ever being depressed, and when I am at my lowest I can't remember ever feeling well. But I have memories of bursting into my kids bedroom every morning, singing to wake them up, excited for the day ahead. I so desperately want to be that mom again.

Lord, help me to be that mom again.

So what about the blog? I have some blog post ideas in the wings and a couple half finished DIY projects sitting on my porch. And I miss blogging, I miss the community of women that I get to engage here. But honestly, it is hard to write about laundry and chalkboard paint when getting out of bed takes nearly everything you have. I guess what I'm saying is please be patient with me. I haven't gone anywhere.

Blessings,