Well, we don’t have power yet. PG&E cancelled the morning of the scheduled installation due to the high temperatures. They’ve rescheduled for Wednesday. Please continue to pray for us! We will be glad when our dealings with PG&E are over.

To handle our disappointment, we’ve been painting baseboards, finishing the porches, and choosing the kitchen counters. I also found a large farmhouse sink and I’m absolutely thrilled. It’ll make canning and preserving much easier next summer. And we got a washer and dryer! Our house is looking more and more like a real house.

With COVID and its corresponding fatigue still making their rounds through the property, it’s been a difficult week. Brain fog has kept me from writing. And the closer we get to moving in, the wearier we seem to get. The 110+ degree temperatures of the past week feel especially fitting for this season of desert dryness: we’ve all found it especially difficult to recover from the events of this summer.

So it is time to rest and recover, watering the garden of our souls as we also tend our homestead. Gardening has taught us many skills, and one of these is pest control. There will always be pests trying to destroy what we’re cultivating, until Christ comes again.

This doesn’t only apply to our gardens. I’ve noticed a new pest rearing its ugly head in our lives: the pest of perfectionism. It’s been eating its way through us and leaving its casings of lies behind it. I’m sure you’re quite familiar with it: it’s most commonly recognized by its nagging whisper that eats away at you and shakes your roots.

We’ve fought perfectionism through many steps of this house process: it’s the desire for everything to be just right; to line up perfectly with our ideals. And when it isn’t just how we dreamed it would be, it’s the discouraging thought, is this even worth it? It takes the setbacks we encounter and magnifies them while dismissing the progress we make.

I’ve seen it eating away at my blog posts: is what I’m writing really worth posting yet? Couldn’t I do better? I’ve even seen perfection start to worm its way into my parenting: a doubtful whisper telling me I’m not a good mother because I’m not perfect. Because I make mistakes. Because Michael is different than “other babies” in X, Y, or Z and maybe it’s something I did wrong.

To fight this invasive pest of perfectionism, I’ve found a simple phrase works wonders: good enough. I can be a good enough mother, writer, maker, and homesteader. I can work to be better while also fighting perfectionism’s lies that my mistakes invalidate the progress I make.

When I was a kid, I would often sit in the back of the room during my mother’s parenting seminars. Something she said stuck with me: “A perfect parent isn’t”. It’s a twofold truth. Not only is it impossible for us to be perfect parents as sinful human beings, but even if we were, it would not properly prepare our children for the sinful reality of the world around them.

A good parent repairs. (This is also true of a good spouse, or a good friend). When the relationship is broken, we apologize, make amends and reconnect. A good writer edits. When the words aren’t right, we coax them to convey the truth as clearly as they’re able. And a good homesteader repairs the damage pests make while taking precautions against them in the future.

So we’re defying perfectionism and embracing the unique and good enough aspects of our lives: the crooked stitches in handmade garments, the paint splotch in the corner, the porch railings that came out slightly different than we’d envisioned. All are evidence of a job well done — not perfect, not slipshod, but good enough.