Here’s something I’m realizing that maybe the rest of you well-adjusted folks out there in the world have already figured out:

Not everything has to be perfectly organized.

What?! Who is typing this post, you may wonder, and what has she done with Laura?

But it’s true.

Case in point: my pantry. (Well, my “pantry.” It’s actually a wooden cabinet that my mom initially bought over 20 years ago to hold my baby clothes. She passed it on to me a few years ago, and for awhile it held our extra dishes, servingware and such. But when we moved and lost a set of kitchen cabinets to the open island kitchen plan, I realized it would be perfect as a pantry!)

Thar she blows. When we moved in two months ago, I semi-arranged things in there. I inadvertently only bought enough cute shelf liner to cover two shelves. I always thought I would “re-visit” the pantry once I got the grid tower that I planned to put next to it for additional storage.

Well, I’ve got the grid tower now.

And I haven’t done much with either of them! Look, the extra hardware that came with the tower is still in its original packaging and connected to the shelf! I hung those aprons there one day just to get them out the way, and there they still are.

I did buy and label the pop containers you see there (and was ridiculously happy about them), but other than that it’s been a shelving free-for-all.

And what I’m realizing is: that’s kind of okay.

Image source: The Container Store

I got a catalog from The Container Store featuring the above picture with the header, “Everything can be perfectly organized!” And yes, I had slight heart palpitations of visceral excitement.

Until I realized that it didn’t need to be.

Look, I don’t have so much stuff in my pantry that I’m losing cans of tomatoes that expired 15 years ago. I don’t have enough baking supplies that I need special drawers for them. Most of what’s in my pantry gets used regularly. The snacks get eaten, and dry goods get used up, and the pantry circle of life runs its course. I could spend an hour or so to make it look beautiful but all of a sudden it just doesn’t matter that much.

It’s organized enough that it works for me.

So feel your freedom–not everything has to be perfectly organized, as long as it works for you.

I’m an introvert, and an only child, and I’ve always been a little insecure about friendship. I think it stems from hearing one too many comment about other girls in the bathrooms in middle school, from often being the only one in a relationship to reach out and make plans, from being surface-level friends with people I did activities with but never seeing them outside of that context. I always have this nagging suspicion that everyone is hanging out without me, a suspicion that is sometimes unfortunately reinforced by pictures on social media. It’s sort of a trust thing–I will have a hard time believing that you like me unless you practically say to me, “Laura, you are my friend and I like you.” I’m working on it, but it’s difficult. And for what it’s worth, I have some wonderful people in my life who, when I’ve confessed that to them, have looked me in the eye and told me what I needed to hear.

Honestly, being married is comforting for someone like me. I’ve always thrived in deep-rooted one-on-one relationships. I’m not the life of the party or a social butterfly, but at most points in my life I’ve had a small group of super tight friends. Marriage is the most beautiful expression of that. Even though I am stupid sometimes and worry that I’m not lovable, those vows we shared say, “Laura, you are my friend and I like you.”

At the last church I was involved in, we had neighborhood-centric community groups. We met twice a month–once as a large group to plan and carry out service projects, and once as a gender-specific smaller group to do discipleship and Bible study. I had a great group of women that I met with for two years. It was a strange dynamic–we shared incredibly deep, emotional stories with each other but never went shopping or to the movies together. I would certainly have called them friends, though, as they knew a lot about me and helped me think through some difficult patches in my life. I convinced myself that it was okay that we were only “friends” in that context and that maybe that’s just how adult friendships worked. But I always kind of wanted more, since I felt like kindred spirits with them, and tried to reach out a few times when I was doing casual social things.

But then a funny thing happened: I didn’t rejoin the group this past year and have since effectively stopped going to church, and I have barely seen a single one of them. After the first month or so of my dropping off the church map, no one even tried to reach out. No one said, “I miss seeing you at church, Laura.” No one said, “I read on your blog that you’re taking a hiatus from church, but I’d still love to get coffee with you.” No one said, “How are you doing?”

And that hurt a lot and played directly into my insecurities about relationships.

In fact, I’ve been trying to write this blog post for a long time, but it felt too raw until just recently.

And what happened was I think I found my people.

One night after a Rails Girls meetup, I felt uncharacteristically energized by my social interactions. I felt entirely at home in the environment. I felt accepted.

Church was a place of love and family for me from the very beginning, but what happened when I decided to leave it rocked my belief in that. I feel like a statistic. I feel like one of those millennials who has Left the Church. That’s authentically just where I am right now.

And the response from those people who had been my family makes me question everything I thought it was.

Because what is community if it’s not reaching out to someone you miss? (Maybe the answer is that they never really missed me.) What is community if it’s not including people in your life and making connections?

My experience after leaving the Community Group does not jive with how I define community.

My community is texting a friend when I see someone with a tote bag that I think she would like. My community is inviting my neighbors to a housewarming party even though I am wary of making myself that vulnerable. My community is being open and honest and telling people how I feel.

If that’s not your community, then I’m not sure I want to be a part of it. And that is heartbreaking to me.

Welcome to the re-branded Sunday links series, Sunday Snippets! I finally came up with an alliterative word that pleased me. So that was a small success.

Remember that time I wrote about how I take public transportation? This week was a little rough as far as that goes. The trains seemed to be off their schedule, one day I got motion sick from riding backwards, and another I was stuck on a car without working air conditioning at rush hour! Oh, and my unlimited card decided to stop working after having let me IN to the station, so that I couldn’t get out. That was fun.

Sometimes when you are a grownup you get really hot riding MARTA home & and then go eat a Reese's Arctic Swirl from Zesto for dinner.

— Laura Lindeman (@lclindeman) June 30, 2014

I drove to work one day and honestly it felt glorious. But then it was a 4-day week and I had a nice Fourth of July and the beat goes on!

Onward to the links.

• The New York Times ain’t pretentious:

A twist of vanilla and chocolate, perhaps covered in sprinkles that taste of nothing and stick in your molars, or a plain vanilla cone dipped in a slick of chocolate are among summer’s greatest culinary pleasures.

Dipped cones from Dairy Queen were a staple of my childhood “special time” with my dad, and now I want to procure some soft serve frozen custard!

• I would love to go to this hipster-looking adult summer camp. Or maybe culinary camp. How will I ever decide?!

• It’s good to include some cats in a link post.

Each year, around 20 million animals suffer at the hands of bored knitters. It has to stop. RT to raise awareness. pic.twitter.com/7WbLlt8kEN

— Mike Clarke (@Mr_Mike_Clarke) July 1, 2014

• An important warning::

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sounded a strong warning about rising seas Monday, saying that ocean levels around the world are projected to increase by 12 inches or more should a bunch of people go swimming at the same time.

(Pssst…don’t, worry, it’s from The Onion.)

In other news from my week, I’m debating a rather expensive rug and the online reviews are divided as far as its quality.

Online reviews are a fickle friend when the 1 and 5 star reviews seem evenly divided and equally valid. What's a girl to do?!

— Laura Lindeman (@lclindeman) July 5, 2014

What do you think?

Have a great week, y’all!

I usually post lists of things I really like, but today I’m going to take the opposite track and warn you about three products that I wish I had been using. I’m not down on the companies in general, and I’m not trying to bash anyone, but my personal experience with each of these has been less than stellar.

• Recently I signed up for The Dollar Shave Club. I read about it on Modern Mrs. Darcy on a list of Father’s Day gift ideas, but when I perused their website I saw that the $6/month razor said, “You will love this razor - and your girlfriend can use it too.” I was charmed by their branding and decided to give it a try, but this girlfriend has not loved the result. The blade doesn’t pivot as much as other razors I’ve liked, and I’ve nicked myself more frequently than I have since I first started shaving! Plus it just feels rough on my legs, leaving them dry and razor-burned after I shaved. I won’t be continuing my subscription. I’m bummed because I HATE how expensive razor blade refills are, but this one just doesn’t quite cut it (hardee har har).

• I’ve posted before about Whole Foods’ store brand lotion, so when I ran out of body wash recently I decided to give the corresponding stuff a try. Unfortunately I don’t like it. It’s not sudsy enough for my taste. I feel like I have to put so much on my loofah to get any sort of satisfying lather that I’m going through the bottle really quickly!

• Another recent Whole Foods experiment was Kiss My Face All Natural Everyday Moisturizer with SPF 15. I’ve been trying to be more consistent about sunscreen and this was only a few dollars more expensive than similar grocery-store brand SPF lotions, so I grabbed it when I bought the aforementioned body wash. Unfortunately I’m also not enjoying it! It doesn’t seem to really moisturize that well, and even when I spend good effort to rub it in, I feel like it leaves a weird whitish sheen on my skin. Plus, when I sweat, which, let’s be honest, I do a lot, because this is Georgia, it trickles off me in weird creamy streaks. No thank you.

So please, blog-world friends, enlighten me. What’s your favorite product in each of these categories? Because I’m clearly not going to stop shaving, bathing, or sunscreen-ing!

Last week I decided to try an experiment: I was going to run one mile every day of the week. Just one! I have been all over the place with my exercise routine lately, and have not been running at all, so I thought maybe a week of consistent effort might help kickstart a resurgence for me. I can run a mile in around 10 minutes, and I figured that, no matter how busy I was, I could find 10 minutes to exercise, especially with the days being longer right now.

I started on Monday with a quick 6:30 a.m. excursion. Andy helped me geek out with Google Maps Pedometer to plan out different 1-mile routes from our condo.

(I’ll be honest that another thing making this easier to approach is that my work schedule has changed some, and I’m not expected to be there right at 9:00 a.m. That extra little flexibility in the mornings has been really nice! A 6:30 wake up call, or even one at 6:00, feels MUCH better than 5:30, which is what I’d been trying to do.)

Tuesday I went to the Y that I joined recently and popped out a mile on the treadmill, followed by a mile in the pool! (My plan was to only make myself run a mile–I didn’t say I couldn’t do additional exercise!)

Wednesday was a little rough due to some trouble sleeping the night before, but I pulled it off.

Thursday I hit the Y again and also rowed for 10 minutes on the rowing machine. I love those things–the ones where the seat moves and you’re actually using your whole body (as differentiated from the rowing weight machine where your seat is stationary). Unfortunately the screen on the machine wasn’t working, so I don’t know my stats, but I still felt the resistance and even had to take a couple of short breathers in my 10 minutes. My abs were feeling it the next day! I used to row on the machine a lot when we lived in Huntsville and my arms were in amazing shape.

Friday I tried out the third one-mile route, and Saturday I attempted to do all three of my one-mile loops together. I was not entirely successful in that I definitely didn’t run the whole thing. I was a little disappointed by that because I had hoped my week of consistent running would have helped me feel good about it, but it was really hot outside so maybe it just wasn’t the ideal conditions. It was still a fun route–I love symmetry!

Even with the imperfect outcome on Saturday, I’m pleased with my weeklong experiment. I feel like I’ve lost my super-disciplined self a little bit lately and while, in a lot of ways, it’s been nice to not feel so hard on myself, I also think there’s benefit to structure. Using the benchmark of 1 mile, which I know I can do with relative ease and in a short amount of time, took any guilt over not doing more out of the equation. It may not have been the most intense exercise, but it was consistent exercise. As Gretchen Rubin likes to say, “What you do every day matters more than what you do every once in awhile.”

I might try it again this week. Or I might try bumping it up to 2 miles one morning. We’ll see! But it was an interesting exercise either way, and I’m proud of myself for doing it.