Let’s be honest—you’ll never really keep up. Not with the trends, not with the to-do list, not with the picture-perfect families who seem to glide effortlessly through life, eating organic snacks out of hand-thrown pottery bowls, in homes that look suspiciously like magazine covers. I say this not to discourage you, but to free you.

There will always be another project on the list. A hallway you want to wallpaper. A better coffee table you saw on Instagram. A job promotion to chase, a new fitness routine to attempt (again), or a sourdough starter to babysit. There will always be something just out of reach. And, of course, the laundry will never, ever, not even once, be “caught up.”

I’ve learned this in my own life—not just as someone who loves homes, who tends to every little crown molding detail and agonizes over the perfect antique rug—but also as a mother, a business owner, and, ironically, a Jones. Literally. And let me be the first to tell you, the Joneses aren’t keeping up either.

And let me tell you a little secret: most of the time, what you’re admiring from afar is mostly just a well-curated angle. The dishes are piled just out of frame, the dog is barking in the background, and someone is probably crying over spilled milk—literally.

The truth is, you’ll never really “keep up.” Life isn’t about catching up to some invisible finish line where everything is perfect and perfectly in place. The beauty of life, and of home, is in the living of it. The messy, soulful, sometimes chaotic living. The kind where there’s dust on the baseboards but laughter at the dinner table. The kind where you still haven’t patched that drywall nick, but you’ve built a space where your family feels safe, loved, and connected.

In our home, we celebrate this tension. The imperfection. The in-between. We honor the old homes with their creaky floors and chipped woodwork, not because they’re flawless, but because they have stories to tell—just like we do.

We don’t believe in living for the next trend. We believe in creating soft, livable spaces where homemade meals are shared, legos might still be underfoot, and life is savored, not staged.

So today, I hope you give yourself the grace to stop racing. Enjoy the soup simmering on the stove, the crooked art your child taped to the wall, the chair you thrifted that isn’t exactly right but makes you smile anyway.

You won’t keep up, friend—and that’s the best news I could give you.

All my love (and a little dust),

Lauren