Bumping along.

Today was a great day.

The sun came out and fueled my spirit. Seriously, I got so much done today and had a much better attitude than usual. I decided to make a list of what I absolutely needed to do today. Nothing was going to stop me. Not a books. Not a nap. Want my list?

-Study scriptures
-Do laundry
-Clean room
-Go for a walk

I DID IT ALL!

Ok, so not a super grand list. But as you can see from my picture that scripture study was way rad. I got home from a lovely day at work basking in the joy of a child's imagination.

I decided I needed to take advantage of the sun while it was out. I thought, I could go for a walk? But I knew that I needed to study my scriptures first thing when I got home otherwise I would not devote the time they deserved. What to do?

COMBINE THE TWO!

I felt so fulfilled walking with my blankets and scriptures to the park to set up a lovely scripture study session. Seriously there were birds tweeting and children laughing. It was great.

...and guess what else? I started some laundry before I left. I was doing three things at once!

So it was a good day.

A good day is a day where you feel your baby kicking and know without a doubt that it is the baby and not your heartbeat or your intestines....

A good day is finding out that Seattle brought back the Oldies station and the first song you excitedly wait for after the ads is "Let's get it on" Seriously. I had to laugh.

A good day is diving into a good book, the scriptures, and some homemade beef stew.

A good day is fresh laundry, a clean floor, and sun on your skin.

So I am bumping along and taking what the day gives me, especially a baby bump.

What made you happy today?

Changing Perception

I have this problem getting into peoples heads.

Sometimes I cannot understand the least bit why people perceive things the way they do. But in my heart of hearts I truly want to change perceptions. I want to change the way people view the world. The way they see other people.

My mom is a counselor for children and we talk weekly about the perceptions of todays youth. Why is bullying so effective. I mean take a look around. Bullying still happens in the adult world but we just shrug it off and think, "they will learn eventually."

In prepping for motherhood I have been thinking about the role of a mother and the perceptions that society has on it. On how it's "suffocating" or "unfulfilling" or on the alternate spectrum "the absolute only way for your kids to be happy." Why is it that our society can't agree on the real beauty of life.

Where has our love for life gone?

I see snippets of it in blogs. As people tend to show the good and hold off on the bad they are really exercising the choice to focus on the beauty in life. The picnics in the park rather than the tantrums and vomit. Why is that so bad? Why do people think it's a false front, unrealistic or whatever other reason they have.

Do I make sense?

I guess the reason I write this is that I badly want to change the way the world views things that I care deeply about.

Being a mother

Childhood

Self-Esteem of Girls, Teens, and Women

My religion

I can't help but be pained when my views are seen as abnormal. Lately it has occured in increasing frequency. For some reason breastfeeding makes people uncomfortable. Why? (I have heard reasons, you don't really have to answer that). For some reason being a stay at home mom comes with a barrage of questions such as, "Why aren't you doing what you want to do?" (to which I respond: I am.). For some reason girls in middle school still feel a need to tear each other down. To take an ounce of happiness someone else has and make it sour. Why has this continued into our adulthood? Weren't we told it would end? Soon middle school, high school, etc. would be over?

My heart feels heavy as my thoughts battle the opinions of mainstream, of generations, of culture.

How to change it all?

Start at the source?
Work in the present?
Communicate through media?

My desires go from raising my children with a different knowledge to starting a camp of my own to empower as many youth as I can with the truth of who they are and what they can be to wanting to pick up a guitar and magically sing the problems away (It worked when we were kids right?)

Alas. Is this a war? Do we address it with a battleplan? Or do we look at it with love. With kind thoughts. Gain trust. Show them the beauty of the world and hope that maybe eventually their hearts with open to the truth.


p.s. My internet hates me uploading pics lately. Sorry the blog has been devoid of visuals. I will work on it : )

seattle be gone.

I have lived here since 2006.

I am done. I am done with the drizzle. The lack of sun. The complete GRAYNESS of this city.
(seriously in a city with overcast skies 80% of the time, stop painting houses and buildings gray to match the sky and roads!)

I have learned here. Grown in SO many ways. It is where I gained my testimony (finding light amid the bleh-ness of this one season city).

But I am SO excited to leave. I am so excited for sun on my face. Sun. How I missed you.

I just want my own home again. We have no space that is ours. I also refuse to clean.

Why?

These are the various excuses I have given Kyle (mad credit to being this creative)
1. the weather makes me want to curl up in a ball and never come out from under the covers
2. it's not MY space so I feel no connection to keep it clean
3. when i try to clean it hurts my head because there is no place to put things

Do you find crazy excuses for not putting away your clothes? Or folding them? Or picking up a plastic fork on the ground that has been used...

Those covers are looking pretty nice right now. You will find me there until the end of March. When we move.

Location to be determined in about 3 weeks (SQUEAL!)

Uncontrolled thoughts and a happy announcement.

I am at a loss for words currently. I keep rewriting this post thinking it will become what I want it to be but can't quite express.

I have a hesitancy to get too personal on blogs.

But I will just come out and say it and then maybe my postings will become more regular again (crossing fingers)

I have tried to find a beautiful, witty, intelligent way to say it so that everyone can be completely inspired and overjoyed by my life. But let's face it. I am not an eloquent person. Mostly I'm pretty blunt. Sometimes I have horrible cases of word vomit where I spew ugly things at people I love....or hardly know.

But I will just say it.

I'm pregnant.

I am overjoyed and extremely anxious with this pregnancy. Everyday I keep expecting something bad to come up. I have built a wall around my heart so that it wont get hurt again. But everything has been normal and two weeks ago we were able to hear the thumping of a little heart. I felt like crying but I hate crying in front of people I don't know so I held back the tears. My heart cried though. It swelled a little too.

But I am still anxious. I keep thinking... it can still happen. I can still miscarry.

So I pray everyday and thank my Heavenly Father for what He has given me. It calms my heart, eases my mind and I slowly allow myself to daydream about my child.

I have so many dreams for the future. So many hopes for my family.

I want to live in the country in a beautiful rickity white house with plenty of wide open spaces. I want a garden. I want chickens. I really want a pony (part of me is still 5 years old ok). In all seriousness though. I want to raise my children in a place where they can explore nature and get to know the world in a way that is beyond tv and video games and more about frogs and climbing trees.

I want to have a sun room with a big comfy couch in it for me to read in the morning and all through the day if I please.

I want windows that let in the suns rays.

I want a bright kitchen and fresh fruit for breakfast every morning.

Ok. So I might want the life of someone living in the 1940s but I believe that that existence is still real and possible. I don't want my children to get too bogged down in technology. I want them to write on paper and not just on a computer. I want them to share bedrooms and become best friends. I want a fireplace and maybe a cow (I can handle it. I worked on a dairy farm).

This post is a little uncontrolled. I little of this and a little of that. This is how my mind works and I hope you don't mind but I think it is all beautifully connected. I want to give my family the world and enjoy living life simply. I find comfort in the words of my Heavenly Father and all he has done for the examples who have gone before me in the scriptures. I know that ultimately Heavenly Father wants me to be happy and slowly I am coming to find out what that means for me personally and the world globally.

For now I will get some rest. I will put a pillow between my knees so I don't wake up with geriatric hips in the morning. I will hold my belly which is slowly growing and I pray will continue to grow.

I know that through our Savior all things are possible. I was brought closer to Him through my miscarriage and am growing more and more through this pregnancy as I learn to trust Him. Trust His love. Trust my Heavenly Father's plan for me.

Going Soy

So I have been denying this problem for awhile.

I am lactose-intolerant.

When I have milk products it destroys my insides and makes me feel not so hot.

But how do you live without milk? It is everywhere!

I love my cheese and my cereal and yogurt and ice cream.

But the time has come where I just can't handle what it does to my body.

I am going soy.

I have not been a huge fan of soy milk but Kyle and I are doing a taste test tonight to find out what we (mainly I) like.

Oh, I also got soy yogurt. It was SOOOO good. Happy day! I cannot remember the last time I had yogurt with no worries.

I have had soy/rice/coconut milk ice cream quite a bit and have always loved it. Seriously peoples. It is REALLY good.

I have no idea what to do with cheese products. I hate soy cheese. It just doesn't melt correctly and tastes like rubber.

My solution is taking a lactaid pill. I just need to find them amidst our boxes.

Is anyone else lactose intolerant? How do you handle it? What are your favorite products?

Forgiveness, Gratitude, and a Whole Lot of Learning

A meetinghouse in Rome, Italy where I truly learned about the gospel and it's necessity in my life.

Recently I had the experience where I needed to forgive someone.

I tend to get hurt very easily. I try my hardest and sometimes it isn't enough for the people around me. Sometimes....they make it known a little too bluntly.

So my feather's get ruffled and all I can think about it how I was "wronged."

I love venting but my husband made it known to me that I tend to vent a little too much, to too many people, and I bring down the names of those around me so I feel justified.

I recognize my weakness and am working on it.

It is hard sometimes when someone hurts our feelings. I go back to all silly girl bullying in middle school and I get that pit in my stomach feeling where all of a sudden no one likes you and you don't know what you did wrong.

So we went to sacrament today and I decided that I needed to practice what I have taught in lessons, talks, and life. Forgiveness.

A lot of it is directed at us needing forgiveness, but what always sticks out to me when I study the doctrine is the need to forgive others.

Probably because it is something that is a bit of a struggle for me.

Well I knew I needed to forgive this person. I knew that me incessantly talking about it would not help one bit. So (besides the need of context in this post) I am done.

I believe in an active partaking of the sacrament. Sometimes I think about the day I was baptized and try to revive that pure feeling within, sometimes I think about the beauty of the atonement and the Savior, sometimes I truly seek forgiveness for my shortcomings. Today I sought to learn to forgive others.

It is not an easy thing, but I think in remembering the mercy of the Lord in forgiving us. We need to remember to be equally forgiving. We need to not only recognize our weaknesses, but the weaknesses of those around us as well. Especially those that hurt us.

Now we hope that they will strengthen those weakness as we are all told to do, but we do not know their time line. We do not know the struggles of their heart. So we have to think of how much the Savior loves and cares for them and how He wants us to love them just as much.

So I am grateful for the lessons I get to learn from the gospel. I am grateful for the experiences Heavenly Father gives me. They hurt, sometimes more than I can seem to bear, but if we take them with the perspective of Heavenly Father trying to teach us, mold us into something far more beautiful than we could have ever imagined, we will become what He sees in us.

That is the beauty of the gospel. It is what keeps me learning, growing stronger and as a result, happier.

Make Up--Made Under

I am feeling a bit bleh about makeup lately.

My makeup routine involves moisturizer, mascara, and blush. I put on chap stick through the day.

I am not really feeling it anymore. But I don't want to have a huge production either.

My philosophy on makeup has been to be as natural as possible. I learned how to apply makeup solely by myself and sometimes from tips receive by those who were selling the makeup.

My mother taught me this: Don't buy cheap makeup. You want quality products on your face.

So I buy my nice mascaras (changes every month from smashbox, tarte, estee lauder, diorshow, bobbi brown, the list goes on...), I have had the same blush for about 2 years now (Benefit Dallas Cowgirl or something like that), I have some nice eyeshadows which are FAR too old according to all makeup expiration facts (I don't wear eyeshadow often so they last a LONG time).

So here is my problem. I feel wierd when I wear eyeliner. I put it on for REALLY special occasions, a fancy dinner, church, wedding, etc. But I don't necessarily feel comfortable putting it on. I feel like it is too heavy and never looks right.

Also, by the end of the day I feel like my makeup is completely gone. My blush wears off quickly and my mascara might smudge.

I feel like I need someone to teach me how to do makeup. How to apply eyeliner. What colors look good. What's a quick routine that looks GREAT!

Does anyone else have this problem? Or solutions?

Does anyone want to take me in and tutor me on makeup basics and tricks.

I am feeling crazy lost right now in this department and I am SO over it.
See? I need help. Maybe in more ways than makeup....