{April 4-10th}
Tell me you're a mom without telling me you're a mom: My view in the bathroom. #whoneedsprivacy |
Wearing... the Mother's Day gift I bought myself from The Vintage Pearl. I got it when we got our tax return, and I have zero regrets. It's so simple, but what it represents (my four kiddos) means a lot to me, so I find myself wearing it everyday.
Hosting... the cousins this week so the kids could play with them, and we had such a great time. One day we all went to the park and played, and another day I only had Liesel and Carly, and they were so sweet playing together all day. They are just best, best, best friends and it melts my heart. They did make up together, jumped on the trampoline together, and played at the park together as well. They NEVER fight, which amazes me, and problem solve so sweetly.
Reading... The Coddling of the American Mind for book club. Its main idea is that college students currently are snowflakes. (sorry if that is blunt, but you get the idea) And they want to help us combat that by raising more life-ready children into adulthood. Their argument is that there are three truths that can help us do so:
1) Believe that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. We are NOT to bulldoze or snowplow the path before our children. Those bumps in the road are good for them.
2) Life is not a battle between good vs. evil. It is more a sliding scale of grey. If we can humanize our enemies, we may better be able to understand them and not villainize them.
3) Don't always trust your gut. Anxiety and depression are liars, and instead of always believing what we think or feel, we need to seek out truth.
The book had a quote from a speech given at a graduation, and it really stuck with me:
"From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don't take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you'll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they're going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes."-John Roberts
Blooming... like crazy in our front yard. The spring flowers make me so ridiculously happy.
Reminding... myself that I am enough, just as I am.
Hosting... a big BBQ for Josh's brother, sisters and parents and families. It was so great to get together and spend time laughing with each other. Josh and I are both vaccinated, as are his parents and his one sister and brother-in-law. I am so happy that we are slowly getting back to normal. That night we also lit a fire in the back yard and sat around it. It made me so happy it's spring and heading toward summer!
Checking... on Carly every night before we go to bed. I love walking in to see how she's sleeping, to cover her with cozy blankets and thank God that she's ours.
Looking... for advice on turning some of my favorite text threads into a book (kind of like a chat book). Have you ever done this? Can it be done? Where do you recommend?
Laughing at this story: Carly's flossers were almost out when her new bag came from Amazon. She was so excited to use the new ones, she cut the top off, even though it has a reusable opening, and she still had some in her old bag. When I saw this, I transferred all the flossers (new and old) to the old flosser bag that was still able to close. That evening I walked into our bathroom to get ready for bed, and there on the counter was a pair of scissors, the old bag of flossers, and the reclosable top that had been cut off. (smh) I started laughing so hard and told Josh the whole saga. That is life with kids, am I right?
***
Loving these reminders:
Clothes exist to fit our bodies."
-Sarah Nicole Landry
Ah, we have so much in common, I love it!
ReplyDeleteI have a necklace from the Vintage Pearl that I got several years ago and it's pretty much the only necklace I wear. ;) It has all my kids names around the edge of a circle and then a separate small heart and a pearl.
And the whole purity culture, yeah. Ew. I was quite a bit older when I got married so I don't think that part bothered me as much, but there definitely was a whole lot of guilt around anything physical before I was married. So so messed up.
Oh, and I took a counseling group class this spring based on Kristen Neff's book called Self Compassion. It was amazing. It's through Confluence if you're interested.