I am on fire!!!

Either that or I REALLY need to get out more and talk to adults ;) SO this thought was running through my head last night while I was getting ready to go to sleep... I was thinking about stress and the effect that is has on me. I feel like I have been under a pretty crushing amount of stress for the last little while, and I mean seriously, long term, when will this end, I can feel how heavy my soul is, crushing. I know that everyone has stress in their life. Sometimes it's a little, and sometimes it's a lot. It effects them in different ways. Mine seems to build, like a pressure cooker. I find that I start to get less and less patient with my family, friends and the general world around me... and really stupid drivers. I start noticing how sore my jaw is, because I'm clenching my teeth so hard while I sleep at night. And before I know it, I have become a different version of myself than I want to be.

The thing I was thinking though, and the reason I am writing this, is that I can't always make the stress in my life go away. Sometimes we are just going to be under more stress than other times. I have learned to be happy in spite of stress... I have learned to have peace and live my life and truly just be happy for what I have, for who I am... for what my life is. But I do let it get the best of me sometimes. I pray for a lot of things in my life. Sometimes my prayers get answered... sometimes they get answered but not in the timeline I would prefer, sometimes they get answered in different ways than I would like them to... and sometimes they go unanswered. But I have never, ever in my life, knelt down and pleaded with the Lord to help me carry my load... help me feel a release from my stress and not have Him immediately take it all away. That's how I can survive. I'm always sad that it takes me getting to my boiling over point before I think of asking for His help. But I'm glad that I do get there. Because it's the one prayer that is ALWAYS answered for me... always immediate relief. And even if nothing else in my life changes, I do. And I will forever be grateful for that. So if you find that like me... you have reached your boiling over point with the stress in your life. Hit you knees. You'll be so glad that you did. It's one of the reasons He did the atonement... we show our gratitude for that amazing, compassionate act of mercy, by using it.

Two in one week... wow... so lucky!

Okay, I have another rant today... I know, seriously, I haven't blogged my random thoughts in months, and now here I am... twice in one week! So this one just boggles my mind. I hear women complaining all the time about how magazines photoshop super models. They get upset that we see these women, and they are unreal, because some graphic designer has enhanced, trimmed, and accentuated every aspect of them. (I don't have a beef with that part... I totally get that, it bothers me too.) What I can't understand is why these same women, who are upset with society for representing women in a way that is completely fake, and unattainable, will get portraits done of their children and essentially do the exact same thing!!!

I was looking at some pictures the other day done of some children. The photos had been edited to show flawless skin, bright (almost borderline creepy) enhanced eyes, the eyelashes had been darkened and it looked like the girls had eyeliner on, and the lips had been reddened so that they looked like they were wearing lipstick. One of the girls looked like JonBenet Ramsey, all done up and trying to be 17 instead of a little girl like she should be. NONE of the kids looked like themselves... and yet I don't get why it's okay to falsify these pictures, but not the super models?! It's totally a double standard. I'll be the first to admit that I will use photoshop to brighten up someones face, and make minor adjustments here or there... and if you happen to have a nice large zit, by all means, photoshop it out. But the whole perfect porcelain face on a child, or even adult, is just way too much for me. I hope in 20 years, these kids say, hey mom... don't you have any pictures of me that actually look like I did when I was kid? And these moms start to feel like idiots for having all these phony looking pictures with scary blue eyes that look nothing like their actual eye color. I don't know... it's just weird. I want to have family portraits done this spring and it seems almost impossible to find a photographer who can just take good pictures... and not take pictures and over edit them so they look professional, but then nothing like my actual family. If you know a good one, send them my way. I love the digital era... I know it really is much easier, but I have to say, sometimes I miss film. It didn't lie the way photoshop does ;)

Seriously?!

*DISLAIMER* Please do not get offended by this post... it's just a rant, and if you don't know me well enough to know that I'm smiling while writing it, then just don't read this!!!



Okay this rant is about technology... and this has been bugging me for a little while ;) So, I used to think that I wanted a van with those doors that open by themselves, but recently I have changed my mind. It drives me crazy that kids who have those vans are completely unable to close or open the door to my van. Seriously?! They can't close the door after they get in, and they can't open the door back up to get out, and for some reason they think that maybe if they just close it harder... which in reality makes it pop back open... so that doesn't end up working for them either! It's just sad. My four year old can open and close it from the outside, and open and close it from the inside. It really shouldn't be that hard. But apparently it is. AND it's causing me way more stress than it should be in my life right now!!! It's hard enough to get 6 people out the door in the morning... especially when they all need to be ready for the day (luckily that's only a few days a week... the rest of the time two of us can just go in our jammies!) But then to be always in a hurry... and have the whole inability to operate a manual door thing... just makes it take longer for everything!!! ARGHHH!!! ... okay I feel better now... I know it's not really that big of a deal, but it is comical to see that kids who have vans with power doors are completely clueless of how to operate an "old fashioned" manual door ;)

This makes me laugh almost as much as the time my little girl tried to "push" the crank handle on hubs manual window!