Thankful Crafting

This is a not so serious blog post.  I guess i have gotten spring fever.  I have had sudden urges to organize, clean, craft, and decorate lately.  We have been so blessed our whole marriage about furniture.  When we were first married...literally all we had was a tv, couch, and Ryan's old bigger half of his child hood bunk bed. haha!  Out of no where family and friends blessed us with so much furniture.  It's been 5 years...and we are still getting blessed by people.
Recently, a friend of my family gave us a nice desk (which we were in need of).  If you know Ryan and i we love to make things our own. We decided to paint it gray.  (i wish i had before pics)

It came out pretty good. I love the desk! It's so roomy...and beats using a table.  :)
We had left over gray paint from the desk, and i have wanted to paint our bedside table for a long time! It was a darker kind of uglier fake wood brown color. haha. But now, i think i like it. (the boy's books are in our room because we have been reading them books in our bed lately)...but i think occasionally Ryan likes to read some Curious George to himself. haha.

My mom and i finally had a mother daughter outing a week ago.  That happens very rarely.  We made a trip to the ever addictive Hobby Lobby.  I found a half a yard of fabric in the clearance bin for $3.  I have been wanting to sew a pillow cover onto our pillow on the couch to bring some more color.  The fabric was great because it brought out the gray/blue from our kitchen into the living room.  I just sewed the fabric over the red pillow we had. I did not have a sewing machine...so it took me quite a while.

Next, was just a fun little crafty thing.  I had a picture frame that had been sitting in our closet for months now.  I painted it then glued a pressed flower (that Ryan had given me for one our date nights) onto some cool scrapbook paper.  It's cute...but i hope the flower doesnt fall apart. haha!

I am so thankful for all that has been provided for us and more.  Even when there are days of stressing about money...God still provides in other ways that are more important - a healthy family, joyful boys, a stable marriage, and a home for us to grow in.

Finding Beauty Instead of Comparing

I wanted to post on the topic of comparing.  It is something that we have all dealt with, deal with, or will deal with at some point in our lives.
Some compare looks. Some compare weight.  Some compare material things.  Some even compare their kids.
I wanted to focus for a moment on beauty.  What do you believe makes a person beautiful?  Pretty hair? Gorgeous eyes?  Nice Smile?  Fit body?  Fashionable clothes?  All of those things are fleeting.  Yes, all of those things would be so nice to have......but they will not last. As we grow, we age.  That is the way life goes.  But our culture wants us to feel less beautiful and even inferior if we age normally.  Injections, implants, surgeries, tucks, tans, lifts, etc.  I have to admit......i would love to be able to snap my fingers and be able to have some of those things, but i can't.  Stay at home mothers do not have the luxury of investing in such things...when in reality we probably would need those things the most. haha!
Sometimes i think that celebrities are not real.  Those who have had babies probably had robots made in order to endure the whole process. haha.
The more i compare myself to the ones i see on TV, in the movies, or in magazines the more insecure i become.  When i become insecure, i lose sight of who i am.  And that is the real damage that comparing ourselves does.  Not the fact that we want to look better, but at the expense of losing who we are in the mix of that.
There are billions and billions of people in the world......and there is only ONE YOU.  Have you ever really sat and thought of that?  There is not one single person in this world that is...only you.  Your personality, body, mind, laugh, genetic makeup, talents, etc is just YOU.  By being made different, we were all created for different purposes.
In our insecurities and in the art of comparing, we lose not only our identity but we miss out on all the plans God made us for.  The good we could of brought to this world by just being us.
We all have insecurities with ourselves or we all have things that we wished we had that others have.  I am at fault for that.
I have always wanted to have a great singing voice.  I grew up in a very musically gifted family.  And i was just not gifted in that area.  I hear others sing and i envy that so much.  To be able to belt out freely.....and to sound good. haha!  I began to focus so much on what i lacked that i lost sight of the gifts and talents that i do have.  Thankfully my boys aren't singing critics yet......so i can get some singing out every once in a while.
I have insecurities with bodily stuff as well.  Who doesn't when they turn on the TV and see the unflawed people on there?  Sometimes we forget that we do live in an era where technology plays a huge role.  Airbrushing, cropping, cutting you name it.......it's been done to pictures of celebrities.  And yet we still hold ourselves to a fake standard.
After having a baby, your body goes through so much hormonally.  One of the down falls is.......your hair falling out.  A lot of my hair fell out to where my hair receded at the temples of my head.  I thought i looked like a Star Trek character when i would put my hair in a pony tail.  i would get so frustrated every time i would look in the mirror.  But......it grows back.  I have little sprouts sticking up in the places where i had lost hair.  Even though i knew my hair would grow back over time, i was still insecure and mad. haha.  Then i actually saw a lady who had no hair at all.  She had been doing chemo and had to shave her head.  Immediately i felt so sick inside because of how silly i was.  Here i was complaining about patches of my hair falling out because i had a baby and this lady had to give up her hair to save her own life.  And do you know what?...she was absolutely beautiful!
That is a point i am trying to make.  Whatever happened to our standard of good character and a bright attitude?  Shouldn't those represent beauty?
Even if you have no hair and are not a size 1.......you are beautiful......because you are simply YOU.  Embrace who you are and who God made you to be.
I am a mom.  My job and also a huge desire of mine is to show my kids that they have so much value.  They are priceless.  No one else compares to them.  I want them to be comfortable and secure with themselves so they can make a difference in people's lives.
If there was something "different" with my kids.......i would not think for a second and wish for another kid.  There is an immediate undying love that parents have for their kids.  They love them no matter what.  Flaws, interests, personality, etc.
That is how God views us.  We are His children.  He created us with a purpose.  He created us out of love.  He constantly sees beauty in our imperfections.  He created us each to be unique and different.  I don't think His idea was for us to compare ourselves to others and what we lacked.
Be accepting of others.  Be accepting of yourself and who God created you to be.  It is so much easier to love others when you love yourself.
Let kindness, love, patience, self control, peace, gentleness, goodness, joy and faithfulness shine through your life.  And enjoy life!  Stop missing out on this beautiful life that was given to you and step out.......as YOURSELF. :)
Lots of love to everyone!