One week later

Well, it's been a week since my last post and I haven't been excommunicated yet. So that's a blessing, right? I did get a compliment about this new venture, from a dear friend who will remain nameless. I have guts, evidently, and not just the 20- ft-long kind. Which was unexpected and very nice to hear. On a weird note though, I spent most of the week questioning many of the choices I've made in the last 15 years. Still not regretting much, to be honest. There are a few skeletons in the back of my closet/brain and I wonder if some of them are just ready to jump out, bones a-clackin', ready to scare the crap out of me. But don't worry. I chained them up to a concrete block surrounded in ice and they don't have a match or a chainsaw. So I think they're safely stayed for now. I wonder how many other people spend their free time with the "What-Ifs" of the world. Or if they just forget it and get on with things, enjoying life and not sparing a second thought about the road they could have traveled.

Don't Compare

It's taken me a bit to get this blog up, trying to decide what's cute, what format, layout, color, font, yada yada yada...Yeah, well, screw kitschy. It's up and running, and at almost midnight, that's all I care about. I was looking around at some other sites, blogs, etc.as I was looking for ideas and it hit me just how not-cute my little blog world is. I still don't have a kid who sits still so I can fix her gorgeous hair with the simply adorable bows that I handmade this morning so that I could take pictures on my (insert large amouts of $$$ here) camera, and then post it on my daily-updated blog with darling quotes and a show of how perfect my life is. I don't live in a high-rise with a closet full of Jimmy Choos, I can't come up with sassy, sarcastic or fresh outlooks, nor do I run a family farm with perfect rows of corn. Nope, I am flat-out in the middle of Ucon, with one red-headed kid, a husband who is gone. alot. A family very far away, one set of neighbors that speak to me and lots and lots of pets. I have a cheap digital camera, a PhotoShop program that I haven't quite figured out and a healthy dose of insomnia. Yet here I sit, telling myself not to compare. But when it's all around you, how can you not?

Here goes

     Welcome to my journalistic outlet. A place where I can express my own thoughts, not the ones I think you want to hear. A place where I can type what I want, when I want, without feeling guilty, judged or afraid that someone from church will read it and request that I receive a formal boot straight out of my Primary calling. 
    Please don't confuse that with my not having a firm testimony of the Gospel, because I do have a very strong faith. I am an active member and I love the Church. I tithe, I serve happily in my callings, I love the fact that my ward building is less than a half mile down the road from my house. I love that I am almost totally surrounded by other members, and live in a predominantly-LDS population. I have dreams of one day going through the Idaho Falls Temple, which is so close, and yet so very far away. But I've made many mistakes, most of which I am unapologetic for. It was in my making them that I realized that I'll never be the kind of girl who represents everything she's been taught. I just don't fit society's stereotype of a typical LDS mother. 
    I  have never served a mission, been married in the temple, or filled a variety of callings...Just Primary and a stint at Girls' Camp, and for that I am ever-thankful. I don't watch my mouth nearly as much as I should and I although I don't drink, smoke or do drugs, I do partake in caffeine. happily. daily. I never got my figure back post-baby, and therefore my walls are not adorned with the ever-popular, same-dress, eternal-posed family pictures. I don't have nor do I plan on having an abundance of well-behaved, model children. I never make it to RS and I am late to church almost every Sunday. I have one child whose hair is never in place and who fights nearly every week on wearing a dress and I count myself super-lucky when my husband shows up at all. I compare myself constantly to the women around me, although we are taught not to do so. And like every other woman, I chastise myself even when I probably shouldn't. So there we are. Happy reading and Consider yourself warned.