Friday, May 21, 2010

Hope and Gratitude

This morning I was reading blogs. In my sister-in-law's blog, she talked about a woman named Stephanie who had been in a plane crash and suffered severe burns. My sister-in-law also included a video of Stephanie's story and it was a huge inspiration to me.

There are many days that I struggle with the challenges I face. Those challenges vary from day to day and some are as simple as struggling to find stuff to occupy my time so that I feel like I've been productive or trying to reassure myself that it's alright to have a day where I just read. Some are more extreme like trying to deal with an abuse that happened years ago and not being able to have kids.

As I watched Stephanie's story, I was impressed with her courage, faith, and optimism. I felt hope for my life and gratitude. I felt a reassurance that every day does not have to go perfectly for things to be alright. I don't have to be perfect for me to be alright. There is always room for improvement, but that improvement does not have to happen all at once or even in a short period of time. I felt that things would work out even when it doesn't seem like it ever will.

Some days, I struggle with all of these trials, but other days I only struggle with a few. I'm grateful for the days that I don't struggle so much; for the days that I feel great and can conquer the world. I'm even grateful for the days that I really struggled to do anything, including getting out of bed. I'm grateful for those days because they've helped me get to this point where most days, I feel good. Through all of this, I was reminded of this quote (I need a plaque with this quote on it so that I can read it every day):

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity. It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow." -Melody Beattie

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Faith, Hope, and Charity

There are so many things that I've been meaning to write about. So many thoughts, too little time. Recently though, I've started watching Glenn Beck on Fox News. Usually, I don't get into politics, but the things that have been happening lately have been worrisome enough to me for me to watch Glenn Beck every day and look up some of the stuff that he's talking about. The part that I find even more interesting is how to fix the problems that we have. Mainly, he subscribes to faith, hope, and charity as the general principles that will help guide us back to safety, along with individual rights, equal justice, knowledge of the Constitution, love of our Founding Fathers, and faith in God.

The reason that I find the solutions to the problem interesting is because no matter what you think the problem with our country is, if we go to these principles, I think we'll find our answers. Also, these principles are simple solutions. They are not the complex solutions that Congress and the White House try to bring with 2,000 page bills that no one has really read. These simple principles, particularly faith, hope, and charity, are easy to define and understand. I don't think it's too much to ask for our laws to be easy to define and understand.

One of my favorite days on the Glenn Beck show is Friday because Fridays are Founding Fridays, where Beck talks about one of the Founding Fathers. Now, I love history so I love hearing about these men and how the influenced our country. I'm sad that I don't remember more about them from school because they are truly inspired men who were incredible and had a great vision of what this country should and could be. They were not perfect, but what I love about them is that they tried to live the best they could according to their faith in God.

I scribble down every book about these men that Beck recommends that were written by historians, and I wish that I had the money to buy every one of them. What I love about history is that the truth is the truth. When you have the facts, and when you look at what people actually said, in their own words, you can see why things happened the way they did, whether the consequences were intended or not. Unfortunately, there are those who try to "rewrite" history by giving a skewed perspective on it; telling only one side of the story. When we narrow our scope of vision, we miss out on the big picture. Looking at the other side does not necessarily mean that you have to believe that side, but at least you know what it is.

No matter what we believe in, when we come together with faith, hope, and charity, we can find solutions for the problems we face. We may not always agree on the way there, but we need to find the truth and come together for a solution.

Friday, May 7, 2010

By Popular Demand...

So I've had people ask me to take pictures of our apartment for a while, and well it's been a bit of a mess, still is, but I decided to take the pictures anyways. Please don't judge me, too harshly anyways. I still have to get Ashton to finish putting up the rest of the pictures on the walls. The slacker, but he has had a cold the past couple days and has been all stuffed up. So I guess we'll give him a break.

This is the living room. A little hard to see, but it's a good size. This is what you see when you walk through the door. The door that you see in the picture goes out to our balcony.


"Dining room" and you can see a little bit of the kitchen and the outside door. The folding doors behind the table are where the washer and dryer is. I was so happy that my piano fit underneath the kitchen bar!

This is the kitchen. It's usually cleaner then this but oh well. The door that you see goes to the pantry. I love our pantry!


Hallway. You can see how the rooms fit together.

Bedroom. We're missing the headboard to our bedroom set because it's too big to fit in our car.

Our closet. It's a little stuffed.

The other side of our bedroom. Like I said, Ashton still has to put up the rest of the pictures.

Bathroom! There wasn't any good angle to take this picture and particularly not without getting me in the mirror, so that's all you get!