Makes It All Okay

I've been having a couple of days with a lot on my mind. Some things that have made me sad and left me feeling kind of emotionally spent. There's a lot of crap that goes on in this world of ours. It makes me grateful that in the faces of my children I can find refuge from it. Whether it's an ear-to-ear grin from Devyn, a silly expression from Lauryn or Maryn telling me how much she likes going to the store just me and her. Just now I was sitting at the counter eating chicken noodle soup with Brynna and I asked her "Brynnie, what has been the best part of your life so far?" to which she replied "Having you as my mom." Talk about tender mercies from Heavenly Father. When so much else in the world seems awry, He has given me these Little Women to know it's alright.

Two Months Already?!

Devyn - 1 Month Old
Devyn - 2 Months Old

She is just getting cuter by the day! I just love that little nugget!!

Intentions

It's pretty embarrassing that my Deep Thoughts By Jack Handy post has been chillin' up here for almost a month. One of my cousins who rarely updated her blog had a picture of a bison up on her blog for like six months. I would click on her blog only to see that stinkin' bison loitering on the computer screen time after time after time. In her defense, at least the bison is a step up from my stupid Jack Handy-ish musings. Anyhoo, again I'm off on trails unmeant to be traveled, time to rein it in. So, what's been shakin' around Casa de Young for the past three weeks? Well illness, visits, baby blessings, surgery, and as always escapee chickens. It's been pretty busy and perhaps at some point I'll fill in all the blanks...

But for now I'm having one random little thought... Most days I think of myself as a fairly decent person. But then as life would have it, you come across those people that actually are the person that you intended to be, but then somehow got lost in the translation of life. I know someone who never complains or says a bad thing about anyone or anything. If he finds something disagreeable, he just smiles and keeps his comments to himself. I love that about him. I know a girl who has a serious zeal for life and works hard at blooming where she's planted and does beautifully at it. I know a woman with the patience of a Saint. I have a friend who embraces creativity and finding beauty in simplicity. I have so many people around me that have so many good qualities...qualities that at one point I had envisioned for myself. It's amazing some days how far the paths of my intentions and reality have diverged. I don't like it. Life hasn't necessarily gone according to plans in some instances. In ways I've struggled with, but I've had to adjust. But I wonder at what point that gave me permission to stray from the well intentioned person I thought I was to the piece-of-work I currently am? I wonder at what point life inspired me to get so darn opinionated. To be so hurried. To be so impatient. One who has a hard time planting her feet and feasting on the moment...

A few weeks ago, Elder David A. Bednar came to speak in Roseburg. He said some things that has caused me to mull some thoughts over in my brain again and again. He said that we as people are not objects to be acted upon in life. We aren't like a book you can push across the table. Rather we are people who are free agents to our own lives. Rather than being moved where ever life would like to take us, we can control how we act and respond despite the circumstances that come into our paths. It was pretty profound to me. I've done my fair share of being that book on the table it seems. Allowing life to make of me whatever it deemed fit. I've adjusted to life not always being what I expected, but in doing so also adjusted the person I intended to be in some ways. Now that my eyes have been opened to it, I guess it means it's time to adjust again, back to who I want to be. It's hard though. Change is hard. And it seems when life already seems so very full, adding more to the plate seems crazy. But when I see the people who I admire so much being successful versions of themselves, I know in my heart of hearts I owe it to myself to do the same. I'm not an object to be moved and I deserve to be every one of my very best intentions.

Deep Thoughts By Jack Handy...

...or just really weird, random ones by Yours Truly. Sometimes when I'm commenting on blogs or Facebook, I think I over-exclamate (which may or may not be a made up word, but it's working for me, so go with it). But not to the point twelve-year-olds do. Because as you know if you've ever looked at a twelve-year-old's Facebook page, some of the things they say and do makes me want to pull my eyeballs out. Seriously. However, I digress. By 'exclamate' I mean, using exclamation points at the end of sentences rather than a boring, old period. Sometimes using a period seems rude or just devoid of any energy. I will sit at the keyboard and have a conversation with myself that sounds something like "I could use a period here, but that is so boring and really doesn't capture how I'm feeling...but if I end it with an exclamation point, am I over-exclamating?...because I kind of do that a lot..." Eventually, I'll decide I am who I am and end it with a "!", but still I frequently find myself plagued by this stupid internal struggle. I know, I'm really strange. Even stranger, I find myself feeling ambivalent about people who don't exclamate at all... like they are living a weird, emotionless existence in which they can't get excited about anything. That is seriously weird to me! My random musings have led me to two conclusions, those being 1.) I am subconsciously haunted by punctuation far more than I ever realized and 2.) From this point forward I hereby allow myself to exclamate without further over-analyzation, since as previously stated, I am who I am. Besides I wouldn't want to be one of those weird non-exclamaters anyways!!!

1 Month Old

You may think documenting one's first month of life would be as easy as a quick click of the camera, right?! Well, think again! Devyn turned one month old on Thursday and so I wanted to grab a quick picture of her so I could document how she is growing throughout the year. First of all though she needed to have a bath to beautify her little baby self.I personally think her bathtub picture was the cutest one of the whole schebang!After her bath she got dressed, but I think she was still a little cold and fussy. Not much in the mood for pictures... So I decided to nurse her hoping a little boob-time would warm her up and calm her down. It did...to the point of a milk coma. I could not get that girl to open an eye for one quick little picture!When she did wake up and realized I was still hovering for a stupid photo op she was ticked!Finally she calmed down enough to give me a thoughtful little expression before I called it all as good enough for now!

Hopefully grabbing our quick little picture will be less of a production at two months!

My Life In Pictures...

I saw this on a friend's blog and thought it was really cool. So I thought I would give it a try for myself!

1. Answer the questions below.

2. Take each answer and type in to Flickr, Google or Yahoo.

3. Take any picture from the first page of results, and post.

The age I’ll be on my next birthday…A place I’d like to travel….Favorite Place…Favorite object…Favorite food…Favorite animal...Favorite Band…First name…Favorite Color…Favorite Song…Favorite Movie…Place where I was born…Town in which I live…Favorite Store…

Evil Roger

Our neighbor Bill has a ton of chickens that he keeps on our property. He had to go out of town this week, so we agreed to be on chicken duty while he was gone. The girls love the chickens and have named them all like pets. So I don't mind having them out back (except when they escape and run amok, but that's another story!) Recently Bill got two new roosters in addition to the one that was already there. The old one, Peter, is noisy but fine. One of the new ones, Shiloh, is sweet and quiet and the girls love him. Then there is Roger...he is an awful beast and I hate him. He is very aggressive and mean and has come after the girls and I on several occasions. This morning Roger attacked Maryn and Brynna when they went to get eggs. I was getting ready to get in the shower and realized they were taking longer than usual to collect eggs. Sometimes they stay outside after making their rounds and play, so I wasn't too worried. But I thought I'd better check on them before getting in the shower just to make sure they were okay. I went outside and called for them and panicked cries came out of the hen house. Maryn was crying "Mom!! Roger attacked us and now we're stuck in here!" He had cornered them in the hen house so they couldn't get out. They'd been in there crying for about 20 minutes. Roger also had escaped through the gate with the bitties and there were about 20 of them in the rose garden while he stood guarding the entrance to the chicken yard. Little beast. I had to protect the girls with a lawn chair while I rescued them out of their stinky prison and then had to fend Roger off as he charged me while I tried to get all the chickens back in their yard. Poor kids were so traumatized. Roger has taken one of their favorite things about living here and made it scary now. I think Mr. Bill may need to have a chicken dinner soon. I don't want that beastly animal in my backyard anymore!

This video was taken Saturday morning when Roger was actually behaving himself. Too bad that was short-lived!