Keeping your goals is hard.
Last month I felt like I was on top of the world,
and then I realized that I still have 11 months to go,
which is comforting for the goals I'm not doing so well on
and daunting for the goals I am doing well on.
I have a lot of goals, 11 to be exact.
And they're not so much goals as a
"Things that I really really want to do" list.
So instead of telling you what I didn't do, which is a lot,
I'm going to focus on what I did do, which is also a lot.
1) Do not touch my eyebrows.
Check!
Before
After
They are making a comeback, that's for sure.
I'm also having nightmares about them, which sucks.
I dream that someone ties me down and plucks out every last eyebrow hair.
I wake up scared to death that I have to start all over again.
Dealing with my trichotillomania has not been easy.
I stroke my eyebrows a lot.
But I haven't picked at them. Not once.
It used to be picking them, but in the last few years it's turned into plucking them that has been the drive and desire. It's turned into a bit of body dysmorphia, which is all new to me. But since I've decided to love my body, every little bit of it, I'm learning to love my eyebrows too. I plucked them and picked at them till they were almost non existent because of my disorder, and then it turned into not thinking they were good enough and I had to change them. Now I have a year to grow them out and not touch them with tweezers or makeup, and learn to love them, bushy and bald spots and all.
And you best believe January 1st 2019 I'm going to clean them up and fill them in a little with makeup. But I'll never again over pluck, because if this year is going to teach me anything, it's that they are perfect the way they are and that I am beautiful.
Do you want to hear something kind of funny that I remembered the other day? We were on a family vacation one summer, I must have been an early teenager, and someone said to me (I can't remember if it was my mom or dad, or both) that I had to do something about my mustache and my eyebrows because they were so hairy.
I remember going and sitting in the car, looking in the mirror, looking at my face, looking at something that I had never thought was a problem before.
To all the women out there...your hair is not a problem.
Now I admit, I feel better with shaved legs, arm pits, and a freshly threaded face...but you have to love yourself first and foremost, hair and all. And then go shave it off if that's what makes you more comfortable.
Does that make sense?
And don't you ever tell a little girl that she needs to do something like that. Do you know what I thought? I thought that I was ugly, a thought I don't think I had ever had before. We don't need to put on makeup, or dress up, or paint our nails, or lavish ourselves with jewelry and things...we just do those for fun and to accentuate the natural beauty that we already have. But you have to love the natural beauty first, or else all the junk we put on is what makes us beautiful,
and that's just sad.
2) Read my scriptures and pray every day.
Yeah....I need to figure this out.
3) Make more time for friends.
We are certainly trying! We love our friends.
4) Make Chasing Shelby something great.
Like #3, I could be doing better.....
Well, I didn't put this together, but my mom is doing awesome!
Orange chicken was Shelby's favorite. I can't wait!
6) Do more crafts, and 7) Put things away
Well, let me tell you how this has been going, because oh my goodness this has been where my priorities have been.
My home has been so unorganized that I couldn't get anything done!
So organizing the craft room was the first on the list.
Boom! Done.
Now I actually have a table to work on!!!
Putting things away is hard if things don't have a place to go.
So I've done a lot of organizing. The craft room, the medicine cabinet, the toys! We took out two black garbage bags full of toys and some other big bulky toys, and the kids rooms are so much better now!
Jacob said "Thank you for taking the toys out." Wow.
It takes a lot of time to put things away when you have three littles who are constantly pulling things out. And trying to teach them to put things away without completely loosing my crap because I have to repeat myself a million times is very difficult.
So that's what I've been doing.
Let me tell you a little something about priorities and goals.
Yesterday at church we were talking about what distracts us from doing the most important things. My answer is easy and obvious: other good things. I spent my entire Saturday night and most of the day doing laundry, I spent almost two weeks organizing that craft room, and I spent a good couple hours making valentines day cards for my friends (I wanted to do a craft, and I loved it!).
But did I read my scriptures?
No.
Did I pray sincerely?
No.
What is most important?
I need to figure out how to keep my priorities straight
and not get so caught up and distracted by other good things.
I don't really know how to do that.
But I'm going to try.
It seems that my goals really can boil down to one goal:
Make the most important things priorities, and do them.
And PS, don't forget to make you time a priority.
I went thrift store shopping and spent $50 on some amazing finds,
and I spent all of Saturday night and part of Sunday morning pampering and taking care of myself.
My first head to toe thrift store outfit.
And I LOVE this red! I cant believe that I found a skirt the exact same color red as my lipsense! If you can't tell, this makes me super happy.
And PPS...
Another thing that was brought up on Sunday was that God is pleased when we try. We are not going to be able to do everything, and I have daily proof of that. But we can do whatever it is that we are doing and do it well, focus on it and make it something great, and at the end of the day be able to say that you had a good and successful day.
Do not downplay what you have accomplished
just because you have not succeeded
in accomplishing everything.
It is a journey.
One step at a time.
