me.

Polaroid 600 SE Fuji FP-3000B

I have had 'me' on my mind the past few days.

I tend to be really hard on myself at times. Does anyone else have that same problem?

I started blogging four years ago when my best friend moved to Indiana. That is when she started her blog. I loved keeping in touch with her, and reading her adventures in a far away land. I missed her. She is the reason I started blogging.

I began to love recording the everyday happenings in our life. Then a year after I started my blog, I kind of, well...deleted it. I am not sure why. I know it was a moment of temporary insanity, mostly I didn't feel like I could take the pressure. Pressure I was placing on myself. The blogging hiatus only lasted a few weeks, and I regretted the deletion
(I still have the old posts on my hard drive hoping to replace them someday.)

While blogging gave me a place to share my feelings with this vast openness, I began to realize that it was changing me. Some of the changes were really good, some of them gave me feelings of inadequacy.

I have learned much from writing my own blog. I have learned even more from reading other blogs. This post is about that. What I am, and what I am not.

• I am not the perfect mother.
• I will probably never throw a giant birthday party for my kids and that is okay.
• I don't own a purse. Okay, I do, but it came from the dollar section at Target and I don't use it anyway. Because I don't own a purse, I cannot glean from all of the posts about purses and their contents.
• My diaper bag is outdated, and certainly not cute, and I can't wait until I never have to carry it anywhere, as stated above I don't own a purse and a diaper bag is too much like a purse.
• I have breastfed and I have bottlefed and I prefer the latter. Even if I have to clean bottles. (See bullet #1)
• I would love to decorate my house with little pendants that say, "I love you!" or "Happy Easter" that I made myself, but it will never happen, and I have decided it isn't 'me'.
• I hate housework. I will never tell you how to scrub the soap scum from the shower door and enjoy it, because I don't.
  
• My goal in life is to earn enough money so I never have to even think about soap scum again.
• I read to my children every night. I sing to them every night. I pray with them every night. (Perhaps I am bullet #1 after all.)
• I have camera envy from about 90% of you out there. Your cameras kick my old digital, which is why it is gone. I may shoot film now, but it doesn't mean I don't dream of Nikon sponsoring me for the rest of my life. Hello, is this thing on? Nikon?? Cough D3...cough.
• I love my husband. A lot. It just isn't me though to be constantly lovey-dovey to him. He isn't prince charming, and I am not Snow White, and that is okay.
• I yell at my kids. (I guess I am not bullet #1.)
• I have a testimony. I have found a stronger 'me' throughout the last four years, and I didn't know she existed.
• I don't own anything in my closet that is name brand. In fact, the last thing I had that was name brand was when I was 21 and our house flooded with sewage. Seeing Ralph Lauren covered in poop looks about the same as Wal-mart covered in poop. This doesn't mean I don't covet your Jimmy Choo's or Prada. I am probably jealous of you, but would never let you know that.
• I am an amazingly beautiful person inside.
• I am kind.
• I am loving.
• I would do almost anything for anyone.
• I have learned to put myself before others. Sometimes that is the strongest thing you can learn to do.
• The word 'no' is the most important word in the English language. I am learning to use it better.
• Water is good, and so is steak. I also feel strongly about bacon. Sometimes I feel bad when I read about vegetarianism. Sometimes.
  
• Ice cream is disgusting unless I say otherwise.
• I love my kids and their stinky feet.
• I like my laundry to smell perfect.
• I love adoption.
• Sometimes reading blogs makes me cry, makes me happy, makes me mad, makes me envious, makes me think.

This list could go on and on, but I am suppose to be working, I just needed to see where 'I' am.
I am learning to love me, for who I am, and for who I have become.
I am proud of me.