More Best Friendly Advice

On getting older, and feeling confident about myself...

Do what YOU want. Don't care what others think. Wear makeup or not, wear the clothes you want. Do what YOU want, not what others think. Listen to the friends who will be honest with you and won't tell you something looks good when they really don't think it does.

Her examples?

She wants me to come to Cali longer and said, "I think you should come to Cali and stay longer because I want to see you." As I reply, "That's why I can't decide if I want to stay longer or not," she goes, "See? It doesn't matter what I want, it's what YOU want. You need to do what YOU want to do, not what I want you to do."

Her other example? She's wearing a white dress today. She doesn't care that you're not supposed to wear white after Labor Day, it's hotter than it's been all summer in Cali, and darn it all if she isn't wearing a white dress because she wants to.

I swear that girl gives the BEST pep talks - not even really pep talks - LIFE talks. I can mention a problem to her and she will go on for an hour about how I need to do what's best for me, and she will line it out exactly as I need to hear it.

She's my sister from another mother. She's in our family photos, her kids call me aunt, my kids call her aunt. I am so incredibly grateful to have her in my life.

Speaking of Photos

Photos are incredible. They tell a story. They track who we are, what we look like, our style, our interests, our personalities.

Looking back on photos from when the boys were toddlers I see things in myself (excuse the shallowness of my posts lately, I see it as a part of accepting and maybe, just maybe, hopefully, embracing my age right now) that I thought were new. Things that had been there all along - freckles, wrinkles, indentations in my face, muscle lines. Who knows maybe I had come to accept a photoshopped version of myself from Brando's gorgeous edited photos - an image I would back up with the few unedited photos of myself that would look just like the edited ones, but in reality those weren't the norm. It's so fun looking back on pure, unedited photos that show me as exactly who I am in all my young mom, young dorky unstylish 20s, acne prone, unmakeup wearing, running around two little boys. Not that impressive, let me tell you. But I didn't let that stop me then. Heck, I wasn't even AWARE of it. So why I should let it stop me now? Especially because I AM aware of it and realize it's not true. I do have style, I do wear makeup when I want to and am fine not wearing it when I don't want to, my skin is clearer, and I've matured to look like a woman, not like a little girl.

God, I love her (to quote Goldilocks :)

"Have goals for your 30s" - advice for turning 30 from my best friend I've known since elementary school.

After an hour long conversation where she told me, "This is why I love talking to you. I need your confidence", and my reply back to her, "I need YOUR confidence. I am so unconfident right now. I am happy with my hubby and my kids, but I am having a hard time accepting aging. Right now, I'm looking back at pictures from when I met Brando and I am SO much hotter now, lol, so that makes me feel better, but I am having a hard time excepting aging and knowing I am older."

Her response was having goals. I love it. Along with knowing all the turmoil that our twenties were, which is true. At the same time I LOOOOOVED my last few years of my twenties - heck the last four years, but truly I loved that everything came together in the last two. Maybe even more so in the last six months. So. Maybe that's what I look forward to - things are getting better - out of that turmoil my twenties were. Yeah, there's still turmoil, but I'm better at handling it, and I keep getting better (e.g. the moving situation - I learned SOOO much from that).

Goals.

Can't wait to write them.

Scared and a little nervous - it seems so monumental writing for a decade I'm not quite yet. But can't wait.

So so so content

This has been a strange year of many changes. Moving from house to apartment, renting out said house, losing our best couple friends but in the process learning how to have healthy arguments, our debt being paid off, finally getting on the same page with money & uniting on everything we do with it, falling out of love with social events, rediscovering my love of my husband, renewing our vows, contemplating where we go from here income wise, accepting aging & signs of it, no longer feeling like I can use my oft used phrase "we're so young", realizing money priorities are different for everyone at different times especially for windfalls - in the past mine have been clothing, travel, & going out at different times respectively - currently they may be trending towards making my home a retreat to come home to that is comfortable as well as aesthetically pleasing.

So. Lots of changes. I'm sure there's more to list, but that's off the top of my head.

OH MY GOSH!!!!

BABY FEVER!!!

The two adorable little tow-headed, pig-tailed girls that just walked by who must've been about two or three just gave me the worst baby fever. I do want more, just not now. A friend of mine just had a baby at 39 though so I have a few more years. Or we've always wanted to adopt. Nothing is for sure but I would love to have another baby or two in our lives someday and many more grandchildren. What a change from the past few years on the former part!

Mmm... Love...

Looooove having this blog. No pressure to post. No pressure to live up to other's expectations. I haven't even checked the stats on it but once or twice. I can just post whatever, whenever I want. Like a diary should be. This is my diary. The beautiful, the good, the bad, the ugly. My old blog has turned into my photo album which I also looooooove. But this is everything else, and I'm glad I have a place for that.

How much is genes? How much is nature?

How much is parents? How much is environment? How much is choice?

Where do my kids get their love of dancing from? It's not in my genes. It's in Shawner's genes, but Justinbustin is the first one on the dance floor. Is it because I love it now? Is it choice? Is it the environment that I love it now?

To know things you have to be taught, or have observed, or innately know and one day be confirmed. Kids who aren't taught or aren't given a chance to observe have less variety. I've always had that belief. About my kids. About myself. The thing is, I don't feel like my kids have had much more chance to observe, be taught, or experience more than I did. Yet they have SO much more variety than I did. How much of it is choice?

I am so grateful for that.