We're The Lucky Ones

 I turned the big 25. Did ya know? As my dad put it I'm  a quarter of a century old. I thought about posting pictures of the B-day or talking about the events that unfolded.  Mr. Robinson was pretty awesome he took me shopping for seriously like 6 hours and then topped it off with a little cheese cake goodness. But due to recent world news and also my own personal circumstances, I just feel like talking about something else...

As many of you know Blake and I love to watch the amazing race, we have even talked about sending in an application video for the show. This past week our favorite team, the COWBOYS got eliminated. I was pretty bummed. I threw pillows and screamed at the TV. Toulouse hid in the closet.

I think the reasons we loved the cowboys so much was that they played a good hard clean game with no regrets.. and the cowboy hats and wranglers did hurt. (Obviously I liked those more than Blake.)

When I was a little girl I use to have the same reoccurring day dream. It went like this, beautiful young city girl moves to small country town, were they don't have cars and everyone rides horses. On the first day of school the beautiful young girl rides her palomino up to the steps of the school yard. All the children stand in awe. She's from the city and a little different which obviously leads to instant social stardom and the town nicknames the girl WILDTHING because her spirit is so pure and un-tamable. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Oh gosh, the things we think are cool when we're young. Ok so maybe, still at the age of 25 I secretly wish my nickname was WILDTHING.
The reason I bring this up is to illustrate my love for things just a little bit redneck. half of my family is as much. (I didn't think you'd believe me other wise) My grandpa even owns a ranch with his sibling up in Wyoming were they raise cattle and sheep.
A few months ago Blake and I went to the rodeo in Colorado to celebrate Blake's Dad's birthday.  As we sat in the arena watching the Bull Riders, the Mutten Busters and Blake chowing down on a giant turkey leg. I thought to myself if this isn't American then I don't know what is. I cried at the end of the rodeo when they played sappy country songs, said things like god bless America  and told the family lineage story of the rodeo ponies while live horses galloped about the arena to a synchronized light show.  Yes, I know it's ridiculous.  But I walked away proud, proud to call that a part of our history. Proud to have the right to eat turkey legs and watch grown men strap themselves to angry bulls all in the name of rodeo glory.  Proud to be an American.

Over this past weekend I'm sure we all heard that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. I saw many a Facebook status that talked about how happy they were that we had finally gotten the bad guy. Now I know what people meant. He was a bad guy. A REALLY BAD GUY but it was just weird to me that we were all rejoicing over the death of a human being.  Don't get me wrong, I'm as happy as the next person that there is one less evil in the world but I saw this quote and just loved how the great Mark Twain put it. "I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure."
I found myself thinking if only he could have changed. Found a little heavenly light or even just humanities light. Of coarse he would still have had to pay for all of his horrors because ,well all choices have consequences. But what if....
 
We all have the ability and right to change but so often we don't. Spending more time wanting and wishing  and a lot less time actually doing and changing. In a movie I watched recently called How Do You Know, in which the two lead characters carry on a conversation about Playdough. The male lead hands the female lead a jar of Playdough and recounts the following story.

"This stuff was invented by Joe McVicker in Central Ohio as a white goo, and he used it to remove shoot off wallpaper from old fashion heating. As gas an electric heating came in there was no longer a need for the cleaning goo. So the guy was going under, but his sister in-law Kay Zufall, who was a nursery teacher discovered that her little kids like squeezing the goo a lot more than hard molding clay. So she suggested to her brother in-law Joe that they color the stuff and call it Playdough." Then the male lead says: "I have kept this, he motions to the playdough  for a long time as proof that we are all just one small adjustment away from making our lives work."

I like that, just one small adjustment away from success or happiness or whatever. You can't control the world, you can't decide your tapestry of trials. But you can choose to be better, stronger.
Take a chance, make a choice to be different today. weather it's with a little more laughter, the forgiveness of someone who has wronged you or just gritting your teeth and smiling through the tough times. You were meant for greatness, it might not be the same as your neighbors or the queen of England but big or small it's yours. Your life to live your life to change your example to set. And now for the song that inspired this post amongst other things...


So let's live differently and face the moments of today with a little more
TOLERANCE
A little more LOVE
A little more CHANGE
And a little more HOPE

If you are struggling know you are not alone.

xoxo,