Three Simple Joys of My Life

#1 Does anyone else know what I'm talking about?  I'm sitting in my living room right now--my six year old daughter is fixing my hair.  OK, she is not the most gentle and my hair looks like a bird's nest when she is done, but I love it!  I love anyone above two fixing my hair for that matter.  I wonder if all of those celebrities get tired of someone fixing their hair EVERYDAY!  I can only dream of how marvelous that would be.  For now, I will just enjoy the time with my six year old.

#2 This one might seem a little weird, but I am absolutely fascinated to watch people wrap presents. I could watch for hours--really.  Let me first say,  I don't like to wrap presents myself, and when I do, it is usually a rushed and sloppy job.   So, let me clarify, I don't like to watch people wrap presents like I wrap presents, I like watching those really meticulous people who fold every crease just perfect and use just the right amount of tape.  Amazing!  Is that learned or does it come naturally?  Oh, the mysteries!


#3 Now here's something any mom could appreciate.  I love early morning alone time in my bedroom.  I can't say this happens regularly, but I have a really wonderful husband that made this magic time happen just this morning.  He watches all the kids (who wake up at the crack of dawn!)  and I lay in my bed, sometimes sleeping, or meditating or praying, just having some minutes of complete peace, comfort, and contemplation.  Ahhhh...

Grateful Mom Goal of the Day: Take a few minutes for meditation.

As for me: Reward my husband with a shoulder massage.

Aging Grumpily

Did you hear?  I'll be 35 in a couple weeks!

On to one of the the most disturbing thing of the week:  It was time to update my facebook profile picture, not that I'm an avid facebook user, I just hadn't changed the picture since I opened the account several years ago AND it was an old picture to begin with.

People used to say I looked really young for my age.  They were always shocked to hear I was older than the expected.  I didn't really think about that until this week, but no one has said that to me in a while--a long while.

I have always been nice looking, not beautiful, not homely, just nice, some days much nicer than others, even cute.  Back in my single days I asked one of my overly honest guy friends how he would rate my looks on a 1 to 10 scale.  "Oh, about a 7, but a really good 7."  Note to all future overly honest guy friends--all girls are 10s!
 But I digress.

So I quickly snapped about 5 or 6 pictures of myself on my digital camera, but wait.  Who was this woman in the picture?  Older, a couple more lines, definitely not photogenic and makeup--I need makeup!  I never used to wear the stuff, it really didn't make me look that much better.  Not so any more!  Luckily my mother sent me a bunch a new makeup for Christmas---hmmm---she knew!

So the next day I plastered on the makeup--I really do look better I thought as I looked into my bathroom mirror.

Now it was time to retake those facebook shots again.  "Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click..."  I took a lot from different angles hoping to catch the perfect "natural" look.  But---really?  I really look like this.  I know the lighting in my bathroom isn't the best, but surely I should have noticed how old I look!  My nose is bigger--how did that transpire--I thought that only happened to men!  And my face looks, different, definitely longer, like a long puffy white oval. 

I blame my children--they have aged me beyond my near 35 years and there is no going back.  I told my husband, "you'll now just have to love me solely for my heart and overlook the exterior."  He laughed, but didn't contradict what I was telling him--uhg

So I am now trying to be less grumpy, at least to my family.   

As for the facebook profile picture, it's still the same outdated photo and that's the way I like it.

Grumpy Mom Goal of the Day: OWN what you have.

As for me: I will OWN my new, slightly more mature look.