Not really superwoman.

So tonight after a long conversation, one of my good friends told me I was so strong.

After all, I spend time at home, I redo rooms of the house, I paint, I sew, I teach relief society, I cook occasionally, I clean up backyards, I take care of flowers, I have lunch with friends, I refinish furniture, I work 40 hours a week, I write to missionaries, I sketch, I play the guitar, I have deep conversations with friends, I go to bridal showers, I do pretty much everything. I'm some kind of warped LDS version of superwoman.

She's wrong. I'm not strong.

I set ridiculous goals for myself. Like to pay off a 7000 dollar loan in nine months. To read the entire book of mormon in Spanish in a month. To singlehandedly demolish four sheds, remove the materials, level the yard, build flowerbeds, tear out bamboo, and plant grass in one summer of weekends. To rebuild a broken relationship all at once. To be perfect, I guess. Isn't that what I'm supposed to be doing anyway? Working toward being perfect?

I haven't met any of those goals. And I won't. I can't. It's simply not humanly possible. But when I don't meet them, I tell myself it's okay, but somewhere inside I feel like I failed just when it was most important. And so to make myself feel better, I reset the goals, along with others, just for good measure. And pretty soon I'm caught in a cycle of failure and restarts and a lot of impossible expectations.

I'm actually pretty proud of the last year of my life. I met a lot of goals. I learned a lot of things. And don't get me wrong, I'm a very happy person. But still somehow it's never enough for me. There's always something I didn't do, something I failed at. Maybe that's the way I deal with stress - setting high goals and racing toward them, even when I know I'll crash and burn and fail miserably. It's the one thing I can control - myself, and what I do. When there's things that happen that I have no control over, I prove that I can control myself and my own life. I'm on a crusade to prove myself so people will say, See? All that going on in her life, and yet she's got it all together, never falls apart for a minute, look at how amazing she is.

I'm not strong. Insane maybe, yes. But not strong.

And they call the thing rodeo

So I went to the rodeo last night. It was definitely more fun than I remembered. I think I saw about 1300 cowboy hats while I was there. The best part was the little girl riding the sheep backwards in the mutton busting. And she won! It was pretty crazy.

The whole environment there reminded me that there's a big part of me that really hates city life. Sure, I've grown up in a city/town my whole life, my only experience with animals is cats and a very little bit of horseback riding, I'm not a farmer and not a cowgirl, and I'm okay with that. But there's still a part of me that dreams of having a horse for my best friend, living way out of town on acres of land, spending evenings galloping across the fields or winding down a trail in the hills on horseback, and wearing boots and jeans all days of the week. Sure, it's not all it's cracked up to be, especially in this day and age, but there's something liberating about that lifestyle. It's simpler, and in some ways it seems much closer to God and the spirit than our harried, polluted city lives. The wide open spaces and the animals remind me what this earth might have been like when it was created, and a part of me just longs to live that way.

Maybe someday I'll be able to live on a little bit of land, have some animals, preserve a little bit of that lifestyle for myself and my family. In the meantime, I'm content to dream. And maybe buy a cowboy hat.

Say goodbye to the playhouse... finally!

This weekend the Elder's Quorum came over and pulled down this building from our backyard - it used to be my playhouse/deck, but it was falling apart. They hooked a chain to a truck and after a couple attempts, it came crashing down! It was exciting - minus the guy who broke his leg... don't worry, he doesn't seem to mind that much. Which is strange to me, but I'm glad he's not too seriously injured and has such a great attitude about it.

Before ^
After v

The pile got bigger and bigger. It's about three times that size now, and they even took two huge trailer loads away.

Even the young men came and helped. And supposedly they're all coming again in a couple weeks to try to get some more done - this particular building was one of four other structures that have to come down. Yay for annhilating the yard as it currently exists! :D

The epic laundry room makeover

So here is a long overdue post about the painting project at my house... laundry room makeover. More pictures coming, of the walls, floor, etc... but for now, here's some random pictures of some of the furniture I painted, and also the Saturday wall-painting project with me and Cosette and Ashley. They were absolutely amazing to come and help! :)

My awesome painting friends :) I love these girls!

Yeah, it was exciting.

The two small cabinets - previously dark brown stain


One of the tall cabinets - previously dark brown paint

The cabinets - before.

Smiling...

So sometimes random things make me smile.

Today I was thinking about what classes I was going to take winter semester. And I was thinking winter 2010, oh wait, no, winter 2011... 2011? and I smiled.

I took a picture of my fish today, because he is sick and I wanted to show the picture to the pet store man, and when looking at it I can see a photo in a photo frame sitting behind the tank in the picture. And I smiled again.

This random song by David Archuleta came on my Pandora at work, and I smiled.

I was rifling through my purse and my planner fell out and fell open to a page I'd doodled on, and I looked at it and smiled.

I kinda like smiling. :)

Decisions

I discovered tonight that I am a professional worrier. I also discovered that no matter what a decision is about, I want to know all the details of how it's going to turn out before I make it. I also discovered that my biggest fear is not meeting all the ridiculously high expectations I set for myself.

The question is, now that I've recognized all these things, now what?

That would require making a decision.

Half a summer

So this weekend I bought a cute little 12 x 18 inch Spain flag and hung it on my wall. I also would like everyone to know that Spain is playing Germany tomorrow - please cheer for the Spanish!!! We're gonna need it. It's like high school Spanish club vs German club all over again.

This weekend I bought my suitcase for my 90 day jaunt in Madrid coming up this fall. I feel like it's a suitcase built for Hagrid or something. It's huge! My mom insists that it really is just an average size, and that once I start packing my life up for three months it'll seem pretty darn small, but right now I'm feeling rather self conscious of its monstrous proportions. Oh well though. I also randomly bought a bottle of shampoo to take with me, and spent 30 minutes talking to my best friend's mom in the process. Gotta love WalMart! Other than that, study abroad plans are coming together. I have all my books, my plane ticket is bought, gotta get a power converter, and decide what all I'm taking with me - 3 pairs of pants and 6 shirts enough? ha... we'll see how this goes. But I've still got a month and a half - seems like an eternity away...

As for the rest of life, my relief society lesson is done, my letter mailed, and our laundry room project is wrapping up. The walls, furniture, and half the floor is painted - just have to finish the floor, put in the ceiling light, put up a shelf, replace the plastic over the windows, and make and hang the curtains. Pictures to come soon!

I got a bridal magazine in the mail today. Is this a hint?!?! Hey, I still have life to live... but I went through my old yearbooks today, and I was looking at my senior class and was somewhat shocked to realize how many of the girls are married now. It's weird. I guess we are all 20 years old - but still! If I decide to take the plunge, I'll let you know. Ha.