Lyrics:

Trying to run before you can crawl, fearless courageous you’ll conquer it all

Daughter of God queen among queens, to us you’re the world you are everything

And don’t give up. Don’t forget who you are. Don’t give in. Remember the one who died for your sins, and this life will be tough, but it will be wonderful and with faith in God you can conquer the world. Da da da da da da da da da da etc.

So sweet and pure – sent from above – the perfect example of heavenly love.

With light in your eyes and joy in your smile we know you will make it through any trial.

And don’t give up. Don’t forget who you are. Don’t give in. Remember the one who died for your sins, and this life will be tough, but it will be wonderful and with faith in God you can conquer the world. Da da da da da da da da da da etc.

And there will come a day when you find you are pressed, but we’ll be beside you through any test.

And you won’t be alone even when we are gone. You’ll always have Him and His Holy Son so please hold on.

And don’t give up. Don’t forget who you are. Don’t give in. Remember the one who died for your sins, and this life will be tough, but it will be wonderful and with faith in God you can conquer the world. Da da da da da da da da da da etc.

Don’t give up. Don’t forget who you are.

Well, I confided in my husband how I was feeling. He called me as I was cleaning, and when I mentioned in passing that I am supposed to enjoy washing dishes he seemed confused.

“Why?” he asked.

“Well, because I’m supposed to love my job. At church they always say your supposed to love every aspect of motherhood. They say that if you pray Heavenly Father will help you to find joy in it. I keep not doing that,” I told him.

“Honey, you don’t have to LOVE every aspect of your job. If all of it was fun it wouldn’t be a job, it would be a game.” He then went on a long tangent about how pro basketball players don’t really have jobs because everything they do is SO fun. (poor guy was never tall enough for pro basketball).

And as he talked about pro basketball I sat there like I’d just been hit with a hammer. Wait a minute. I DON’T have to enjoy all of it? It’s OK to not LOVE the housework side of things? You’re probably thinking how dumb I am right now, but it really was quite the epiphany.

As I pondered it further I started thinking about Heavenly Father’s job. I don’t purport to know what He is thinking or how He is feeling, but I have a hard time imagining a loving Heavenly Father enjoying the judgement, or enjoying watching His children stray, or enjoying allowing His children the agency to hurt each other – and yet – those things are all in His job description.

I can’t tell you the peace I felt as I pondered this stuff. It was just like, man I guess I am OK even if I do hate the constant cleaning that comes with parenting. Realizing that I’m not a bad mom if I don’t like cleaning even made the cleaning a little bit easier… for today.

Now, I’m not saying I will never learn to love the housework side of stay at home parenting, maybe someday I will get really really excited about cleaning moldy items out of the fridge, but I’m a work in progress. Isn’t it nice to let go of some of the guilt now and then? We women are so good at guilting ourselves. But that topic is for another post altogether. In the meantime, thank heavens for clear-minded husbands who will never be pro basketball players.

Do you have a small child? Does your home smell like crap? Literally? Is it too much work lugging dirty diapers all the way from the nursery to the outside trash bin? Well we have the stink solution for you! Sure to please the whole family, our patented technology is simple, just tie dirty diapers into plastic bags and throw them in the trash. Got an especially strong bomb? You have the option of using not one but two bags! Ah-maz-ing! Wait, there’s more! Just for wasting ten minutes reading this blog post you get three, you read me right, three Stinky is as Stinky does labels. That’s three labels for only ten minutes of your life that you will never get back again! This offer is not valid with third-party offers. We are not responsible should you accidentally choke on a plastic bag. Do not eat diapers. They are toxic. We are not responsible for husbands, wives, children, small rats, infants, or large mammals too lazy and/or physically incapable of tying dirty diapers into trash bags. Thank you.

The concept is simple. Cut a hole into a clean milk jug and stuff it with plastic bags. Every time your sweetie goes poop just tie the soiled diaper up and throw it into a lidded trash bin. I’m poking fun at it, but it really does work to control stench for those of us too lazy to walk all the way outside every time there is a diaper change.

I love lines in the carpet. You know when you’ve just vacuumed and you had time to do a REALLY good job? I love having crisp lines along my floor. They seem to all point towards an excellent mom award – totally awesome feeling.

Unfortunately, I don’t always have time to vacuum in perfectly straight lines. A lot of times I’m too busy feeding, playing with, and tending the baby, or I’ve got some service to do for church, or a deadline with the newspaper, or heaven forbid I’m just too tired. On those days my carpet ends up with wavy lines and circles – lines and circles that are NOT pointing to any excellent mom awards. On those days I’m just happy to have a clean carpet.  And you know what? That’s OK, I don’t have to be an excellent mom every day, I can settle for good mom.

Then there are those days when I get so overwhelmed with everything that I just leave the cheerios, goldfish, and lines of raisins on the carpet and go to bed. No awards on those days, just dirty carpet with lots of feet divets for decoration.

And it’s those days that I feel like I’m in line for the razzy version of mom awards. The “Oh, you are so not there!” Mom award. On those days it’s really easy to get discouraged. And I do get discouraged because I’m forgetting the important things. I’m forgetting that even when I can’t keep up with the dirty dishes, mounds of laundry, or raisin filled carpet I’m still doing something worthwhile.

Because you know what? On all days my baby is still well taken care of and I’m still doing my best to fulfill my obligations to church and work. So it’s OK. I can still be a good mom with feet divets for decoration.

The late Marjorie Hinckley said it best:

“We women have a lot to learn about simplifying our lives. We have to decide what is important and then move along at a pace that is comfortable for us. We have to develop the maturity to stop trying to prove something. We have to learn to be content with what we are.”

So I guess that even though I really love having perfect vacuum lines in my carpet, it’s OK that I don’t always get to it. As long as I’m trying, and as long as I have my priorities straight I’m doing all right.

And you know what else? I bet that if Christ were to come to my home he wouldn’t be looking at my carpet. He’d be looking at my daughter and he would love me for what I’m trying to do with her.

]]> http://www.ambermaybe.com/2012/02/13/lines-in-my-carpet/feed/ 0 http://www.ambermaybe.com/2012/02/11/beautiful-stripes/ http://www.ambermaybe.com/2012/02/11/beautiful-stripes/#comments Sun, 12 Feb 2012 02:57:16 +0000 Amber Mae http://www.ambermaybe.com/?p=450 Continue reading]]> Have you ever heard a woman say she doesn’t want children because it will ruin her body? I have. Someone told me that when I was about half way through my pregnancy, and it had me worried. This worldly logic seems to pervade thoughts all over the US. When young girls hear people like Jillian Michaels saying that they would rather adopt than put their bodies through pregnancy what are they supposed to think?

When I was pregnant I was so excited for motherhood, but I was also nervous about the changes that were coming. My entire life I’ve heard women lament the way they looked before children. I’m sure I’ve heard it hundreds of times. So many mothers talk about how their body isn’t the same after having children. Almost every single overweight mother I have ever met used pregnancy as an excuse for her size.

During my pregnancy I learned that my baby wasn’t growing well inside my womb. The doctor encouraged me to gain weight in the hope that my weight gain would transfer to the baby. Over the course of my pregnancy I gained almost fifty pounds. By the time it was over I felt like a bloated fish, and I was certain that all those mothers were right. I was convinced that I would never be the same.

Well, part of this was true. I will never be the same. Not one part of me will ever be the same. Motherhood has added deeper dimensions to me in every aspect of my life. Spiritually, mentally, and yes… physically I will never be the same. But that is not a bad thing. Because guess what? Pregnancy DOES NOT ruin your body!

Women’s bodies are made to have babies. That may not be popular, but it’s true. When Heavenly Father designed women he had pregnancy, delivery, and motherhood in mind.

And when it’s all over we are still beautiful, in fact we are even more beautiful. Let me repeat that because it’s important. After having children women are even more beautiful than they used to be. Within six months of giving birth to our beautiful baby girl I had lost all of the weight I gained – just by eating healthy and staying active. I am curvier. I am stronger. I can build more muscle than I could before. My hair is healthier, and I am a tiger who earned her stripes.

I can just hear those of you who know me personally, “But Amber, you lose weight by blinking.” K, that’s partially true. I don’t have to go on crazy diets to lose weight. But you know what else is true? Babies aren’t the only reason we gain weight. And by living a healthy lifestyle we can all have healthy bodies. Oh, and a size 3 doesn’t have to be the ideal. Women come in lots of shapes and sizes and that’s good. So maybe, you didn’t lose those last few pregnancy pounds. You are still beautiful.

None of us had perfect bodies before our pregnancies and none have perfect bodies after, and if we don’t start seeing ourselves and our mom bodies as beautiful what will our daughters see? I don’t want my gorgeous baby girl to think that she can’t continue to be gorgeous after she starts having children of her own. Instead, I want her to think about all of the confident beautiful mothers she knows and look forward to being like them – beautiful mothers who aren’t perfect, but who love their bodies – women who know that their bodies are a precious gift from our Heavenly Father.

Ladies, it is high time we work on the perception that having children ruins our bodies. It’s time we stop using our children as an excuse and start using them as a reason - the reason why we, as righteous mothers, are now more beautiful than we have ever been. It’s time we were proud of our mom bodies, because they are beautiful, stripes and all.

It all started with my sister’s necklace.

Gorgeous isn’t it? My sister has impeccable taste in jewelry. Unfortunately, I’m too cheap to cough up five bucks for a fancy string I’ll wear around my neck. However, I am crazy enough to try and recreate a fancy string with my own twist!

What you’ll need: old jeans, crochet hook, yarn, sewing needle, thread, scissors, beads

Cost: Practically nothing – use stuff you already have around the house

Hardness: Super easy! ‘Cause that’s pretty much all I do :)

First I tackled the flower. Inspired by all the felt flowers that seem so popular right now, I almost cut up a piece of felt when I realized that I had a pair of jeans with a big hole in the bum. Perfect for my project!

1. Cut a strip of material – mine is about 6 inches long and 1 inch tall
2.  cut lines about 1/2 inch apart along the strip.
3. Grab your needle and thread, fold the jean strip like an accordion and sew through the layers.
4. Tighten your thread. It should look like this.
5. Sew through the beginning of the strip and cinch it up. It should look like this.
6. Cut a smaller strip of material (Mine is about 4 inches long and 1/2 an inch tall)
7. Repeat steps 2-5
8. Sew the smaller circle to the middle of the larger one.
9. Sew some shiny beads on (I cut up an old bracelet I haven’t worn in years for mine) I also sewed the beads on about a gajilion times knowing that they would be the first thing the baby would reach for. 
10. Next it’s time to get out your crochet hook and yarn. You’ll need two colors of yarn (I used black and grey) and about a size G hook. Make four chains. 1 black 80 chain strand, 1 grey 80 chain strand, 1 black 40 chain strand, 1 grey 40 chain strand. 
11. Holding the long chains together fold them in half and sew the loose ends to your flower, do the same with your short chains.
12. Slip a strip of jeans through the loops in back and tie in a bow. Voila! You’ve got a classy casual accessory for super cheap.
    

    Do you know how hard it is to focus while taking a pic of yourself in the mirror?

Please link back and let me know if you try this. I would love to see all your crafty versions of it! Experiment with colors, yarn thickness, flower types. The possibilities are endless!

Ah... that's sharp!

PART 1

I was born to good parents. My home wasn’t perfect, but no one’s is. My parents did their best to teach me and my siblings good values. They set good examples for us and took us to church where we learned invaluable lessons about little streams that give, that we are children of God, and that Jesus came to John the Baptist. My early childhood was charmed. I was a very precocious and happy little girl. I enjoyed church, especially the singing part, and I never felt the need to question it. When I turned eight I was thrilled to be baptized. I wasn’t forced into baptism mind you. My parents are big believers in giving kids agency and they very seriously gave me the choice. I chose to be baptized because I felt good when I was at church.

When I was 10? Maybe 9? We moved. It was a tumultuous time for me. I was changing physically and my surroundings were SO different from what I was used to. We moved from an area that had only just barely been turned from farms to subdivisions to a ritzy neighborhood filled with big houses and expensive toys. I learned very quickly that I didn’t fit in. It was the first time in my life that I experienced what I would consider to be great trials.

Things went very quickly from not fitting in to full blown bullying. It was like I had a target painted on my back. There were two distinct groups that bullied me. One was at church (made up of boys and a couple of girls that probably thought they were just teasing the weird girl) and the other at school (a more malicious group that crossed the emotional threshold into physical bullying a couple of times). It was really hard. I often felt like I had no friends.

I tried to change myself, to fit what these people wanted me to be, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t be shy. I couldn’t be timid. I couldn’t keep my nose out of my books. I couldn’t stop humming my favorite songs. I couldn’t magically fix my eyesight and stop needing my big round glasses. The bullying continued into young women’s age. And while things were still really hard, there was a silver lining. You see, this is when I started needing the Lord. I had a particularly kind young women’s leader who taught me that I was loved and made me feel so special every time I saw her. I would go to her class right before Sunday school where I would endure what I considered to be torment. Her spirit got me through. If it wasn’t for her I’m not sure I would have kept going. She helped me to feel something I hadn’t really recognized before, the guiding influence of a loving Heavenly Father.

Today I am grateful for the bullies that taunted and pushed me. They led me to something more. It was through this trial that I learned that I really needed something more.

That was the first step of my conversion. And things began to get better after that.

You can keep reading my conversion story Here for Part 2 and Here for part 3

 

PART 3

I mentioned in my last post the need to exercise faith. Well, in my youth I tried to do that, but there was one specific instance where I completely ignored a prompting and had to pay for it. It was stupid really, I will always feel ashamed for it.

I was prompted to not accept a role in a play, and I did it anyway. I don’t know why I was told not to. Perhaps I would have been less stressed out with all of my AP classes, perhaps a better opportunity would have come my way, I don’t know. All I know is that I ignored this prompting and it rocked me to my core.

You see, once you have the gift of the spirit you have to work to keep it. And when I ignored it, I lost it for a while. I even lost a measure of the knowledge and faith I used to have. I began to doubt myself and I began to doubt my faith. I was miserable. I felt empty inside. It was during this period that I let some of my old demons come back and haunt me. I began to feel bad that I wasn’t perfectly accepted at school. I noticed more when people in my classes were rude to me. There was one girl in particular who made fun of  me in her AP English class and when word got back to me about what she was saying I was devastated.

A few things helped me push through this hard time. One was my parents. I told them what I had done and how I was feeling and they were supportive and loved me unconditionally. My dad explained to me a little bit about the repentance process and how I would have to go through it before I could feel the Spirit the same way I used to.

So I prayed and fasted and asked my Heavenly Father for forgiveness. Then one day things got better.I was sitting in sacrament meeting feeling really terrible, I had been fighting with family members, I had tons of homework, and as I said before I was in a bad state generally. I had a severe stomach ache brought on by stress, and I escaped to the bathroom where I sat down and prayed to the Lord. I told Him that I knew He was there and that I knew He could help me. I asked Him to remove my pain from me. Instantly my stomach ache was gone, and so was the burden I’d been carrying around. I had exercised my faith in Him and He had helped me feel His forgiveness. Again I was given a reassurance of His existence and even more of His love for me. It was almost as if I could see his light from the Heavens. His eyes were on me, and I knew it perfectly.

After that instance things began to get better. I continue to have my ups and downs as I strive to be faithful. I want to be wholly converted. I want to give up my sins to know Him. And though I have a long way to go, I know that He’s there to help me and to guide me on the way.

As a sidenote a good friend of mine commented on my last post that it’s OK to have doubts sometimes, it’s how we handle those doubts that really defines us. He said it perfectly, so I’ll just use an excerpt from his quote.

Jayrod said, “I think it is the doubts that make faith really what it is.  Because when we have doubts and continue in the path we have chosen that is when our faith really blooms. Your faith is so beautiful now, because of the very fact that you have chosen to stay true to what you believe even when there has been every reason to doubt it and walk away.”

Thanks Jayrod. Thanks for reminding us that our imperfections help make us beautiful.

PART 2

In my last post I explained my childhood bullying and how it led me to depend on the Lord. As I got older things got better. I found a good group of friends – people I’m still close to – and began learning that I didn’t need to be liked by everyone to be happy.

I had gained a testimony of the comfort I could receive when I was obeying the Lord’s commandments, and I had experienced a few miracles, but my conversion wasn’t over yet.

The next step in my conversion came by the hand of that same caring young women’s leader. She bore her testimony to us every week about the Savior and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I always felt an intense stirring when she bore her testimony, and I wanted that same thing. In my eyes she glowed, and I wanted to glow too. When she challenged us to pray about whether or not The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was God’s only church I accepted the challenge.

I went to my room, knelt by my bed, and I poured my heart out to the Lord. I told him that I needed to know if these things were true. Different people receive answers in different ways, but for me it was an immediate assurance. I felt so strongly that God was real and that I was attending his church. I felt peace and warmth and overwhelming love. And I just knew. Soon after I read the Book of Mormon and prayed to know if it was true. I received the same immediate assurance.

It’s important to note here that while I wanted all of this to be true, while I had a hope that it was true, I didn’t automatically assume it was. There were some very serious doubts and fears within me that wondered. It’s also interesting to note that just because I received my witness doesn’t mean I never doubted again. I’m ashamed to admit that, but it’s true. As I said in my first post – faith is something that requires constant work. It’s not like riding a bike. It’s more like a muscle, you have to keep exercising it to keep it going.

We’re pretty nervous and emotional. Hubby got this horrible flu bug the day after we got the news and compound that with nursing school schedule, work, and family crisis, well… you get one sick guy.

No one ever expects something to be wrong with their child. You hope and pray for a normal, perfectly healthy kid. And then when something happens you don’t really know what to do or how to react.

The only thing we do know for certain is that we love our baby girl so much, and we love her just the way she is. We wouldn’t change a thing. Heavenly Father knows her personally and he knew she would have these problems. All we can do at this point is trust in Him.

So we do our best, and even though we ache inside we know everything will be OK in the end. In the meantime… we wait.