On Being Great

Last night I had a moment where I was overwhelmed by how beautiful my life is. Sel was laying his head on my lap while we read scriptures together. There was a plate of cookies from sweet friends on the floor by my feet and our tiny little Christmas tree was sparkling away. We had only minutes before spoken to both of our wonderful families and I kept thinking about how lucky I was to have such an incredible group of people to love for always. 

My friend's husband recently passed away quite suddenly and only a day after they had their first child. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it without tearing up. Every night before I go to bed I whisper a little prayer for them. I've also whispered a little prayer for myself. A prayer to remind myself that every second of my life is precious and I should take nothing for granted. 

So often I find myself looking to tomorrow and wondering what I will actually find there. I remember when I was younger I was always dreaming of becoming "great". I wanted to be the best, the most famous, the most talented, the most loved. I wanted to save the world and make sure the world knew who saved it. I remember writing once in my journal that I would never settle for an average life.  An average life where I was an average wife married to an average man and we had a bunch of average little children that we were raising in our average little home. 

How blind I was in my youth. How grateful I am for the wisdom that comes with growing up. Those who were of any worth when I was young were those who the world applauded for, who the world admired and envied. 

Having reached this stage in my life I am so taken aback about how wrong I was. The people who I think should be continually applauded or admired are of relative little consequence to the rest of the world. My family, my friends, and  my husband are the ones who are more precious to me and more important than anyone and anything. 

To the outside world, my life is probably seen as pretty darn boring. Herein lies the pieces I couldn't appreciate when I was younger. The simplicity of my life is so astonishingly perfect and exactly what I wanted. I don't live in a mansion, I am no super model, I haven't written the world's best novel, I am not the CEO of some Fortune 100 company, and I have done little to save the world. Yet, here I am happy as could be with the life I lead. 

When I look at those who have achieved "greatness", I feel so sad for them. All those superstars and politicians and CEO's who seem to have so many of the important things missing from their lives. I no longer aspire to be like them. I almost feel a tinsy bit sad for them. I doubt they get a lot of free time to just sit on their couch with their significant other on a wintry Sunday evening and laugh the night away. 

How blessed and how lucky I am to have my "average" life full of all the simple little things that make it feel as if I have achieved greatness. 

Merry "Almost" Christmas All!

Simple mustaches

Simple kisses

My not-so-simple adorable grandma shooting her youngest with nerf

My simple dad shooting the helicopter

And my simple mom cracking up

 

The 26th Year of Sel

Today Selface is 26!!! (I started this on his actual bday) It blows my mind how quickly time is flying by. I realized as I was getting everything ready for his big day that this is the fourth birthday of his we are celebrating together. It kind of blew my mind a little bit. The year of 26 has started off pretty well so far, but alas, every birthday will be a struggle to compare to those glorious 23rd and 24th birthdays. I really should have thought that through when I planned 23 and 24...aw, the good old days. Hopefully Mr. Sel still had (and is having) an excellent birthday despite not having a nerf battle planned for this evening or a brand new dragon onsie to jump around in.  

I was got a lot of help this year from some family in making his day memorable. I asked his parents, siblings and my rents to tell me their favorite memory of Sel and then wrote them on fancy paper and gave it to him this morning. It was actually a treat for me to hear all of these memories I hadn't really heard about before. It just made me love that sweet guy even more. AND it made me extra grateful that he has such an incredible family that loves him. 

  Since Sel has a mega big test coming up this week and he had reviews all day long on his actual birthday, I took the day before off of work. It was a really fun day and we FINALLY got to go to the Toledo Art Museum. It was way more impressive than I was expecting. Our favorite part of that little outing was watching the glass blowing demonstration with our new BFF , Sten. The most exciting part was talking to her after the demonstration about different art classes you can take at the museum. Sel was beyond thrilled that they offer a SWORD making class. That's right folks, Sel's dream-come-true class is available and potentially free if we get the scholarship we both applied for. When we took sculpting at BYU, all Sel wanted to make during our welding portion was a sword. It worked out really well that we found out about this when we did because I was just about to purchase some expensive little chisels for Sel for Christmas.

His actual birthday wasn't too exciting. I made him walk through all of his excessive birthday decorations when he first woke up and read the memories I had written down for him. I made him a breakfast burrito that sadly was nothing spectacular and then dropped his birthday boy self to school.
Instead of going out to dinner or even making a fancy dinner that day, we opted to go to our ward's Christmas party to support our friends who were on the planning committee. I was a lousy bum about it because I am a zero percent fan of ham (ugh) and kept forgetting to be a good little wife and do what Sel actually wanted to do. (P.S. I have been a freggin handful lately. Just grouchy and sleep deprived and crazy. Instead of responding back with as much attitude as I am handing out, Sel has increased his kindness and patience. He is as great a person as I am not-so-great a person.)

We got home from the party and then I went to bed at 9:00pm because I am the lamest person alive. Writing this blog makes me wish I could rewind back to his birthday, put on my big girl panties, and do everything possible to make Sel have the HAPPIEST birthday EVER instead of flobbing around being a jerk-faced baby.

I tried to redeem my saddish efforts to make Sel have a happy birthday by throwing him a birthday party on Saturday. Instead of telling you all about it, here are some pics for your viewing pleasure.

I know Sel is the biggest topic typically talked about over here because I am one obsessed gal. I just cannot and will not get over what a remarkable person Sel is. He is immensely thoughtful and so undeniably good to me. Every day I am reminded how blessed I am and how undeserving I am of his perfect love. Also, jackpot for scoring such a stud, right? It makes him slightly uncomfortable how much I obsess over my attraction to his handsome self. Can you really blame a girl though?