No More Pants

Yes, it has happened... I have finally hit my "No More Pants" summer mindset that comes around this time every year. Don't think all crazy on me before I explain myself though. No More Pants mindset means that I just don't want to wear pants anymore, particularly jeans or dress pants and definitely not sweat pants. So you may be thinking "Ummm... this is awkward" but rest assured instead of wearing pants I wear summer skirts and dresses! It's the most brilliant mindset to be in. It also goes along with my theory of dressing how you want to feel. I want to feel like it is summer, therefore I shall wear summer clothes until this happens.

Sidenote: Yesterday I wore a dress and it was a bit cloudy...

but today I wore a skirt and it got crazy sunny!

Now I'm not saying I have a lot of influence on the weather

but I'm not gonna make an experiment out of this and

start wearing snow pants and turtlenecks either.

End Sidenote.

While in my No More Pants mindset I decided to push myself a bit and do an exercise in letting go as well. I now introduce you to my latest self-challenge... I shall call it 30 Summer Days. Or maybe I'll change the name but for now it works.

Here's some background: After counting all my summer dresses that I have been gathering and collecting for the last probably five or six years I have come to the conclusion that I have way too many! Embarassingly too many... And worse, I don't even wear a good portion of them, sometimes weather is to be blamed, sometimes the "I have nothing to wear" mindset sneaks in and they become invisible...

Here's my plan: Regardless of weather, I shall wear a dress or skirt every day for the next 30 days and document it. After those 30 days and my extensive notetaking (in my brain) I will then eliminate all dresses that I don't even like anymore. I may even question why I bought some of them in the first place. But I obtained these dresses so I should wear them one last time before I make final decisions on which ones I all want to get rid of. And bonus for anyone reading, if you're my size, these dresses will be up for grabs for free ninety-nine. Hollah!

Here's my goal: I want to get rid of things that I don't need and/or use anymore. I'm doing this with many elements of my life so I figured I might as well do it with my closet as well, at least for my dresses anyways (I am not willing to start a 30 Winter Days in the middle of summer). Since it's still early summer, by the time my 30 days are up it will hopefully be full blown summer weather by then (my poweful influence on the weather and all, your welcome) and I will only have all my most favorite and practical dresses easily accessible. Win!

End Note: I'm going to look so Dutch.

Your Favourite Cup

I went to write an email today to a customer named Gord. I accidentally wrote this instead:

Dear God,

Now fortunately I noticed before I sent it (that would have been fun), but of course it threw me into Sherylynn’s Deep Thinking Time:  If I wrote a letter to God what would it say?

Would it be a list of questions:

Dear God,

Why is there cancer?

Did dinosaurs really have feathers?

Why is Chilliwack always so rainy?

Would it be a list of complaints:

Dear God,

My stupid oven broke, everything bad always happens to me.

My car got all dented from some jerk that hit and ran it.

I used to be a natural blonde, what happened, its so unfair!

Would it be a list of thank you’s:

Thank you for life yesterday.

Thank you for life today.

Thank you for sunshine and that the ozone layer is still in tact.

Would it be a list of _________:

This blog has now become a fill in the blank worksheet. Of only one question.

That is the thought of the day and get this I will go one step further as a special treat. If you’re mind tends to easily go the complaints route (it’s ok to admit it, I know I’ve got my hand up) perhaps that is because those are the thoughts or words most easily accessed in your mind. Think of it like this: When you take a cup out of the cupboard do you take all the other cups out so you can grab one from the very back? Not usually. You take what is most easily accessible. And I find this is similar to your thoughts and vocabulary used on a regular basis. If you constantly have pessimistic thoughts or negative language then that is what is going to show up on your “most used” mind list and your thoughts and mouth will easily refer to it.

Red Alert: Don’t lose hope!! The ‘most used’ list can be reset. This is double apparent to me today as updates on my computer have wiped out all my most commonly used work links. I love a good challenge. So basically, if you make a conscience effort to bring optimism forward, pessimistic thoughts and language will get pushed off the ‘most used’ list and your mind will begin to automatically refer to uplifting, encouraging, and thoughts of awesomeness. Notice I didn’t say it was easy… in fact it’s quite annoying at first. Back to cup/cupboard analogy: at first it is like taking all the other cups out one by one to grab a cup from the back, but then eventually the more you use that cup the more commonly its just been washed and is sitting at the front of the cupboard… just waiting to be used.

I leave you with this: “You rock” is way cooler than “you suck”.

Yep. Life changing quote right there. Bye friends!

In the Corner

Before I move on I first must tell you all something... I HAVE A NIECE!! She was born yesterday and I hold her as we speak (aka as I type). She is fabulous and I cant wait to have many adventures with her and learn things from her. I love her a lot and could talk about her all day so I will cut myself off... for now.

Alright so kind of on the topic of children... I was once a child. (Captain Obvious to the rescue) And as I reflect on my childhood today I have concluded that my parents never really punished me. I shall explain that a bit more.

     I was one of those perfect child that rarely got in trouble… I’m serious. Sort of. It just never occurred to me to disobey them or rebel against them. My mother will even tell you herself that she can't remember many times that I was ever in trouble. It should also be noted that my older sister was a bit of a trouble maker so after her I was the super sweet child. *angel smile* 

     As I have three siblings sometimes all four of us would get punished as a result of collateral damage, like say all of us being grounded from TV so that no one could watch it, but I don't recall the grounding ever lasting too long. My parents may have their own explanation but from my perspective I think they never kept us grounded for very long because they liked hanging out with us. Can't blame them, usually funny parents end up with funny and entertaining kids.

    

So my thought for today is if, as a child, I were constantly punishing and disciplining myself for my parents would they not think this odd? Especially for an action that has long since past and already been punished for? What normal child would do that?

"No mommy, I was bad four months ago, I'm going to bed without any dessert." 

"No daddy, I can't watch cartoons with you, I scribbled on the wall with permanent marker three years ago."

"No sisters, I can't play Barbies, I have to sit in the corner because I cut off all my hair with dull scissors last year."

That doesn't make any sense. So why do we, as adults, sometimes do this? Punish ourselves and keep ourselves in pain and sit in a corner even though we don't need to? I think many times it comes down to self-forgiveness. Perhaps you've found yourself in a situation where you were greatly hurt. Although many go through the very uneasy process of forgiving the other person or people involved, many forget to look inwardly. Self-forgiveness is one of the most difficult things to do but let me tell you this:

Get out of the corner, take the soap out of your mouth, and stop going to bed early! 

If you've asked for forgiveness from those required of you, resolved the situation and made things right with God... why are you still sitting in a corner staring at a wall?

"I am not going to hangout with any of my friends and have fun because I've hurt too many people in the past, I should not be trusted anymore."

"I can't face my family ever again because I disgraced the family name five years ago."

"God, I can't let you love me right now, I've done too many things wrong."

Get out of the corner.

God just wants to love you. He's not punishing you, you are punishing you because you haven't forgiven yourself. You have friends, family and especially God that just want to hangout with you! Punishing yourself on a daily basis for the same action doesn't make sense. Example: My nephew would be none too happy to wake up tomorrow and find out he had to go back into time out again for something he was already punished for today. And if that kept happening on a daily basis eventually the comment "But I was already put in time out for that" would come up. I had to look at myself and my life like this. Was I avoiding happiness or avoiding letting good things happen to me because I thought I should still be punished? Heck yes I was. This was a tough realization, but learning to forgive yourself gives you the freedom to live without constant punishment again.

Friends, are you sitting in a corner on a little plastic chair?

Storytime: Sun Abandonment?

Hi friends!!

Today is self declared story day. Ready? let's storytime it!

Storytime
One sunny day Mr.Walksalot was walking down a road with trees, like so:

Mr.Walksalot walked along enjoying the sunshine with no particular place or goal he was walking towards. Just walking along, being content with life. After walking in the sun for a period of time he walked into one of the trees' shadow and stopped in his tracks.
"Sun! Why have you abandoned me!?" He screamed upwards with a frown on his face. (He is a bit of an eccentric guy as you can imagine.)
     Mr.Walksalot was extremely upset but kept walking along with slumped shoulders. All of a sudden he found himself in the sun again and was so relieved that the sun had returned. He felt the sun's warmth on his face and couldn't help but smile. He walked with a joyful bounce in his step until yet again he found himself in a shady area.
"Sun! Why have you abandoned me, again!? Oh woe is me, I am so cold now, I just want to be warm and happy again!" He once again yelled upwards, this time with his hands on his hips.
     He grumbled as he once again walked along, but wouldn't you know it, a few moments later he passed through the shadow and the sunshine shined down on his face once more.
"What a joyous day, the sun has returned!" He excitedly announced... to no one.
    And on and on it went. Sun, shadow, cheering, grumbling, happy, mad, etc.

Finally, Mr. Walksalot got to a point where he was so sick and tired of walking along this road that he looked for another. Luckily (for him and for my story) there was a road just to his left. He took that opportunity. Upon turning on to this new road this is what he saw:


A road without trees and therefore without shadows, and most importantly, the sun standing proudly at the head of the road.
"I shall stay on this road and head towards that sun, my source of warmth and energy, as this is now the only walkable road that makes sense to me." Mr. Walksalot said out loud... to himself.
     So Mr. Walksalot walked confidently with purpose down this road towards the sun, aiming to get ever closer to it, the sun forever on his glowing face. He took a glance back at the road that he had come from and realized that the sun had never actually moved nor left him as he walked along it, but that the trees that man had planted along that road made it harder for him to see and feel the sun's warmth. The sun was actually constant, never leaving the sky.

Storytime Statement: God is constantly present amongst struggled filled walks of life, as well as shining bright guiding you towards Him if you choose to take the light filled path he offers.

Tree Climbing

Today I am going into the memory bank of my life...

When I was young I used to be awesome at climbing trees. Looking back now I perchance remember me being a better climber then I actually ever was… but nevertheless I recall getting myself up into a lot of trees and just hanging out there and having an awesome time. Sometimes I would climb with others, sometimes I would climb by myself and then wave down at the suckers that weren’t being super awesome up in the tree, like me. Now… here’s the unfortunate thing I was not good at: Climbing OUT of trees.

Yes, I was that cat child that would climb trees and then panic and not know how to get down. Throw a little dramatic into the mix and I was the child that would have to jump out of the tree practically breaking my leg every time, demanding someone to get my dad to catch me, or declaring that I was just going to live in that tree forever (or giving it serious thought anyway). Since I am not writing this from a tree you can all breathe easy knowing that I got out of every single tree... with little to no wounds beyond some minor emotional trauma. No big deal.

Life Lesson: It’s easy to climb into a tree. It’s a lot more difficult and scary getting OUT of the same tree.

And while I was thinking about this life lesson of COURSE I thought about how this relates to other things and this is the deep brain thought that came upon me.

Sherylynn’s Deep Thought Time: It’s easy to get into a bad relationship. It’s a lot more difficult and scary to get OUT of that relationship. Sometimes the adventure of the relationship is so great that all of a sudden you realize one day that you are stuck in it and you have no idea how to get out. Do you just jump out and hope you don’t break your heart? Do you find a rebound relationship and just get someone else to catch you? Do you retrace and undo all your steps and hope it gets you out of the relationship? Do you just stay in the relationship even though it gets you no where?

Sometimes you have to put yourself through a little bit of pain to find freedom. 

If you have limited mobility (physically, emotionally, spiritually) and constantly fear the fact that you are stuck in a relationship, not knowing if you are going to get pushed out one day or fall out another day, your heart is constantly going to be beating faster as you look down at the ‘ground’ at how far away it seems. A mix of fear and longing imprinted on your heart. Similarly, sometimes you just have to jump out of that tree and feel that tingly pain in your legs because it is not beneficial to live in a tree forever. It’s just not.

I think good, healthy relationships are kept at ground level. A level that you can’t be pushed out of or fear falling out of. Ground level is safe and secure, a level easily committed to and still capable of crazy fun adventures. 

Friends, try not to get stuck in a tree.

Jumping back to my childhood memory: I don’t recall how many times he saved me but I am so grateful that I have a dad that would come and catch me out of those trees. I am also very grateful that I wasn’t a REALLY good tree climber as I imagine I would still be sitting on top of an extremely tall tree somewhere, chilling with an eagles nest.

Beautiful Days are Coming.

If I may be bold this week, I will admit something to you: I want to be beautiful forever. And the even bigger thought that hit me was that this should be one of the most obvious things ever. Does it not make sense that one would want to, one, BE beautiful, and, two, to STAY beautiful. Shouldn’t every woman have this dream within her? Have women become too afraid to admit that they want to be beautiful or do they feel like that dream is unattainable? Here’s the thing, I’m not talking about beauty, I’m talking beautiful. The kind of beautiful that remains the same whether a woman is 22 or 82: Wrinkle Resistant. The kind of beautiful that a phone call can remind you of how beautiful a woman is: Physically Non-Reliant. The kind of beautiful that people feel when a woman is present in their life: Role Model.

I want to be the woman that doesn’t have to stress herself out trying to be beautiful, she just is.

Now by admitting this do I go against what I just claimed or betray ‘my plan’ for becoming beautiful? Maybe… maybe not… but I want to tell you this with honesty and vulnerability as I’m not trying to sound conceited or proud, don’t think that for a second. I pray to become beautiful for myself and I pray this for others because if you don’t feel you have the potential to be beautiful you will not gain the confidence to do so. I spent a good portion of my adult life NOT acknowledging this thought and I don’t ever want to go back to that darkness. Never ever. I want to be beautiful. A beautiful woman doesn’t care what she looks like, how many wrinkles she has or frets about what people say when she is not around because she stands tall in a calm confidence, not arrogance. This thought to be beautiful isn’t something that I am going to stress over or wonder if I am failing at though, you know why? Because I can only fail if I stop trying, which I won’t. A beautiful woman is a woman that learns constantly; if she makes mistakes she resolves the problem and learns from them. Perhaps it may take the same error in different formats to learn, but she will learn. I will learn. I don’t strive for perfection as that I will definitely  fail very quickly; I strive to be beautiful amongst my learning. I long to be someone that is God-fearing, trustworthy, friendly, confident, forgiving, encouraging, caring, enthusiastic, loving, full of self-worth, responsible etc. I have such a strong desire to be beautiful amongst the decay of what the world throws at me that it makes me excited all over again to simply live life. I want to be beautiful.

When you put make up on in the morning you have a pretty good idea of what you want it to end of looking like. If you didn’t people may wonder why you have mascara on as blush, lipstick as concealer, eye shadow as lip liner, etc.

If you don’t know what you want yourself to look like you can’t work to achieve that.

If you’re thinking to yourself, “No Sherylynn, you don’t get it, I can’t be beautiful… maybe if someone else could just tell me I was beautiful I might be able to believe it…” but believe this: sometimes the ‘someone’ that can have the biggest impact on you… is you.

“A diamond is a diamond whether it believes it is or not.”

I want to be beautiful forever. Don’t you?

Roller Coaster Waiting

A lot of talk on relationships lately. I mentioned a couple things to a group yesterday on said topic so I thought I might expand and repeat them here as my weekly pondering moment. Here we go, wooooweeeeeeeee…

Waiting for a relationship.

If you go to an amusement park you most likely have to wait to go on any ride and the one ride there that usually has the biggest line? The biggest roller coaster. (Even if you don’t, let’s pretend that we all love roller coasters. Perfect.) So while you are waiting in line to go on the rollercoaster you pretty much know two things.

The two things you know:

      1) There IS a roller coaster at the end of the line.
     2) If you get out of the line to go on any other ride when you come back you have to start back at the end of the line.

Let that simmer and I’ll add the following spices: This rollercoaster analogy can work for many things, but it especially works well for relationships, IMO. (That means “in my opinion,” I think, I’m not good at computer talk but I think I got that one figured out. Lol. Hags. Jk. idk.) So if you are single and you are constantly asking yourself why don’t I have a boyfriend/girlfriend, why aren’t I getting married, why why why? I like this approach to thinking about it… when you get to an amusement park, most likely you can’t just walk in, see the best roller coaster there and expect to be on it within seconds simply because you want to be on the ride. There are lines that you must wait through. Lines with a purpose because you know what is waiting for you at the end and that the wait makes the adventure even better. If you get tired of waiting and get out of the roller coaster ride to go on the twirl-a-whirl… guess what? You start back at the END of the line for the roller coaster. There is no budging, no tradesies, no holdsy-spotsies.

When you’re waiting for that great relationship you have to kind of do the same two things:

*Firstly, know what you are waiting for by figuring out what the best roller coaster is (traits you want in a relationship: beliefs, companionship, adventure, etc.). If you don’t know what kind of roller coaster you are waiting for or wonder if a roller coaster even exists at the end of your line, then you are not waiting… you are simply standing somewhere.

*Secondly, if you get tired of waiting for that sought after relationship and simply settle for a cheaper version until the right relationship comes about… you are actually delaying the process. Much the same as if you are waiting in the line for a roller coaster and leave the line for the twirl-a-whirl. Going on all the other distracting rides will never get you closer to the main attraction roller coaster unless you set your sights on it and wait in that line.

Am I being too blunt? I hope not. Am I making any sense? I hope so, and as I don’t mean to be discouraging to anyone and/or insinuating that you may be waiting for forever I will go one step further. When waiting in any line you can have a great time or you can have a miserable time. Next time you find yourself in a line (literally) keep an eye on how different people deal with it aka people watch. I suggest grocery stores. How are the people in front of you and behind you reacting? Are they staring blankly? Laughing with a  friend? On the phone? Swearing and complaining under their breath at the delay? Talking happily to those around them? Organizing their purse/bag? Basically, are they being productive or unproductive? What are their attitudes like? What friends and attitudes of your own do you have that make lines easier and more fun to be in?

P.s. Those are my ponderings for the day, would love to hear your guys’ thoughts as well. Have a great day friends!