The following popped into my head this morning as I was thinking about certain things that have happened in our lives.  I always seem to remember the following poem in times of frustration, disbelief, and yes, even anger.  People are people.  They are who they are.  Very rarely do people change.  What we have to remember is that, nine times out of ten, it isn't really about you anyway, it is about themselves and their demons.  All you can do is be real, accept other's realness, and live your life wide open.

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

When I started this blog, I wasn't sure how I wanted it to look, feel, say, etc.  I set out into the world wide web looking for ideas.  As I stated before, I wasn't too thrilled with what I was finding.  Why do so many people feel the need to hide, why show the world only the good side of things, or why be a hypocrite?  Seriously, it's boring and, done enough times in succession, people begin to wonder just how real you are.  They start to question your integrity.  People start to wonder things about you.  They lash out, they dig for things on you that they can use against you, they stop trusting you.  So, why not save everyone the trouble and just be REAL all the time?

The only thing I can think of is this:

It's scary.

Hey you, yea, you.  The one who just cannot fathom the idea of the world knowing you are imperfect.  I was once you.  Here is a piece of advice: Let go.

I used to worry about what people thought about me.  You know where that got me?

Depressed, unsatisfied with my life, and nowhere.

I used to be surrounded by people who I thought were my friends.  They took advantage of me.  They got angry when I fought back.  Guess where they are now?

Still living their fake lives, with their fake friends, and their fake existence.

That makes me sad.  They haven't become liberated like I have been.  They have to want it though, and clearly, they don't.  Well, okay.  If you want to live that way, okay.  I am not the one that has to look at you in the mirror every morning and face your demons.  I am not there.

I am here, enjoying every aspect of my imperfect life.  I am concentrating on being real with the people who deserve me at my best imperfect me and still love me at my worst.  I am concentrating on showing my daughter how to be real, to be herself, to embrace her uniqueness.

My journey is not over though.  I am still discovering me and how to be the best imperfect me there is.  Once you let go of being perfect, you can begin to become real.  Being real is a really great thing, you know.  It means you are honest, an open book, free.

Who doesn't want to be free?

Challenge:  For those of you that feel you may need to let go a little bit, this challenge is for you! Perhaps you feel like you are uptight in your daily life, or you are actually worried about what certain people think of you, let go just once this week.  Say something you normally wouldn't say to them or in their presence, let a house chore go for a day, let your children play longer before bedtime, let them make a mess for another minute....just let go.  Then, once you have conquered that, challenge yourself to do more.  Let it go!  Liberate yourself!  Please share your experiences here on the blog in a comment or at our Facebook community.  You can even email me!

Until next time,

Hello Everyone!

I am taking a brief moment while L is napping to introduce you all to a blog I follow and gather inspiration from time to time.  Stephanie at Mama and Baby Love writes and posts wonderful things that we all need to read from time to time. At Mama and Baby love, it is all about "the ways we can nourish and love ourselves, so we can nourish and love our families." (Direct quote right there!)  Also, if you are on Pinterest, she has one of THE BEST pins on freezer cooking with slow cooker recipes!  She even has an ecookbook  for sale!

Stephanie was nice enough to allow me to plug my little space here on the word wide web, so I am doing the same for her!  Go check her out!  Tell her Sara from Plethora of Pondering's sent you!




And don't go anywhere!  I have a list of things to talk about with you all!  We are going to start getting a little deep around here.  I have some topics that have been swimming in my head for weeks.  I believe I have managed to get them all sorted out, into a nice little list, and boy, have the words been coming!  I had a really good conversation a couple of weeks ago with my dear friend K and it all started there.  We are going to discuss being real, being insecure as mothers, I am starting a new book review section of the blog (so all you book lovers like me can find great things to read), and some personal things that I feel my readers deserve to know. (That goes back to the being real post.)  How are you supposed to trust me if you don't know me, right!?  Well, you are going to!  Stay tuned!  I leave you with this, my fellow readers:


Until next time,