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Thursday, July 23, 2009

Respect

Ok I honestly don't know what is going on in this world I posted on a similar topic not to long ago the title of that one was "De-Masculating Men." Today's topic is a little broader I would like to talk about respect in general.





"Back in the day" we had respect for police, those older than us, our parents, customers, customer service, and just people we passed by on the street....what happened? I've seen two examples of this in the last 18 hours that made me think, one bad and one good. Lets start with the bad:





This morning while driving to work I heard some comments on the Cambridge Police and the recent arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates. Admittedly I don't know much about the situation and after a Internet search I was more confused than ever. However the point that stuck out to me was a lack of respect for the officer. Now I'm not saying this is true in this specific situation, it was just brought up as a possibility, but I know it is true far to often. People feel inconvenienced by men and women just doing their job. Trust me they aren't just picking on you, I have plenty of friends and family who are cops and everything they do generates paper work. Why would they add un-necessary paperwork? I know I know its inconvenient and frustrating, but guess what its their job, and over all they do a great job.





On to the good:


Last night I watched a show called "Toddlers and Tiaras" its not something I watch regularly but I was curious.... Anyway there was one family who had 5 girls all in the pageant world and two of them were twins. One shy (at least on camera) and reserved the other more outspoken and well bratty (at least on camera.) At one point they talked with the dad and he said he wasn't thrilled with the pageant world but he coincided with his wife. However half way through one of the pageants the "bratty" twin had a fit and was living up to my description of her the dad talked with the mom and they agreed to take her out of the competition for the day. The wife later had a comment saying something like "I wasn't happy about it but I agreed out of respect for my husband!" Woo Hoo not only do I agree this was the right decision but I also believe that the respect statement was great! Why don't we see this more often in life?



I admit I fail at this myself but I'm going to work on it.





Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Life is Amazing


I'm back form one AMAZING honeymoon. God is so very very very good!


I've had my hard times no doubt, but lets be honest everybody has this world is full of pain and sin. I have friends losing jobs they have had for years, ones who would make the most amazing parents unable to have children. People lose loved ones everyday from death, addiction, abandonment, and illness. I am not the only one out there who has suffered a great loss. However I'm here today to tell you about the many, many ways God had taken care of me. Here is the best example I can possibly give you:

Ryan!

The wedding was great, everything literally worked out perfectly and if it didn't behind the scenes I wasn't aware. We celebrated with our Family and closest friends (who could make it) and it was wonderful. The house is a mess and for one of the first times ever I couldn't care less. God is showing me his grace, love and wisdom in so many different ways.

1) I moved to Iowa, as much as I don't like to admit it without that move I might not have opened up my calender more to my friends and we would have never gotten as close as we are now. Plus I got to be close to family for a while, that was great to see them so much. I didn't get a lot of that the past few years. Also my friends are the ones who introduced me to Ryan!

2) Between Ryan and the pre-marital counseling I'm becoming more willing to share my emotions and not to feel the need to be "super-woman." This has been a struggle for me over the past few years. There have been times and will be times in the future that I need to be "super-woman" but not all the time. There is a difference with being strong and being stupid...I'm so afraid of being weak that its hard for me to be vulnerable. These last few weeks have been a real learning process for me. Part of which is breaking my 'people-pleaser' mentality.

3) Greenie, I'm not going to sit here and preach that the world is going to end if we don't all "go green" however I will tell you that I think somethings just make sense. I also do believe God created us to eat the food he created and I know that I feel heathier when I'm eating more healthy and natural foods than when I'm eating stuff that was created in a factory somewhere. This has been very evident to me twice in my life but one was these last few weeks. Life has been crazy and I've been eating out more than ever. I'm sluggish and more irritable than normal. So yeah working on going back to my heathy eating lifestyle.

Well thats enought for now, what has God been teaching you?

Amber DeYoung

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Excited and yet the same...

So I'm really excited about the wedding coming up don't take the title of this wrong. However I'm still working and that is what makes everything feel the same. Plus I've honestly done about everything I can do before the wedding so I just have to sit and wait for the day to get closer before I can do anything. Those to things together make it hard to realized its really happening this week! Tomorrow is my last day of working and I'm going to a concert with a friend so I think that will help. Then Starting on Thursday I have a whole list of cleaning and prep to do so that should help the "is this really happening" feeling subside.

So why prey-tell am I soo stressed out? Do you ever think we girls just stress out because we think we should be? I'm beginning to think so. I wanted to go on a date last night with Ryan since the rest of this week is going to be pretty hectic and I don't know how much quality time I'll have with him, but I felt like I couldn't there just had to be something I NEEDED to do. I thought through my list and realized there were a few things I needed his help for so we got those done and then went on a date. IT was great! Uggh so there we are back at the major point of a recent post, choosing your attitude. Well I guess Its true....

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Knowlage into practice.

So Ryan and I are going through pre-marital counseling and it has been great! Part of what we are doing is reading through a book called "Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts: Seven Questions to Ask Before and After You Marry" By Les and Leslie Parrott. One of the chapters was talking about blame and how not only can we not blame our parents for everything that is wrong with us, we also have to take responsibility for our emotions. I admit this has been a struggle for me in two very different ways.

First of all when I was younger I couldn't control them very well at all, I was all over the place. Up and down happy then sad you never knew what was going to set me off. Then I became too controlling (except a few choice times.) I was pretty flat and honestly as time went on I stopped enjoying parts of life that take emotion to truly appreciate. So where does that leave me now? CONFUSED. Very confused.

I've had a lot going on lately good and bad and my brain can't seem to figure out how to handle it, some days I'm over the top other days in perfect control where is the balance? I need to take control of my emotions again not in the overbearing no emotion way but in the I'm allowed to react to things but life isn't going to end.

This applies to everyone here, when some one is mean, rude, spiteful or just plane inconsiderate we do have the ability to choose how we react. I'm not saying we don't have the right to be offended or to react at all I'm saying we don't have to let these things ruin our whole day necessarily. Face it some things are going to ruin a day (death for example) but other things don't have to. Maybe your spouse is tired and says something without thinking, you do have the right to be upset but don't let it ruin your day. This is an active choice and not an easy one. It's something I've been working on and seen some success. I hope to see more soon after some of the good stresses are done (wedding.)