The other day on Facebook I saw a quote that somebody had posted related to the way we should live our lives. You know, one of those things in a cheezy font with a soothing picture. It went like this, "The reason many people in our society are
miserable, sick, and highly stressed is because of an unhealthy
attachment to things they have no control over.”
It is an interesting idea, and probably worth looking at a little bit more closely.
First of all, I don't really think that our life is meant to be some never-ending bliss. I don't think think that God intends for us to be uptight and unhappy all the time, of course, but years ago Elder Maxwell coined the term "divine discontent" that I find very apropos. To me, divine discontent is like the voice of Mufasa whispering from beyond the veil, "You are more than you have become . . . remember!" It is through our falling down and rising again, our righteous ambitions, our trying just a little bit harder to love a little bit more that we remember who we are. Sometimes this causes a little bit of stress. After all, isn't stress that gap between where we are and where we want to be?
Don't get me wrong. I think we need to be very honest about running-faster-than-we-have-strength. I am very bad at this. But there is a big difference between accepting that we cannot affect the outcome of every situation and ceasing to try affecting any outcome at all.
I have always been a Type A personality. Here is some insight into that: I told Plantboy the other day that it was going to a huge adjustment for me to begin using my Franklin-Covey planner as an app in my iPad instead of a physical book, because I had been carrying one for 25 years. He looked at me a bit askance . . . 25 years? Yes, that's right. I started carrying my first planner when I was 13. It is in my nature to attempt to control nearly everything.
I went through a phase in my 20's when I hated this about myself. Everyone seemed more relaxed. More happy. More able to go with the flow. Etc. Etc. I was convinced that it was this thing about me that had broken off my first engagement. I sometimes feared it would prevent me from ever finding happiness in my marriage. Of course, this self-loathing was exacerbating my stress.
One day, after a very long talk with my mother, I had a revelation of sorts. It seemed that the thing to do was embrace my personality as it was instead of forever trying to change it. And something remarkable happened. I saw that it was this part of me that had given me the ability to work very hard as a missionary, to finish college and be so successful in my chosen career. It was this thing that allowed me to juggle so much and help others. It was this part of me that made me reliable and dependable. I accepted the level of stress that came with who I am fundamentally, and began to understand what it takes for me to manage that stress.
Back to the control issue. After a YW program I was a part of some time ago, a woman in our group (decidedly not Type A) spoke with a great deal of enthusiasm after the project was over about how God always steps up and makes these things good. Her comment gave me great pause as I thought about all the hours I (and others) had put in to make the program successful. While I agreed with her that the Lord had sanctified our performance and had blessed us with the Holy Ghost that night, I didn't agree that God would have done so had our preparation been faulty, or less than all we had to give.
So over the years I've learned that I can control the level of service I give to a thing . . . and that the more I'm willing to give the better it often turns out. Particularly if I have served prayerfully. I have learned that great and loving volunteers can make a whole school, and by extension a community, a better place. I've learned that I have a large deal of control (or at least influence) in my own home regarding a whole host of things--from my children's nutrition to their spiritual insights to their attitudes. I have a lot of control over my husband's happiness. Their behavior out "there" reflects pretty well what we are doing in here. And yet, keeping a clean home, making sure homework is done, driving them places, attending all our church meetings, fixing healthy meals (you know the drill) causes stress and wears me down. Perhaps this is my basic personality. Perhaps it is just life.
The idea that I could somehow have less stress by giving up on a lot of this because I cannot control how my children turn out is ludicrous to me. When it comes to it, I cannot make their choices for them, but I can help them to come from a place where they understand fully the paths in front of them and understand about revelation that will lead them to the right path. On paper it looks like such a simple thing. In practice, creating the childhood and community you want for your children is a daily battle between what is easy and what is right. Where you are, and where you want to be. It is stressful. I wonder if it is supposed to be.
If you haven't yet read "Letter to a Doubter" by Terryl Givens, you really should. This excerpt occurs near the end,
"The option to believe must appear on one’s personal horizon like the fruit of paradise, perched precariously between sets of demands held in dynamic tension. Fortunately, in this world, one is always provided with sufficient materials out of which to fashion a life of credible conviction or dismissive denial. We are acted upon, in other words, by appeals to our personal values, our yearnings, our fears, our appetites, and our egos. What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love. That is why faith, the choice to believe, is, in the final analysis, an action that is positively laden with moral significance.
"The call to faith, in this light, is not some test of a coy god, waiting to see if we “get it right.” It is the only summons, issued under the only conditions, which can allow us fully to reveal who we are, what we most love, and what we most devoutly desire. Without constraint, without any form of mental compulsion, the act of belief becomes the freest possible projection of what resides in our hearts. Like the poet’s image of a church bell that only reveals its latent music when struck, or a dragonfly that only flames forth its beauty in flight, so does the content of a human heart lie buried until action calls it forth. The greatest act of self-revelation occurs when we choose what we will believe, in that space of freedom that exists between knowing that a thing is, and knowing that a thing is not."
More than any other thing I've ever read that helps me to understand what God meant when he told Abraham that we would be "proved herewith." It isn't a test just to mess with us because God is powerful enough to do it. It is our chance to demonstrate our deepest desires and yearnings. Our choices are a chance to reveal our innermost self. Our choice to faith, to action, to attempt to exert some influence on the world around us when all the logic and darkness and natural-man-ness says it is just easier to give up control and be stress-free.
I choose action. And for me that means an acceptance of stress. For me to be otherwise is to shut that voice from the other side of the veil that is constantly calling me to look up and remember.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Thursday, May 16, 2013
The Power to Tax is the Power to Take Freedom
Today's title is based on a quote from Rand Paul that I read in a CNN editorial earlier today. Those of you reading regularly know me well enough to know that this is the sort of sentiment I don't really agree with. I find the logic hard to follow. . . and have even when I have read this type of sentiment from a host of other thinkers who have tried to spell it out more clearly.
As I've stated in varying ways here before, I think the art of government is balancing the needs of civil society with individual liberty. Civil societies need educated children not forced into hard labor at a young age. They need clean air and water and safe spaces. I believe civil societies ultimately need to provide access to health care for most of their citizens. I believe the role of good government is create conditions where the majority of its citizenry can pursue life, liberty and happiness, even those born in abject poverty . . . maybe especially for those born into abject poverty. But I also believe that individual rights are important too. The rights of one should not be taken over the tyranny of many. Democracy tells us that the majority gets their way; our Constitution tells us that we are free to pursue happiness in the ways we wish regardless of what the majority wants.
I say that politics is an art, because there are lots of times when the needs of the many and the needs of the few, or the one (thanks Spock) are in conflict. So while some people might see any form of taxation as equal to bondage . . . for others those tax dollars are the path to freedom. They pay for education. Jobs. Military. Welfare programs. Etc. Etc.
To the point.
Is the IRS wrong to target specifically conservative groups in their audits of non-profits? Absolutely. No party may use its political power to oppress the another faction of society. If audits and/or censure were necessary for Tea Party-associated organizations, then they were also necessary for organizations like Moveon.org. If organizations that claim to be 501(c)(3)s are engaged in political activity that crosses the (terribly vague) boundary then it is necessary for the government to uphold the law. And while the outrage, this week, is that conservative groups were unfairly targeted because of overt political activities, to me the outrage should be over something bigger than this.
Our local education foundation here operates as a 501(c)(3), as well as being staffed entirely by volunteers, and as such is able to return nearly 100% of collected money into our community, targeting schools where need is the greatest. This status also helps people feel more generous in donating because they get a tax break too. The 501(c)(3) was designed to help organizations (including churches) put money back into their communities, ultimately bolstering federal money that occasionally trickles down to the local level. This status was not intended to be one more arm for political parties to raise money without impunity.
Obama's firing the head of the IRS is probably a necessary first step (Politics 101: Every Scandal Needs a Scapegoat), but ordering next an investigation of 501(c)(3)s that supported his own campaign would be a good move. Both politically and morally. When problems are found, as they will be--everybody plays dirty in this game, equal sanctions must be in place. But then the third order of business needs to be a tightening of the 501(c)(3) rules. Senator Rand will rant and scream in his high-pitched hillbilly that political money is free speech. But I will know that for all his talk of freedom and justice and liberty . . . at its heart he is really talking about unfettered money into politics. Money that buys politicians. Politicians who favorably legislate for issues that make sure the people with the money keep all the money.
As I've stated in varying ways here before, I think the art of government is balancing the needs of civil society with individual liberty. Civil societies need educated children not forced into hard labor at a young age. They need clean air and water and safe spaces. I believe civil societies ultimately need to provide access to health care for most of their citizens. I believe the role of good government is create conditions where the majority of its citizenry can pursue life, liberty and happiness, even those born in abject poverty . . . maybe especially for those born into abject poverty. But I also believe that individual rights are important too. The rights of one should not be taken over the tyranny of many. Democracy tells us that the majority gets their way; our Constitution tells us that we are free to pursue happiness in the ways we wish regardless of what the majority wants.
I say that politics is an art, because there are lots of times when the needs of the many and the needs of the few, or the one (thanks Spock) are in conflict. So while some people might see any form of taxation as equal to bondage . . . for others those tax dollars are the path to freedom. They pay for education. Jobs. Military. Welfare programs. Etc. Etc.
To the point.
Is the IRS wrong to target specifically conservative groups in their audits of non-profits? Absolutely. No party may use its political power to oppress the another faction of society. If audits and/or censure were necessary for Tea Party-associated organizations, then they were also necessary for organizations like Moveon.org. If organizations that claim to be 501(c)(3)s are engaged in political activity that crosses the (terribly vague) boundary then it is necessary for the government to uphold the law. And while the outrage, this week, is that conservative groups were unfairly targeted because of overt political activities, to me the outrage should be over something bigger than this.
Our local education foundation here operates as a 501(c)(3), as well as being staffed entirely by volunteers, and as such is able to return nearly 100% of collected money into our community, targeting schools where need is the greatest. This status also helps people feel more generous in donating because they get a tax break too. The 501(c)(3) was designed to help organizations (including churches) put money back into their communities, ultimately bolstering federal money that occasionally trickles down to the local level. This status was not intended to be one more arm for political parties to raise money without impunity.
Obama's firing the head of the IRS is probably a necessary first step (Politics 101: Every Scandal Needs a Scapegoat), but ordering next an investigation of 501(c)(3)s that supported his own campaign would be a good move. Both politically and morally. When problems are found, as they will be--everybody plays dirty in this game, equal sanctions must be in place. But then the third order of business needs to be a tightening of the 501(c)(3) rules. Senator Rand will rant and scream in his high-pitched hillbilly that political money is free speech. But I will know that for all his talk of freedom and justice and liberty . . . at its heart he is really talking about unfettered money into politics. Money that buys politicians. Politicians who favorably legislate for issues that make sure the people with the money keep all the money.
Monday, May 13, 2013
A New Holiday!
The last week and a half has been wonderful. Between a trip home to visit my parents and walk at graduation, mother's day and my birthday, it has kind of been the Science Teacher Mommy Show. Some awesome presents, time to myself (better than presents), and some much-needed breaks from the routine have permeated the last ten days. I have written, read books, exercised, slept in and been to lunch with friends. I even bought a maxi dress, thanks very much, and it is super cute.
Today will, no doubt, be a hard return to reality. I've already done laundry this morning and prepped curriculum I'm volunteer teaching for the next few weeks. The rest of the day will be spent teaching (yeah, again, not paid teaching) and running kids around as well as prepping for a very busy week.
I should also know today if our school district will be hiring this year. . . or more specifically, exactly what they will be hiring for. There are actually some promising leads. However, I have also come to terms with not being in the classroom regularly next year if that is what happens. I'm in a better place now than I was two months ago, and more at peace with my role as principal care-giver to the Jedi. I found out yesterday that there are changes in the wind regarding my calling as well; changes that will be a welcome sigh of relief after four years as a first counselor.
Whatever else goes down, the next few weeks will likely be a very challenging and exciting time of change for me, and for our family. I'm waiting and watching and trying very hard to listen so that I might know what path to take next.
To quote "Kid President" quoting Robert Frost:
A Poem:
Two roads diverged in the woods
And I took the road less traveled
And it hurt man!
Rocks!
Thorns!
Glass!
Not cool, Robert Frost!
If there really are two roads, I want to take the one that leads to awesome.
I guess it isn't quite the original, but I like it. The road less traveled can hurt. But I also think that all those trials can lead to awesome.
Today will, no doubt, be a hard return to reality. I've already done laundry this morning and prepped curriculum I'm volunteer teaching for the next few weeks. The rest of the day will be spent teaching (yeah, again, not paid teaching) and running kids around as well as prepping for a very busy week.
I should also know today if our school district will be hiring this year. . . or more specifically, exactly what they will be hiring for. There are actually some promising leads. However, I have also come to terms with not being in the classroom regularly next year if that is what happens. I'm in a better place now than I was two months ago, and more at peace with my role as principal care-giver to the Jedi. I found out yesterday that there are changes in the wind regarding my calling as well; changes that will be a welcome sigh of relief after four years as a first counselor.
Whatever else goes down, the next few weeks will likely be a very challenging and exciting time of change for me, and for our family. I'm waiting and watching and trying very hard to listen so that I might know what path to take next.
To quote "Kid President" quoting Robert Frost:
A Poem:
Two roads diverged in the woods
And I took the road less traveled
And it hurt man!
Rocks!
Thorns!
Glass!
Not cool, Robert Frost!
If there really are two roads, I want to take the one that leads to awesome.
I guess it isn't quite the original, but I like it. The road less traveled can hurt. But I also think that all those trials can lead to awesome.
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
Elizabeth Smart is Super Smart
Ms. Smart has been getting a lot of press this week for some remarks she made at Johns Hopkins regarding human trafficking. I read many comments and summaries in various places about her remarks which left me feeling a little bit confused about what her actual message was. I was grateful to finally listen to the bulk of her speech this morning and get some clarification.
Before listening I was under the impression that Ms. Smart was fiercely advocating against abstinence education, and that she had cited a particular and terrible incident at church (the gum chewing chastity analogy) as her reason for not running from her captors when she had the chance. She felt worthless and dirty and to blame and therefore did not want to go home. This left me sad and confused.
However, just as the Internet will give you a thousand opinions on even seemingly mundane events, it will also allow you to go to the source. In her speech, Ms. Smart was blunt about what had happened to her. These are facts I have heard before, but coming from her in measured, soft-spoken and perfect diction, her story became very real. She speaks without emotion about her experience, but it is clear that what happened to her for those terrible nine months has given her vast stores of strength.
Here are my take-aways, for what it is worth. Again, my opinion here, though I'm hoping I'm more fairly representing what she was really trying to say rather than cherry-pick what I wanted her to say.
1. She is advocating for a more balanced approach to sex education. She thinks that we should be more blunt with people at an earlier age about the very real dangers in life. She also indicates that at least some of this training should take place in school. At age 14 she had some skewed idea that sex only happened between people who loved one another; she didn't really understand the ugly side. She is advocating that children should be appropriately educated about dangers that exist.
2. I don't have any impression that she has rejected the importance of chastity as a law of God. She spoke respectfully of the beliefs she was raised with, and has made the choice to stay active in the Church and even marry in the temple. Rejecting abstinence-only sex education is not the same as rejecting your belief system.
3. The chewing gum analogy was given to her as young teenager; however, she indicated that this teaching came from a teacher at school during abstinence-only sex education. It was Salt Lake City so the odds of that teacher being LDS were probably pretty good, but she did not say the incident happened at church. Yes, you might have had this taught to you at church (I'm sorry), but Ms. Smart seems more critical of the push to water-down school curriculum than values teaching at church. Because of this type of teaching, she did feel like garbage when she was raped; she wondered at times if she would ever be worthy of being loved again. However, even to girls who have not heard the chewing gum analogy, these feelings are often prevalent after being raped, or even being manipulated into having sex. The rapist's whole point is to degrade and assume power; rape is only marginally about sex.
4. Ms. Smart said firmly that her primary reason for not running was fear. After all, her captors had managed to do all this stuff to her, it seemed perfectly logical that they could make good on their threats to further harm her family. She loved her family. She made a decision from the very beginning that she would do whatever they told her if it meant she might one day get away and return to the family she so dearly missed. Fighting them continually or trying to escape might have just gotten her killed, and the world would have lost a very, very bright light. Elizabeth's decision took courage; perhaps even inspiration to make. It was only when a police officer had the idea to interview her alone that she would admit to who she was; she never openly defied her captors in front of them for fear of further harm to those she loved.
5. My final impression from her remarks is that people should be made to feel valuable regardless of their sexuality or virginity or however you want to term this. Perhaps, just perhaps, if she had felt more confidence in people's willingness to look beyond what had happened to her, she might have had more courage to speak up when she first had a chance.
JoAnna Brooks wrote a piece for Religion Dispatch in which she indicated that the primary reason for Elizabeth not running is that she felt like trash because of what she'd been taught at Church about the importance of chastity. That somehow all LDS people (women) collectively held their breath when others asked why Elizabeth didn't run because we really understood that is was all the fault of our culture. I think this is a rather gross misrepresentation of Ms. Smart's actual remarks, and Brooks opened the forum for plenty of angry people to dismiss God's laws as ridiculous, as if such feeling would somehow have prevented Ms. Smart from ending up in the situation she did. One Internet comment-er indicated that Elizabeth's religious training had forced her to feel like she had sinned and needed to repent. This person trashed religion (and specifically the atonement) for turning victims into sinners. This frustrated me deeply. LDS doctrine on the atonement is clear--it is for everyone. While Ms. Smart was clearly not in need of repentance related to her time in captivity, she was then and now in need of the strengthening and enabling power of Christ to move forward with her life. She is a perfect example of how the atonement heals even the most innocent.
I like Ms. Smart's actual comments very much, and I hope they give many teachers of youth (in and out of the Church) something to think about. I think our children need to be smart; they don't really live in world anymore where we can extol naivete. Innocence is lovely and good; ignorance is not. We should teach our values, but also teach children about their own inherent value. Nemesis, Desmama and I had a conversation not long ago about the problematic use of a scripture found in Mormon. It is used because it indicates "virtue" (one of only a few places that particular word is even found in relation to chastity) is the most precious thing; however, it does so in the context of talking about male warriors raping the women of the opposing side. The wording of the scripture clearly states that the rapists took the virtue of their victims.
We have concluded that we sort of hate this scripture. What the rapists take is their victim's innocence and their virginity. They don't take their virtue. Virtue is a less tangible quality than, in Nem's words, "an intact hymen." Virtue is something that is your own to give away through deliberate acts . . . only one of which might be sex. I am not sorry that the 8th value has been added; but I do wish that it was more clearly defined. This difficult scripture, again as one of very few places "virtue" is used in relation to sexuality, comes up time and time again in talks and in the study YW are meant to do for a virtue value experience. By this scripture's direct reading, it does indicate that Ms. Smart was less than virtuous when she was stripped and thrown down on the floor of a dirty tent, less than five miles from her girlhood bed and treated like garbage. That is a load of hooey. We need to be very careful what we teach our kids.
Her real take home message is that while schools need to work harder to educate, it is familial love and proper teaching about a person's true worth that can save.
Before listening I was under the impression that Ms. Smart was fiercely advocating against abstinence education, and that she had cited a particular and terrible incident at church (the gum chewing chastity analogy) as her reason for not running from her captors when she had the chance. She felt worthless and dirty and to blame and therefore did not want to go home. This left me sad and confused.
However, just as the Internet will give you a thousand opinions on even seemingly mundane events, it will also allow you to go to the source. In her speech, Ms. Smart was blunt about what had happened to her. These are facts I have heard before, but coming from her in measured, soft-spoken and perfect diction, her story became very real. She speaks without emotion about her experience, but it is clear that what happened to her for those terrible nine months has given her vast stores of strength.
Here are my take-aways, for what it is worth. Again, my opinion here, though I'm hoping I'm more fairly representing what she was really trying to say rather than cherry-pick what I wanted her to say.
1. She is advocating for a more balanced approach to sex education. She thinks that we should be more blunt with people at an earlier age about the very real dangers in life. She also indicates that at least some of this training should take place in school. At age 14 she had some skewed idea that sex only happened between people who loved one another; she didn't really understand the ugly side. She is advocating that children should be appropriately educated about dangers that exist.
2. I don't have any impression that she has rejected the importance of chastity as a law of God. She spoke respectfully of the beliefs she was raised with, and has made the choice to stay active in the Church and even marry in the temple. Rejecting abstinence-only sex education is not the same as rejecting your belief system.
3. The chewing gum analogy was given to her as young teenager; however, she indicated that this teaching came from a teacher at school during abstinence-only sex education. It was Salt Lake City so the odds of that teacher being LDS were probably pretty good, but she did not say the incident happened at church. Yes, you might have had this taught to you at church (I'm sorry), but Ms. Smart seems more critical of the push to water-down school curriculum than values teaching at church. Because of this type of teaching, she did feel like garbage when she was raped; she wondered at times if she would ever be worthy of being loved again. However, even to girls who have not heard the chewing gum analogy, these feelings are often prevalent after being raped, or even being manipulated into having sex. The rapist's whole point is to degrade and assume power; rape is only marginally about sex.
4. Ms. Smart said firmly that her primary reason for not running was fear. After all, her captors had managed to do all this stuff to her, it seemed perfectly logical that they could make good on their threats to further harm her family. She loved her family. She made a decision from the very beginning that she would do whatever they told her if it meant she might one day get away and return to the family she so dearly missed. Fighting them continually or trying to escape might have just gotten her killed, and the world would have lost a very, very bright light. Elizabeth's decision took courage; perhaps even inspiration to make. It was only when a police officer had the idea to interview her alone that she would admit to who she was; she never openly defied her captors in front of them for fear of further harm to those she loved.
5. My final impression from her remarks is that people should be made to feel valuable regardless of their sexuality or virginity or however you want to term this. Perhaps, just perhaps, if she had felt more confidence in people's willingness to look beyond what had happened to her, she might have had more courage to speak up when she first had a chance.
JoAnna Brooks wrote a piece for Religion Dispatch in which she indicated that the primary reason for Elizabeth not running is that she felt like trash because of what she'd been taught at Church about the importance of chastity. That somehow all LDS people (women) collectively held their breath when others asked why Elizabeth didn't run because we really understood that is was all the fault of our culture. I think this is a rather gross misrepresentation of Ms. Smart's actual remarks, and Brooks opened the forum for plenty of angry people to dismiss God's laws as ridiculous, as if such feeling would somehow have prevented Ms. Smart from ending up in the situation she did. One Internet comment-er indicated that Elizabeth's religious training had forced her to feel like she had sinned and needed to repent. This person trashed religion (and specifically the atonement) for turning victims into sinners. This frustrated me deeply. LDS doctrine on the atonement is clear--it is for everyone. While Ms. Smart was clearly not in need of repentance related to her time in captivity, she was then and now in need of the strengthening and enabling power of Christ to move forward with her life. She is a perfect example of how the atonement heals even the most innocent.
I like Ms. Smart's actual comments very much, and I hope they give many teachers of youth (in and out of the Church) something to think about. I think our children need to be smart; they don't really live in world anymore where we can extol naivete. Innocence is lovely and good; ignorance is not. We should teach our values, but also teach children about their own inherent value. Nemesis, Desmama and I had a conversation not long ago about the problematic use of a scripture found in Mormon. It is used because it indicates "virtue" (one of only a few places that particular word is even found in relation to chastity) is the most precious thing; however, it does so in the context of talking about male warriors raping the women of the opposing side. The wording of the scripture clearly states that the rapists took the virtue of their victims.
We have concluded that we sort of hate this scripture. What the rapists take is their victim's innocence and their virginity. They don't take their virtue. Virtue is a less tangible quality than, in Nem's words, "an intact hymen." Virtue is something that is your own to give away through deliberate acts . . . only one of which might be sex. I am not sorry that the 8th value has been added; but I do wish that it was more clearly defined. This difficult scripture, again as one of very few places "virtue" is used in relation to sexuality, comes up time and time again in talks and in the study YW are meant to do for a virtue value experience. By this scripture's direct reading, it does indicate that Ms. Smart was less than virtuous when she was stripped and thrown down on the floor of a dirty tent, less than five miles from her girlhood bed and treated like garbage. That is a load of hooey. We need to be very careful what we teach our kids.
Her real take home message is that while schools need to work harder to educate, it is familial love and proper teaching about a person's true worth that can save.
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
Can Short Girls Wear Maxi Skirts?
I can't even think about maxi dresses. The tops of them are usually not friendly to busty gals like myself, and I'm not all about wearing a sweater and a scarf and safety pins just to keep myself from having a wardrobe malfunction. But the maxi skirts can be bunched at the top to help get the right length. And yes, before you ask, even the petite ones are usually too long. I know that it will probably come as a shock to you, but I'm just not that tall.
Because here is thing, yesterday on Facebook somebody had posted a chevron-print maxi skirt in an awesome coral color that I can't seem to get out of my head. Here are two in navy and they just look so stinking cute. A summer look and a winter look. But this girl is probably at least 5'7". Why else would they let her pose for a camera? And she just might be a size 2. So I might have more than one thing not in favor of the maxi skirt.
I also really love this next one. The color is divine and it flows so prettily. And who doesn't need an excuse to buy Tiffany Blue wedges? Again . . . even without the shoes this model is super tall. I think her waist would come up to about my elbows.
So share your opinion. How should I spend my birthday money? Maxi skirt? I would get a shirt too, of course. This picture is another Etsy find. I have no explanation for the bamboo forest.
Because here is thing, yesterday on Facebook somebody had posted a chevron-print maxi skirt in an awesome coral color that I can't seem to get out of my head. Here are two in navy and they just look so stinking cute. A summer look and a winter look. But this girl is probably at least 5'7". Why else would they let her pose for a camera? And she just might be a size 2. So I might have more than one thing not in favor of the maxi skirt.
I'm not quite short enough to rock the look as well as these little ladies do. Look at that black-and-white girl's hair. And the roses on her tee-shirt. Honestly, it is a good thing I have boys because my daughters would look like total rag-a-muffs. The boys do too . . . but they can get away with it. Snips and snails and puppydog tails and all.
I also really love this next one. The color is divine and it flows so prettily. And who doesn't need an excuse to buy Tiffany Blue wedges? Again . . . even without the shoes this model is super tall. I think her waist would come up to about my elbows.
Somebody put this little darling up in her Etsy store. The chevron print is super cute in a short skirt too. And truthfully, this is a skirt cut that is pretty good for me. I might just have to settle for something a little shorter. Still the maxi skirt looks so cool and fresh and hip for summer. Isn't it funny? I used the word "maxi" in the same sentence as "fresh." Ewww. . . .
And speaking of Etsy. If you want to see some Chevron Maxi fails, that is the place to gather also. In case you were wondering, when I talked about really wanting a pair of Tiffany Blue Wedges, they were not these. Not only are they hideous with that "outfit," they also may have been made in the same factory they make Crocs. Why is she eating an apple. Like that? What is happening with the wall? Why did they put Christmas tree flocking over the stone? I can't even begin to expound on all that is wrong with this.
And while the chevron print might look fabulous shortened and turned into a straight skirt, it does NOT look good turned into tights. I don't even think being 5'10" could make these all right:
So share your opinion. How should I spend my birthday money? Maxi skirt? I would get a shirt too, of course. This picture is another Etsy find. I have no explanation for the bamboo forest.
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