Friends Through the Years

Friends.....

When I think of all the friends that have been a part of my life the list sometimes seems endless. There's that first friend you made in Kindergarten....phew what a relief when you had someone to play with on the playground at recess. Then the groups of friends soon came around and throughout elementary school some left the group, some new ones joined the group, and sometimes we move around from group to group (daily) depending on who was involved in the coolest activity.

Then middle school came and oh how we turned into drama queens (yes I'm talking about you boys too). Your entire list of friends could quickly change to enemies with the passing of one note in Science class. For me at least, this is when the clicks became a bit more obvious. We were all trying to discover who we really are and where we fit in, trying a new group out weekly and seeing who related to your current predicament. Seating in the lunch room suddenly meant something more and your "friends" would let you know it. A true friend would deliver your message to your crush and help you break up with him the next month (also through a series of note passing in some class). Then on to the next heart-throb crush.

High school hit and as friends we sailed our way through classes that seemed to make us sound so mature... yet you still needed a good friend to watch your back when secrets were whispered throughout the room. Someone to be your wing-man, so to speak, when you approached that hot guy you'd been crushing on for such a long time. Someone to hang out with on the weekends and discuss those oh so important decisions, "Should I let him kiss me? What if I'm bad at it? I think I'm in love, should I tell him that? When are we going to plan that shopping trip?" Someone to call when you're drenched in tears because he was the love of your life and he broke your heart.

Now we're so grown up... in college, real jobs, some are married, have kids... and yet we still need a friend. Who is still there? Who can we count on to be there when times are REALLY tough and when we don't know what to do, or how to do it? Or when we just need someone to listen to our problems.

We turn to those faithful friends, the ones who have been there through it all, the ones who are no longer just friends, the ones who are family. Whether these people are related through blood, experience, or (if you're lucky) both they are the ones we know will be there for us no matter what stupid mistakes we make, no matter who else turns their back on us. These are not the friends that look past our imperfections and insecurities; these are the friends that fully embrace us with those imperfections and yes they may push us to be better people, but even if we "fail" if we never overcome those pesky little habits they will still love us just as we are.

Lets face it when we look back at our life, no amount of success in work or school will make up for the lack of good friends. So we should all take the time to let our friends know we care, and that we are truly blessed to have them in our lives.

Perfection

So I was mostly thinking of babies and how much we value the life of a baby... Maybe it's all the potential we see in such an innocent little child. We can imagine all the great and wonderful things they can someday accomplish. The joys of life and the adventures ahead of them. We see them going ahead learning, laughing and growing into wonderful people. Talk about priceless, wow!

So when I began this blog about babies I wasn't real sure where it was going to go but as I sit here thinking it kind of scares me because I am sure that my own parents probably looked at me in a similar way, seeing all the potential good I could do. It's hard to think of the ways that we don't measure up to expectations. Obviously we all make mistakes and our parents also know we aren't going to be perfectly innocent forever, and that we won't make every decision right.

It is important to work on our imperfections and become better people, making our weaknesses strengths is all a part of our learning process. So at what point do we have to stop and say, "I can't be perfectly perfect" without settling for less than we can be?

Laugh a Little

Isn’t it interesting to think of the things we laugh about, and the things we don’t? Is there ever a time when you have been embarrassed because you found something funny and no one else did? Or have you ever found yourself laughing at something that really shouldn’t be funny? What qualifies a person to have “a good sense of humor”?

I personally find a lot of things funny, most jokes make me laugh, most people make me laugh, and many situations in life really make me laugh. It is not unusual for me to find myself the only one laughing at a “dumb joke” or the only one giggling at someone’s dry humor. Does that mean I have a good sense of humor? I really don’t tell jokes, and there’s a good reason, I’m terrible at it, and I just don’t remember the jokes that I have heard that made me laugh. So I’m not considered one who creates humor (unless you count the sticky situations I get myself into…that definitely can be side-cracking funny or sad depending on how you look at it) but I truly enjoy humor. I am not well-known for my excellent taste in good humor that is for sure, just because I found something funny, I have been told, “DOES NOT MEAN IT’S REALLY FUNNY!!” it simply means that I laughed at it.

All of this got me thinking, “What is humor after all?” and since we live in an instant information at our fingertips kind of world (also known as google world) I looked up the definition and here is what I found:

Humor:

Noun

A comic, absurd, or incongruous quality causing amusement; the faculty of perceiving what is amusing or comical; an instance of being or attempting to be comical or amusing; the faculty of expressing the amusing of comical; comical writing or talk in general; peculiar features, oddities, quirks; mental disposition or temperament; a temporary mood frame of mind; a capricious of freakish inclination, whim or caprice, odd trait; (in medieval physiology) one of the four elemental fluids of the body, blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile, regarded as determining, by their relative proportions, a person’s physical and mental constitution

So as I was reading this definition I was going to leave that last one out (the one that comes from medieval physiology) but then I thought, “That may have something to do with how we can measure humor.” Now this may just be the hour of the morning talking so I apologize if this seems inappropriate but I had to share. Do we only consider something truly humorous if it causes some sort of bodily fluid to escape our bodies? You know those times when you laugh so hard you cry? I have definitely heard tale of those who lose a little bit of bowel control once in a while when something really made them laugh. What about when you laugh so hard that your stomach aches like it’s torn apart (one may think there must be some kind of internal bleeding going on there) or your cheeks feel like they are on fire…. this also may influence the tears streaming down your face.

Well I could go on and on about humor (let's face it I can blabber on if I want to about anything) but alas it is late and I imagine you are thinking, “This is a blog, not a book Nicole, shush already!” So I will leave you with this quote I heard one day that made me laugh…
"One good thing about being imperfect is the joy it brings to others!"

Sorry I don’t know who said it, but this just made me think of all the laughter that my mistakes have brought to many including me.

So much hair....Why is it there?

Hair is such strange thing...don't ya think?

When we use hair as a descriptive word... "Hairy" it isn't always a positive thing. Look at that hairy man, that hairy creature... it usually denotes an animalistic and/or a manly characteristic.






Yet when we are talking about the hair on our head it usually is a good thing and many times to have a lot of it is seen as a feminine characteristic. When we start to lose that mop on our head there are generally some negative emotions. Many medications and potions of sorts out there to keep that hair or grow it back again. Yet when it comes to other body hair for women: that leg hair, arm pit hair, oh that shady little peach fuz mustache, nose hair, toe hair and dare I say it....the dreaded bikini line. For men: nose hair, ear hair, and sometimes facial hair, back/chest hair are also occasionally a problem. So hair grows readily where we don't want it and there are many cure-alls some more painful than others and some more effective/long lasting than others; all looking to help us get rid of that nasty, embarrassing and socially unnacceptable hair. If you look over this list I have above it doesn't seem fair that socially it's way more acceptable for men to have hair just about everywhere and women have to get rid of almost all of it! Anyway, that's not the main point, just a little side note that I thought I would throw in while I was at it.
I wonder though, is it society that tells us this hair must go or is it an individual matter?
I have found that there are some who follow these social norms and then there are some who do not... so some realize they remove that hair because it's socially unacceptable and then there are some who feel like they really don't want it to be there.... I have to ask though if that is really the case, does it really bother us to have that hair or is it a difference of whether or not we care what others think? Or is it that we've been in a society that tells us what to think about body hair and some have began to believe it to be a basic truth?