Always look on the bright side of life (doo-doot, do-do-do-do-do-doot)!

I got up this morning thinking I was going to retract yesterday's post. In my mind, it was altogether too negative. But when I re-read it today, it didn't come off as quite the downer I expected. I know I walked away from writing it with a heavy feeling in my chest, but I don't think I ever really put that darkness on the "page." So up it stays, and that's okay.

It's not so much the  subject of the last post that made me blue, it's more just life in general these days. It's the pressure of always having so much to do in a finite amount of time. How do you make the hours stretch? How do you accomplish all the things you have to do, and all of the things you want to do? How can you be a responsible adult and still have some dreams and some sanity at the end of the day? More and more I find myself marveling at how well my mom managed everything when we were growing up. I know I still don't really understand what it must have been like for her, but I have an inkling, and that gives me a lot more sympathy and patience for, well, everything.

But I digress. What matters right now is that I need to get serious about my goal to be positive. All around me, all I can see is what I need to do, what I haven't done, what I want to do, what I won't have time for, what I have to give up... you get the idea. But what about what I do have? What about what is here? What about what I have done? Thinking about these things, this is what's going to make life better.

For instance: My daughter started going to daycare this week. It makes me feel like a failure as a parent, that I can't find a better situation for her and/or be home to take care of her. It was a depressing week. And the day I dropped her off for the first time, I later went to the mall and had all of my hair chopped off. In retrospect I fully recognize that the one event definitely caused the other. (Granted, I've been thinking about getting a shorter trim, but the resulting 'do is definitely sadness-induced.)

What I should be thinking about is that I have been very fortunate so far. My daughter is 20 months old and this is the first time we've had to enroll her in daycare. She's been with family and family-like friends since I had to go back to work. That's worth something. I also only have to send her two days a week, for less than 7 hours each day. There are a lot of people who have to send their kid to daycare five days a week, nine hours a day. There are moms who have to raise children entirely on their own, without a spouse or family to help. There are a lot of situations much worse than mine, and it's not right for me to feel sorry for myself. I'm blessed. I'm richly blessed. And if I can't see all of the good things in my life, well, then I really am a failure.

So let's do this instead: Here are some good things in my life right now...
- Bread baking in the oven
- A mom who loves me and my daughter
- Nate, a kind and patient man who honors the Priesthood and loves me...despite all the grief I give him
- My daughter, who is beautiful and smart and inherently good, and who also loves me despite my shortcomings
- The gospel and its blessings
- A solid roof over my head
- A stable job that enables me to provide for my family
- Das Hund, our reliable and efficient car
- The fact that I can go take a nap with the baby right now.

Here's a quick video that shows my haircut. Amy asked for pictures, but this was faster for me to take and upload: