Something I have to forgive myself for...Man this is getting deep... here we go again.
This is one that I have been thinking about for the last several days {since i decided to do this thing} and I'm having a difficult time coming up with something. I honestly live by the philosophy to live life with no regrets. Now I'm not saying that I don't have any, but I don't hold them at the forefront of my mind.
That said, here is what I need to forgive myself for... not listening to {and following through} my intuition, the *spirit*, my gut. There have been SEVERAL instances where I thought to do something, call someone, check on my kids, turn around and say something else; and I didn't follow through. It becomes even more frusterating when I learn that if I had done, whatever I felt to do, some sort of heartache or trouble, large or small, would have been avoided. I've come to learn that I have major trust issues with myself. Trust can be very difficult to build, once it has been lost, and even more so with ones-self. In order to forgive myself these trespasses I need to begin to re-build trust in myself, in my intuition, in the *spirit*, in my gut and to do those things I need to act upon when I hear those whispering or thoughts. Once I act upon them I can see how beneficial they are, and
learn to trust.
Something I have to forgive someone for...This was maybe more difficult to come up with something. Once I remembered this
incident I was pulled right back into those feelings of anger and misunderstanding, and I KNEW this was the one!
The back story: I defended my master's thesis in *structural geology* at Colorado State University when I was 9 1/2 months pregnant with my first child {he was born no sooner than one week after this defense took place}. And mind you, they DID NOT take it easy on me, and I didn't ask them to. But when I compared my thesis defense to my husbands thesis defense {we have the exact same degrees, but got our master's degrees at different schools}, his
DIDN'T EVEN COMPARE! His thesis panel asked specific questions about what he had
in his thesis (ie on page 96 you said xyz, what did you mean?). My thesis panel did not limit the questions that were asked to
just my thesis, but to
EVERYTHING I should have learned during the previous several years of schooling; which went on for several hours. {this may be a slight exaggerations, for honesty sake the questioning maybe only lasted 1 1/2 to 2 hours} But for those of you who have been pregnant you will completely understand what I'm saying when I say
I was FREAKING 9 1/2 months pregnant, who's brain still works at that point!?! And somehow I managed to pass, with flying colors, and graduate.
Now onto the forgiveness part of this thing: I was at a friends house when one of her friends came over {mind you, I don't even know who this girl is to this day... that maybe a good thing too. And I call her a girl because I'm pretty sure she was unwed and childless at this meeting}. My sweet friend was bragging about me and how I accomplished the fete of defending my thesis a week before my son was born. Trying to lighten the subject, I made a
joke, suggested to me by some friends as a joke, that if the questions got too difficult I could clutch my big ole belly, say I'm having a contraction, and give myself some more time to think about how to answer. This girl, I don't even know, got completely offended and bent out of shape by my suggesting such a thing and went off on how all women everywhere are offended by me even joking about using pregnancy to get away with such *immoral activities*. I was so taken back that I couldn't even defend myself. Seriously, she thought
I was suggesting that because I am a woman I should be given an *easier* time, that I was furthering some idea that women are less than men, and I wanted to use my femininity, not my knowledge or brains, to *get my degree*. What did this
girl know about me or about what it was like to be pregnant, defend my thesis, and actually pass. She was so self-righteous in her skewed fiministic point of view that I still, to this day, want to punch her in the face {and for those of you who know me, it really does take a lot for me to get
this upset or even think about such violence}. So, now that I am all rilled up and angry again, you can see how I still have quite a bit of work before I can pull myself from the depths of rage and hatred to forgive this person.
But truthfully, I'm really happy with the outcome and I think more paint in this room will be GREAT! But it'll have to wait for another couple days without the kiddos... next weekend maybe?
The boys really loved their painting activity! We even continued painting on paper after the toys were finished. I guess we're going to need more creative items! It was a GREAT afternoon activity! 
