I am not my labels. And don't be jealous of my new typewriter. You can come type something if you wanna.

I'm not getting as much blogging done because I am having TOOOOO much fun with mod podge.

Also, work. And math started today. But it will be fun. I like math.

Hey, this is a perfect intro to talk to you about something.

I am bad at math!

LOL!!!!! It makes me laugh. Because I might not be bad at math. I never had enough time to prove if I was good or bad at math.

But from the time I was a kid I did struggle with math. So now I have LABELED myself and been labeled this ENTIRE TIME from my past when my brain wasn't even done growing...that I am bad at math.

I guess time will tell but I really don't think I am bad at math.

I think I didn't catch on super fast and I had some lousy teachers and I had very little care to learn once upon a time. And hello???? My brain wasn't even done developing!!!!!

So I have labeled myself this entire time that I am bad at math when really I think I will be fine. I think if I can earn my doctorate in Biology last semester (or get a B-, same difference) then I will be fine in math. I just need proper teaching.

LABELS.

The soul restoration class this week was on labels that we give ourselves.

Here is my picture of my page. Those are silhouettes of women with my labels, good or bad. Melody Ross, the creator of the class gave us pages of labels. And I typed some up by myself on my NEW type writer! See below!

The interesting thing I learned is this....

See it? It says shy and outgoing. And I am actually both.

I feel I am both skinny and fat!

I found it very interesting that my labels contradicted themselves.

That is because....

And one thing Melody said in the class is that no one is purely one thing. And if I can be shy and outgoing.... if I can be a loner and a social person, I don't know why, but that feels free to me.

I don't want to be bound by labels...I want to be free to be me. Whatever that "me" is that day. And I want my children to learn the same thing. I want them to explore different things and work on their weaknesses and not just think that is WHO THEY ARE.

We aren't one thing. We aren't our labels. Especially the labels we have bound ourselves to.

I also put that I am fat and skinny. I don't know why. But I am fat. But I am skinny too.

The other important thing Melody taught us goes back to knowing that we have a weak self and being okay with that. So....one of my labels is weak. I feel very often weak. I am referring to food in this instance. So that doesn't mean that I am weak. It means I have a weakness with being weak. Meaning if there is cookies in front of me..I will have a feeding frenzy and eat them all. So what do I do?

I practice. I can change weak. I can toughen up. I can surround myself with people who have self control and learn from them. I can work on it. But I won't hurt myself or be mean to myself for having some self control issues.

Another thing I labeled myself as is boundaryless. I have been. My whole life. The past two years I have been learning what boundaries are and why they are important to MY happiness. (READ THIS BOOK such a interesting read) So yes, I was once boundaryless. I can even remember when my friend told me about boundaries. Never had known about them or that it was okay to set some boundaries from other people, for myself.

So I am not boundaryless. It is not who I am. I just needed to learn some. And now I am working on it. And I don't always do it right. And that is okay too.

Learning that these things are not who we are, just areas we struggle with and can improve upon is a gift because then we have power over our lives.

So we are not our labels. We are not all one thing or another.

And I had to put this about typewriters.

If anyone knows my dad....He ALWAYS says NO before he says yes.

"Hey dad, want to hold an Easter egg hunt for us?"

"NO!"

We go to there house for Easter dinner...Easter egg hunt prepared by my dad.

 Very organized! He had a map of exactly where he had hid the eggs.

And then the FUN part.. Candy toss. The kids LOVED it.

 
The kids were so exited because the eggs had candy stuffed full. I put one candy, even if it is an M&M in one egg. Because then the hunt can be huge but they don't get that much. My kids probably don't appreciate it. LOL.

Back to my dad always saying no first....

"Hey dad, can I have you old typewriter that I have coveted for years?"

"Sure, when can you come get it?"

Wha??? Huh???

Whoa.... That was oddly easy.

I am still baffled a bit by that. But I am not complaining. I LOVE it. I typed some other "labels" for myself with it.

Because I knew my dad had history with the typewriter I told him to write me a bit about it. I just read it and had to laugh.

KENT'S TYPEWRITER 

In 1955 I bought a 1950 Plymouth sedan.  I drove it until my Senior year in BY High started and then I sold the car.

I researched typewriters and finally saw a Remington in Sears.  The salesman showed me all the great features.  It was portable and came in a carrying case.  It is well built.  The character bars are flex steel and do not bend to the fingers of out of place children.   But,  no auto word correction and no spell aid.

I bought the typewriter and wrote manner papers for school.  In 1966 I wrote a Master's Thesis at Brigham Young University-Provo about late Paleozoic trilobites using the typewriter.  Later in 1969 wrote a PhD Dissertation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on the “Trace Fossils and Paleoecology of the Ouachita Mountains of Southeastern Oklahoma.”   While typing the dissertation I held my new son  Jason  across my arms while typing.

When personal computers became available the Remington Quiet-Riter went into retirement, but came with me all 7 moves around the country.  It seems to be heavier than originally.  It has some whiteout stains where the brush  toughed some part of the machine.

  

It is being bequeathed to my favorite daughter Susan so long as she takes proper care of the machine.  When she realizes the disadvantages she will set it aside after when classic paper.   Disadvantage being keys that must be “stamped” (hard rapid pressed), the line bar to be pushed, the manual loading and straightening of paper, the manual white-out  for manual  corrections, ....

Maybe I won't type dissertations with it. But it is so so so so so so cool. And I feel super vintagey when I am doing my soul work with it. 

Ta Ta.