The Name

I’ve wanted to start a blog for quite some time now, but, oddly, the main reason holding me back was my lack of good ideas for a name.  Kinna silly, I know, but the name was just so important to me.  It had to be catchy, meaningful, fun, unique, and, how Goldilocks would describe it, juuuust right. 

I would even tell God things like:

“If you want me to have a blog then you’ll have to put a really good name in my head.”

Or, “Man, I would really love to write about my day today in a blog, that sounds like fun, but geez, I still can’t think of a good name, God, help me out!”

As you can see, God and I talk about a lot of things, even seemingly insignificant topics like blog names… 

Then, as I was taking Owen on a walk around our neighborhood on a cloudy, windy day I started to silently complain about the weather.  We had had several cloudy, dreary days in a row and I was really starting to miss the sunshine with its glorious warmth and light!  Then, I thought about how ridiculous it was for me to be so glum when I have so many, many reasons to be thankful.  So I started thanking God for all that I’m so grateful for; my amazing, loving husband who makes me laugh daily, my two healthy and sweet growing babies, my encouraging and wonderful family and friends, the beauty of flowers and plants and nature, the food I was going to be able to prepare for my family for dinner that night, and the list goes on and on… it perked my spirit right up!! Also going on in my mind (there’s always approximately 3-5 stems of thought going on simultaneously in my brain **not scientifically accurate, I’m sure, but that’s how I feel**) anyway, as I was going on this walk I was also trying to come up with blog names.  When the two thoughts of thankfulness and blogging collided, I knew what I wanted my blog’s purpose to be…I wanted it to be a place where I could write about ideas, people, activities, things that make me happy, I wanted it to be an uplifting place, a place where I could document what I am grateful about, and a place where I can remember (even on the hard days, especially on the hard days) why I love this life!!  After discovering it’s purpose the name came quite easily, and, ta da!! Sunny Side Up was birthed.

However, this is NOT, I repeat NOT, a blog with posts about rainbows, bunnies, and lollipops with no real, authentic substance to it.  You better believe I’ll be talking about it all, not just the happy, pleasant moments…I’ll tell you all about the moments I stay in PJ’s all day long, my living room looks like a toy store threw up, laundry baskets are overflowing, the counters are cluttered with piles and piles of who knows what, food is growing mold in the refrigerator, my kids whine, cry, throw fits/spit up/fall and get boo boos/spill milk/drop all variants of food items on the freshly mopped floor/write on the walls/eat poo (this has really happened, this morning in fact, GROSS!!!), and all the mundane, simple moments in between.  I refuse to let my life seem perfect when it is far from it, it won’t do anyone any good. No sir-ee.  I love reading other’s blogs that are honest and real, and I haven’t come across too many that aren’t that way, so this one will be no different.

What’s important, though, is not dwelling on these tough, messy moments but rather handling these times with a joyful approach.  Having a glass-half-full attitude, if you will.  I want to choose to look at this world with optimism and hope.  So hard to do… and I often times fail (just ask my husband whose ears are often the ones my complaints fall upon). There are so many things in this world that are dark, sad, broken, and we are reminded of this practically everywhere we turn, it’s easy to be sucked into.  I’m constantly trying to return my focus to what brings life into perspective for me… starting first by looking to Him and renewing my mind with His word (also hard to do, and not something I have mastered yet but continue to work on), then spending time participating in the hobbies He has given me to enjoy (i.e. baking, sewing, watching a good movie or TV show, creating, organizing, cooking, teaching, mothering, reading, writing, connecting with my husband, playing card games/board games/any games really, listening to music, picnicking, dancing, conversing with family and friends, travelling…just to name a few)!  Life is just too short to stay glum…    

All that being said, a question that often pops in my head is this: What right do I have to encourage people to view the world with hope and positivity??

 I have never lost a child (or any close loved one for that matter), I have never experienced extreme poverty or want, or had any major medical issues, I have never been involved in sex trafficking or slavery or abuse, I haven’t had to deal first-hand with the effects of war and hate, I have never known the loneliness of being an orphan, I’ve never lost my home to a natural disaster, <insert other awful issue/s the world is faced with, that I forgot, here>. 

So who am I to tell people (assuming there are “people” out there reading this ;) ) who have suffered one or more of the above to keep their head up and be joyful through it all?!

I don’t have a good answer to that question, but I do know I can’t make matters worse.  I think I’d like to err on the side of being too encouraging and too hopeful…

I also need to make it clear that I’m not saying we should ignore all the above issues by putting ourselves in this happy, fake little bubble, or avoid doing our part in relieving these problems, I’m also not saying it’s wrong to be sad or to express one’s true emotions, in fact, it’s healthy to do so, but what I am saying is that we should strive to find beacons of light and hope, even amongst the worst of circumstances so that we can pull ourselves up from whatever is keeping us down so we can live and experience life to the fullest, the way God intended it.  This may take days/weeks/months/years/on going, but I think it is worth giving it a shot...

So that’s what I hope this blog does for you (and for me!), I hope it helps us view life from the sunny side, even on the cloudiest of days.

And now I leave you with this quote I've been marinating on lately:

“Every day may not be good…but there is something good in every day.” – Author Unknown