Today I'm grateful for...

Today I'm grateful for how individual we were all made. I think most kids go through a phase where all they want in the whole world is to just fit in. I definitely did.

For instance- in elementary school, I remember being mortified that I was the only one in my class who had a lunch packed from home. Everyone else in my class was on the school meal plan with PIZZA FRIDAY! Almost every day I would try to switch my gorgeously delicious home packed lunches (complete with a love note written on the napkin from my amazing mother) with the sludge everyone else got from the cafeteria. Once I had made the switch, a wave of relief would sweep over me, and I wouldn't worry about being the one person with a lunch box. I remember one day, a quieter boy in class asked me why I always traded my lunches. I told him in what I know must have been an obnoxious voice that I liked the cafeteria lunches better. After a little pause, he quietly said that he wished that his mom would pack him a lunch as nice as mine.

So many times I think that people see their differences they way that I saw my sac lunch. They think because something is different about them, that they must stick out in a bad way. I used to hate my nose because I thought that it was a weird shape. One day when I was complaining about it, my dad told me that he loved my nose, because it was the same shape as my mother's. All of a sudden, my nose wasn't a weird shape, it was something that connected me to my favorite woman in the history of EVER. Sometimes I still think it's a little weird, but I wouldn't trade it for any other nose in the whole wide world.

I love that some people have freckles,
and some people have gaps in their teeth.

I think that the most beautiful people in the world are those who stand out and embrace their individual characteristics.

I've noticed that the things I love most about people are usually their least favorite qualities about themselves. So- I'm going to make a conscious effort to appreciate and love my individual unique characteristics.

12 UNIQUE THINGS THAT MAKE ME, ME.
- Jackie Chan is my favorite actor in the world (who else can say that??)
- When I'm alone in the house I totally dance in the kitchen and karate kick the microwave close after making a hi-yah sound.
- I've never been to a tanning salon, or seen the movie Titanic.
- When I get really nervous I get really really bad hiccups.
- I have really pointy wrist bones.
- When I'm concentrating I bite my lip, and squint a teeny bit.
- I'm maybe the best ever at playing hide and go seek. One time I broke someone's nose.
- I talk in my sleep all. the. time.
- I love foreign films.
- I have a weird freckle inside my ear, and another on my middle finger that always gets mistaken for some kind of pen mark.
- I have a face like my mother's and my father's artisan hands. Good for playing musical instruments and winning thumb wrestling.
- I have a dimple on one side when I smile reealy hard.