It's all about perspecitve

So much of life is about perspective. The lens through which you view a situation colors the experience. Both Chase and I have lenses that we often peak through that help us keep a positive outlook, and we mock each other mercilessly for them.

The thing that helps me keep perspective is thinking about the women who, not so long ago, settled the west. I would not have survived. All my teeth would have rotted and/or fallen out of my mouth, I would have gotten horribly ill, and some ferocious creature (like the one pictured below) would have eaten me alive!

Ok, so I just wanted an excuse to post this adorable picture of Lily in her Halloween costume. Isn't she the cutest little kitten you ever saw? :) But seriously, I would not have made it if I'd lived 150 years ago and Chase had said, "Let's go on a wagon train west." I probably would have just keeled over and died right there. I don't fancy myself to be a wimp - I can be tough when I need to be. But I would not have survived the cold, the heat, the work, the travel, the labor, the toil or anything else about settling the west. As if the wagon trains weren't bad enough, once you got to a piece of ground, you had to build a place to live, then once you got it built it was drafty. On top of all this, you had to find food - and I think it's difficult to find interesting stuff to eat now from my fridge!

So enough about my "worst case scenario" that helps me keep perspective. I get mocked for my wagon train comments (such as, "I don't know how women on the wagon trains survived pregnancy! I'm SO exhausted.") Chase has his own worst case scenario that helps him keep perspective: Bear Grylls.

Bear Grylls is a guy who has a cable TV show in which he puts himself in some of the most extreme environments on the planet and shows what it might take to survive there. So, for example, in the Sahara Desert, Bear slept one night inside the carcass of a dead camel to keep himself warm. We're not talking a washed out camel carcass - we're talking barely gutted. It was SO gross. He's ingested everything from beetles, to worms, to snakes, to skunks, to ox eye balls, to yak blood, to even his own urine. Nasty!

There's been many a night where over supper, Chase will look across the table at me and say, "Just think what Bear Grylls would give to have a *insert food item Chase is eating here* like this." I don't know what it says about my cooking that it regularly gets compared to things like bat meat and raw scorpion, but at least Chase appreciates it.

Keeping in mind some worst case scenarios really does help Chase and I keep perspective. No matter how bad we think we have it, someone always has it worse. Of course comparing isn't always the way to go (for example, "keeping up with the Jones'") but in the case of the women on the wagon trains and Bear Grylls comparing has been a good thing for Chase and me. He appreciates my cooking, and I appreciate everything about living my cushy life!

(I'm not even going to pretend that I have "an excuse" to post this last picture. It's my blog. I'll post on it what I want, and if you don't like it tough cookies for you! :) This is Liliana chilling in her bath. Man, I just love that little girl!)