{not so} UH-glee among the beauties

On Dec 16, 2009, I was taking out my contacts and like everynight's routine, I turned on the water to rinse them - I know, every eye doctor out there tells you to use solution but I use water and have since I was fifteen and my contacts seem to do just fine - but I dropped the contact down the sink, and the sink, which needed to be fixed because it won't "plug," was open and away went my contact. Away. Away. Far, far away. My heart is heavy all over again just remembering.

I've never been a confident eye-glass wearer. Many women look so classy, so sophisticated, so intelligent in glasses. I don't. My hubby says I look fine. He takes pictures of me in my glasses so I can look at the pics and see myself as he does. But I don't see what he does. His vision is tainted by luuuuuuh-ve. I just see UH-glee. But I keep wearing the glasses because well, there's no money for new contacts. It's okay. We had a fun Christmas and the kids were happy. (But Christmas takes money.) And the dentist needed a new jacuzzi so we had to pay for that. (Actually, all four of my children had cavities that needed to be filled - one for Lil' Miss M in Nov, two for K.D., three for Mick, and one for CK this last month, and instead of whining about the bill, I just like to imagine what the dentist is buying with our money.) And this month we've been paying off the baby. That's almost crass, but it's true: birthing a baby takes money. But having Mr. A IS SO WORTH EVERY PENNY 'cause we definitely wouldn't send him back. (And we lost the receipt anyway, so he's definitely ours now.)

But in the meantime, I wear glasses. Well, not to church on Sundays or to visit teach. We have some very beautiful women in our ward .... and although I don't have intentions to keep up or to even compete, 'cause that's not why I go to church - nor do they, they're just naturally good and be-you-ti-full - I just don't want to be the ONE UH-glee among the beauties. So I'm a dork and only enjoy vision out of one eye on Sundays and on V.T. days. It's funny really. Something about coveting comes to mind. Something, too, about beams and motes comes to mind - the ones in My Eyes, probably taking up so much room that I wouldn't be able to even put a contact in there if I tried. And something about sacrifice as noble? Something that so many women do for the good of their families? But not if there's whining involved. I'm whining, I know.

But then everyday I read about Stephanie here: http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/. And I'm so inspired by this strong, good woman who is so burned and marred and yet, to me, she is so so so beautiful. She's an example of always counting her blessings, of sharing the gospel, of enduring to the end in spite of terrible tragedy. I admire her. In fact, I think it's just best if I stop the whining. Right now.