Every Day is a Special Occasion

Quote for the day:

“Don’t save something for a special occasion. Every day of your life is a special occasion.”

-Thomas S. Monson

I really need to take this lesson to heart.  First of all I’m a mom to two small children who dress way better than I do.  I feel guilty spending money on clothes for myself, plus I don’t have to dress up for my job, so I pretty much wear baggy jeans and a colored t-shirt every day.  If my shirt has a design on it or if it has buttons, then that means I’m dressing up.  Shirts that have gotten faded, have stains, or have holes are my regular weekend wear.  The funny thing is that I have a Pinterest board full of beautiful clothes that I would love to wear but I somehow don’t feel I deserve to look that nice unless we’re going to a wedding or a funeral.

Another part to my issue with my appearance is that I seem to have gotten into the rut where I don’t try to look nice for my husband because I don’t feel the need to impress him anymore.  I’ve got him, he tells me I’m beautiful, so why bother trying to look nice?  Well I’m totally wrong when I think that.  If anything, he is the one person I really should want to look beautiful for.  Just because I have him and I’m not worried about him leaving me doesn’t mean I shouldn’t care what I look like anymore.  It’s not like I have to put on false eyelashes and draw on exaggerated red lips to impress him, but if I actually put a little effort into my appearance for my husband I will feel good about myself (dare I say sexy?) and he will know I’m still attracted to him.

Another way this quote hits me is that I love pretty dishes and serving pieces.  I have some really pretty things that never get used because I save them for when we’re entertaining.  The problem is that we have not had more than two adults over to our house at the same time- ever!  I love entertaining and serving fun refreshments, but I have been embarrassed about the state of our house so I haven’t gotten the chance to use our pretty serving dishes.  Then the only time we use our pretty dinner plates is when we run out of paper ones!

I need to print out this quote and post it in our kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, closet, and everywhere else it can be applied that I haven’t thought of yet.  I need to throw out all those raggedy shirts that have stains and holes, buy a few nice, cute clothes that are not the minimum required by my employer’s dress code (which is pretty low!), some pants that fit so I’m not constantly hitching them up, and wear some of the pretty jewelry and scarves I have that I have been saving for a special occasion.  Even though I am working on decluttering and organizing our house so we can have people over without me being embarrassed, I still need to get the fancy dishes out once in a while so we can enjoy them.  I think if we treat every day as a special occasion we will feel more fully present in our lives instead of just blindly going through our routines day after day like mindless drones.  I vow to put some of my Pinterest pins into action instead of sitting on the sidelines and getting enjoyment out of what other people are doing.