Here Comes The Sun

I wrote this last year, but I'm posting it again because personally, I need this reminder. It has just been one of THOSE days. You know, where everything feels wrong, and insecurity follows your every step, frustrating you even more. Days like today make me appreciate the good ones even more...here comes the sun little darlin. 

Remember this day. Etch every detail into the deepest part of your brain, because a time will come that will make you yearn for the warmth of those memories.

Remember the way the sun felt beating down on your head.

Remember how everything you seemed to say made your loved ones laugh with delight.

Remember the way that song moved you, the way it made you feel.

Remember all the details of your horse the last time you turned him out after a day’s work…the heat under your hand as you stood there touching his neck, the warm smell, how you could feel his hide shiver at detaching a fly somewhere on his back end. How his head lowered and his ears flicked back and forth between you and the open gate as you untied his halter.

Remember the headiness you felt as a newly licensed teenager, parking your truck at the gas station and filled with the importance of your own grownup-ness when you bought a soda pop for your drive home from school.

Remember that “good” exhausted feeling from getting all your colts rode, or hay baled or garden weeded or fence built…yes, you are worn out like an old dish rag, but YOU, your MIND, and your BODY accomplished all that. Wow.

Remember the happiness that seemed to swell and fill every pore and burst out of you in ridiculous laughter…

Life is not a continuous upward climb until one day in the far, far, future you’ve reached some pinnacle of adulthood and you just coast through life without a care.

Life is a series of hills and valleys…of hard, heart-wrenching, back-breaking work and challenges and easy sailing and joyful moments that fill you with such thankfulness that you could explode. It’s a little give and a little take, a little happy and a little sad…a little hard and a little easy.

There will come a day in the future when you will wonder how you could have ever smiled, and you will think that before your life was filled with smooth seas and ignorance is bliss. Hold the memories of the good times like a talisman to your heart, and let the knowledge that the bad days won’t last forever warm your indifference and renew your spirit.

Let the hard times make you even more thankful for your blessings and remember the good, you extraordinarily tough and beautiful Buckaroo Barbies.

xo xo Liz 

It Was Just One of Those Days, Dolls

Today was one of those days where I would have infinitely preferred grabbing a Starbucks, my dog and climbing back into bed rather than living life. Days like this, I find it helps to get dressed, swipe on an extra layer of lipstick and turn the music up loud, no matter how much I want to slob around in my sweats and moan about my life.

Why are some days harder than others? How can our emotions do such a quick turn about that we find ourselves unseated and uprooted? Yesterday, I felt on top of the world. I wouldn’t have thought there was a mountain too tall for me to scale, no obstacle too great for me to overcome. This morning I felt like a depleted version of myself, frail and wracked with insecurities. And they’re almost all problems I’ve created in my head!

I’ve seen people on Twitter and Facebook who talk to their peers as if they’re diagnosing a patient, commanding them to overcome insecurities with will power, as if they are somehow weak for having an off day. I’m going to counter that and raise them on the premise that if you don’t have a bad day occasionally, how can you truly grow and appreciate the good days? John Adams, Diana Vreeland and Julia Child all had bad days and we think of them as some of the most successful, together people out there!

Ride the bad day out. Don’t fight it, accept it and realize that this too shall pass.

I’m snuggling by the fire now with my Roo baby in my lap and a glass of wine close at hand. The day has drawn to a close, and with it the frustrations and problems I faced earlier. I struggled today. And that’s OK, because struggle is necessary for growth. Tomorrow, when I awake in my bed of white down blankets and piles of pillows, I will be grateful for days like these because they are helping mold me into the woman I want to be. I want to be strong and tirelessly ambitious, and proof that dreams CAN indeed come true, they just require a little elbow grease.

So for all you Dolls that struggled today, that struggled yesterday and for those who will struggle tomorrow, just know that it’s all a part of the plan. It doesn’t make you any less of a woman to come up against some resistence. And in facing and overcoming a difficult day, you are showing by example to other women what real life looks like. Don’t give up, Dolls!! Tomorrow is a new day!

xo xo Liz

Keep Your Chin Up High

I think part of the reason we all of us feel so close here on Buckaroo Barbie, is because I am brutally honest with you. Whenever I sit down to write a post, I imagine drawing my chair up to yours and topping off our coffee cups. It’s as if we’re all friends, offering each other advice, encouragement or even just a shoulder to cry on. So with that in mind, I feel like we’re all friends.

If you remember the other day, I posted how a fellow Lyme warrior died. It really upset me and thanks to that and some other contributing factors like accidently eating some food with preservatives in it, I’ve been down sick on the couch the last few days.

But that’s not the part I’m crying about. Yesterday our neighbor called and said he had about 42 head to brand. I was so excited. Surely I’d be feeling better by Sunday morning! I woke up this morning and the room was spinning so wildly it put any carnival ride to shame.  My joints felt like they’d been beaten with a hammer and I was so weak that Adrian had to help me so I could just sit up in bed. Long story short, I didn’t go brand today. And I was really kind of bitter about it. I had been doing so well! Why did I have to get to feeling crappy NOW of all times????

The mums got me cozied up on the couch with my Roo dog and a cup of coffee and headed off to the neighbors to take pictures. That’s her passion and joy, just in case you were wondering. J And while she was gone I might have indulged in a few tears of feeling sorry for myself and anger and frustration in my stupid, weak body. Then, while scrolling through Facebook, a friend’s status stopped me in my tracks. It said,

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4

I know my trials are nothing compared to what some people are being faced with right now, but when you’re faced with your own baggage, it can seem very big and overwhelming at times. And in all honesty, I felt very overwhelmed and sad today. I spent the day, twisted on the couch in pain while my body alternatively tried to spin me to sleep, or freeze me into submission. At one point I woke up from a nap, scrolled through my Instagram and ran across this quote from Chalene Johnson:

“The only thing we truly have control over is our attitude. Attitude is a habit. Attitude is a choice. Things could be much worse! Hey…you have so much to be grateful for! Be happy. Be optimistic. Be giving. Be kind. Be grateful. Be humble. Be thankful. Be loving. Be generous. Be patient. Be nice. Be open. Be forgiving. These things create the habit of an unshakeable optimistic, positive attitude!”

That quote was like a shock of cold water to my system. My dad has always told Adrian and me that the only thing we control is our attitude, and through experience I’ve found that to be true.

I chose to forget about that today, so when my reminder came thanks to Facebook and Instagram, I felt somewhat ashamed and thankful.

I felt ashamed that I had wasted so much time wallering around in self-pity, and thankful for the reminder that even if I can’t control how I feel, I can control how I react to my situation. And that right there, ladies and gentlemen, is true control.

So no matter what tomorrow brings me, whether it’s joint pain, whirling rooms and not being able to ride my horse, or boundless energy, cutting strings and loping circles on Albert, I’m going to be thankful and cheerful. I’m going to work my hardest with the allotted energy and resources I’ve been given so that when the end of the day draws near, I can look back and be proud of my Try and attitude.

My two favorites, my little sister and my Albert horse.

I hope this encourages you in some small way, because these reminders did my heart a whole world of good today.

xo xo Liz 

Photo Credit: Alison Brannan