Peacemakers

So I've been thinking a lot lately about how self absorbed our society has become.

NOW DON'T GET MAD I WASN'T TALKING ABOUT YOU! Just a collective "you" referring to society in general.

In today's world, it all revolves around technology. If we're not texting someone, we're on Facebook or playing a game or tweeting or chirping or whatever it is people do now.

So this is what it comes down to. People nowadays don't gauge happiness in the same way as people in days or yore. Self confidence is solely based on how many likes someone can get, or how many people will find what they say funny.

How much lasting happiness does that like even bring though? For most people, little to none. The main source for happiness and self confidence is bringing little to no benefit.

And don't get me wrong, sometimes public praise feels great. It always feels good to have someone like what you say. But there is a better way to bring that same happiness from people that will actually last longer than the next time someone else posts something more popular.

What feels the greatest is sincere genuine compliments. If every like was replaced with a compliment, imagine how happy our society could become. Because let's be honest, scrolling through Facebook never brings joy. Even if there are good things happening to other people, we often just get envious. But what feels the greatest is when you see someone's face light up after telling them how amazing they are. It is best to do it privately though, because if it is public it may just look like you're trying to make yourself look good, or it could hurt someone else. If posting anything could make someone jealous or feel worse about themselves, then don't post it at all.

My challenge to the world (That's right, to the world!) is to not focus on how many likes we may have, but how many smiles we can have from someone who may be feeling down.

And I don't know, maybe this whole philosophy is just me, but I feel many people could benefit from this. So spread the joy! Let someone know how much you appreciate them. And who knows, it may make you feel better too. Happiness is contagious after all.

-Paint a Chameleon

Little Chillin's

        Hey Ya'll! The wedding plans are coming along nicely! The newest addition is the names of our children. It has been established that we are going to have 8, but we decided their initials have to spell COUNSELS when put in order. The word COUNSELS originated last year in our Geography class. We both started having twitches in our eyes. We decided to come up with a code, since yelling out, "You're eye is twitching again!" wasn't going to go well. Jessie picked up my book, turned to a random page, and decided the code name would be the first word she saw. Of course it couldn't be something like shoelace, or soufle, or pineapple, but it was counseling. From then on that has been the one trait we hold most dearly to each other, our counseling.

           Here are the requirements for each of our children. We have names we think would work nicely, but if you have any other suggestions email me! We could have a baby name contest!

Child 1: Female, Adopted Asian, Name starting with C
Child 2: Male, Quintuplet, Name starting with O
Child 3: Female, Quintuplet, Name starting with U
Child 4: Male, Quintuplet, Name starting with N
Child 5: Female, Quintuplet, Name starting with S
Child 6: Male, Quintuplet, Name starting with E
Child 7: Female, Adopted Asian, Name starting with L
Child 8: Male, Adopted Asian, Name starting with S


Our ideas for names are the following (These are improvements since the first names were Zebediah and Zazzles):

Cammy
Octavian
Ursula
Nigel
Siberia
Edvard
LizzyBeth
Stephen


The name Cammy originated from Chameleon. LizzyBeth is the way it is because we wanted Elizabeth, but E had to be male. So LizzeBeth is the next closest thing. If you have any other suggestions that are relatively unnormal, then email them to me! Anything is better than Zazzles. (I had to promise to name our fish that.)

Potty Mouth

Woohoo! Twenty eight whole people have looked at this page! With 3 taking the chance to actually look at a post... It's progress! So today I got thinking... What do you say when someone tells you they have to use the restroom? "Have a fun time!" "Make sure you wash your hands!" "Say hi to the toilet for me" Any other ideas?