You know I love me some Oprah...

....and I love me a whole lotta Nie Nie.

Tomorrow, they come together.
Will you be watching?


I am sure it will be inspirational.

Do you ever experience blenvy?

You know the feeling - it was there before long before blogs. It can be as simple as sitting at a party and wishing you could come up with the one-liners that roll of someone else's tongue, or wishing you had the rolling and contagious laugh of one of your friends (L.M. Montgomery was always writing about her heroines laughter was like music. She would not admire my chuckle). Or it goes beyond that. You catch a glimpse, a small, Piscasa'd glimpse, of someone else's life, which you then compare to the whole, uncropped version that you know as your life. Your life, and your talents, are almost always the losers in this imagined competition.

I was reading a post by Kacy this morning about an interview on Oprah with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, thinking that I had thought many of the same thoughts when I watched the interview, and admiring how Kacy has turned it into a hilarious post. Of course I started to envy her writing style, and of course I started to think "I should try to write funnier posts." But that just isn't gonna happen, because I'm just not that funny and I'm a badder writer than her. Plus, and I swear I'm not making this up, I just haven't been able to function at a high level of creativity since having Oliver. Don't ask me why - I get plenty of sleep, he's a pretty easy baby, and my husband does a lot of cleaning - but I am just not normal again yet.

So these thoughts made me remember a post written by the famous Cjane awhile back (someone I really blenvy). Read it (go ahead and do it right now but promise you will come back), and you will get the blenvy reference.

Which made me remember some comments on the same cjane's blog that I have been reading (yes, I spend a lot of time on blogs. bite me.). As I am sure most of you know, her sister Stephanie Nielson, was in a plane crash with her husband in August and is now recovering. Thousands of people have now been to Stephanie's blog and have oohed and aahed over her beautiful family and life. I am one of those people. I discovered NieNie (Stephanie's blog name) along with Cjane this past spring and have since checked their blogs daily.

But back to the comments on Cjane's blog. She gets tons of them and sometimes I take a peek. They are mostly Thank you for inspiring us. Your sister is an inspiration, I am praying for all of you types of comments. Every once in awhile though, they make me cringe. Things like, Your sister is the PERFECT mother. You have a PERFECT family. I wish my family was more like yours.

This goes beyond simple blenvy. This isn't "Oh, I wish I were as funny as Kacy, or as eloquent as Courtney."

I think Cjane has noticed comments like this too because whenever she gives interviews, she always makes a point of mentioning that Stephanie and Christian weren't perfect people with a perfect life. Stephanie had struggles just like the rest of us. In her blog and her job as a mother, she just chose to highlight the positive, to see the hilarity, and to find the romance. By focusing on those things, she created even more of it.

This is what I think - we all already have a NieNie life and a NieNie family.

We all have that much beauty surrounding us, but we might not be choosing to seek it out, emphasize it,recreate it, and reflect it to our fullest.



I have very strong feelings about comparing. You shouldn't do it. It isn't fair to you or the other person. I will probably post about it sometime.


But in the meantime, let me just state that I do still envy the laughs of Autumn (Tippit) Leavitt and Kim Potts. My laugh is a one-note, annoying rattle. Theirs are exquisite and joyful.

And I sure wish I had a better header on my blog.

(sigh)