Bless Your Heart

So a while back an unnamed friend of mine (I'm allowing her to stay anonymous, but she knows who she is :) we were having lunch at a fast food place where the kids could play and we could chat. She has 2 kids, I have 2 kids. We got up to leave and as we were headed for the door (with our kids already running up ahead of us) a lady said to either me or my unnamed friend "Bless your heart". I honestly think it was more to my friend but I believe my children were just as much a part of the reason why my friend all the sudden needed blessing by random lady? My friend & I left the restaurant thinking huh? What? What's wrong with us? Our kids weren't being abnormally bad or anything. They were just running like kids do. Was it the number of kids we had with us or their behavior or was it just the way we looked or what? Do we look that bad? Do we have ketchup or french fries stuck to our clothes? What about us made this random lady feel like we needed her blessing??? We chalked it up to whatever but I did continue to think about it at times. Mostly the phrase. "Bless your heart".... In case you are not from the south this is the phrase that normally sweet southern ladies can use right before they say something awful but because they first said "bless your heart" it's then ok. For example; "Bless her heart she's just so ugly" "bless her heart her kids are awful" "bless her heart that husband of hers is no good" "Bless her heart she's just not very bright" "Bless her heart that baby is not cute" "Bless her heart she needs to lose 50 lbs" and so on. All of these statements are totally fine and these ladies can remain sweet southern ladies because well they first blessed their hearts... So again I wonder, what was wrong with us on that day that this sweet little lady blessed our hearts?? 

I still don't know but it has opened me up to my new motto!!! I've decided "bless your heart" is my new favorite saying. Cause what it implies is, it's not your fault that...fill in the blank. So these days I'm using the phrase all the time. However I'm not blessing other people's hearts, I bless my own. Yep, it's quite freeing. I don't care about other people's judgement cause I have already blessed my own heart and I'm good with it! So recently when I have been struggling oh so much with the weight of my responsibilities and lack of time I have... I look in the mirror when I have no more time to give to my appearance and say to my reflection "bless your heart you are looking unfortunate today!" and it's like magic!! Poof I feel better already. It's not my fault, moreover, I am blessed to be looking like a bus hit me. whoo hoo!

I promise I really do say this to myself allllll the time right now. In the grocery store when I am struggling with both kids and aiden is trying to make deals that would result in us leaving the store with candy and hallie is screaming so I hand her my keys to play with. "Bless your heart you had to give your baby jagged pieces of metal to play with, bless your heart that little boy would be quiet if he was given some candy". At home when my house is somehow a complete mess minutes after it was just spotless. "Bless your heart a hurricane came through here, nothing you can do about that Sit down & have a coke." When it's the 7th straight day in a row that I am doing single parenting until 8pm cause ben is working so much right now "Bless your heart this must be exhausting, let's have pizza for dinner".   When I know I have about 6 blogs that I am behind on and need to write/ publish "Bless your heart you just don't have time to blog. Bless your heart honey I'm not sure anyone really cares anyways?" Or I get all my stuff ready to go to the gym and really plan on going today but then hallie is fussy "Bless your heart the baby is tired and you just went to the gym like 2 weeks ago."


"Bless your heart you've been wearing the same jeans for 3 days now"
"Bless your heart it's ok that you forget to take aiden to t-ball practice. It's the same time and day every week, how are you supposed to remember?"
"Bless your heart you're out of laundry detergent- no laundry today"
"Bless your heart you forgot hallie's bib and now she's dropping strawberries on her pretty dress"


Bless your heart...means it's ok that I'm struggling, it's ok that I forget, it's ok that I look unfortunate, it's ok that things don't always get done. It's alllll ok, it's not my fault - Bless my heart! It's my new mantra. 

**Now you may shrewdly read between the lines here and think I'm just giving myself some excuses when I'm overly tired, worn out, looking rough, overwhelmed, hungry, or all of the above. Excuses they may be... BUT "Bless my heart sometimes I need to be able to give myself some slack!!!!"
Bless all your hearts today!