Girl Between the Lines: Lesson Learned

“Don’t spend your time on and give your heart to any guy who makes you wonder about anythingrelated to his feelings for you.” ~Greg Behrendt, He's Just Not That Into You

This week's prompt for Girls Between the Lines is a doozy:  Tell us a lesson you wish you had learned sooner in life. Looking back, what do you see now you wished someone had told you before?

Where do I even start?

I decided I should make a list to try and choose a topic to write about...

What real friends look like and how to find them.
No one should wear a t-shirt every day of junior high and high school.
That you have to stand up for yourself and fight for what you deserve.
How to put out an oven fire before calling the fire department.
That it really does not matter what other people think.
Bridges ice over before roadway (I know signs say this but I clearly didn't get it...)

But in the end, I decided to go with a lesson that I have only recently learned, courtesy of The Boy from Texas.  It's one that I really do believe is true and is important for girls to hear. 

If a boy likes you, he will make that clear and you will not have to question it.

I cannot even begin to tell you how many hours of my life I wasted over the past 30 years wondering if a boy liked me.  It happened in high school.  "Well if he didn't like you, why did he do xyz?  Guys just don't do that!"   College Roomie and I probably walked 1,000 miles analyzing this in college.  "Well he was really flirty with you last night at the Penny...."  It continued on into adulthood.  "Well if you're talking that much, he has to be into you!"  It seriously was a never-ending cycle that left me hopelessly confused (and single....awesome combo.)

Then along came the Boy from Texas.  He was up front right from the beginning.  He told me he did not play games (which I was honestly pretty sure was a game...turned out it wasn't.) He has always been straight forward about how he felt and what he wanted and where this was going.  I have never once wondered how he felt about me.  It was refreshing.  And honestly a little bit confusing!  Is this how things are supposed to be?  How did no one tell me this before?

Well, girls, I'm here to tell it to you today.  I'm not saying it will all be roses and puppies and unicorns.  There will be hard decisions to be made, he will yell at you and make you cry when you catch your oven on fire and hang up on him during that traumatic event, you will have bad days, you will argue, you will not understand his shopping habits.....but through it all, you won't have to question how he feels about you.

If he likes you, he'll make that clear and you won't have to question it.  Learn it now.  Save your time and your thoughts and your tears.  

Girl Between The Lines: Your Favorite Photo

This week's Girl Between the Lines theme is Your Favorite Photo. 

I absolutely love taking pictures.  I think that I might add "and taking pictures" to my standard dream job answer of  "having a bunch of cows and writing a book."  As I looked through all the pictures that I've taken---from trips all over the world to amazing sporting events and concerts and castles---when I chose a favorite, I kept coming back to the same thing.  People.  For all of the cathedrals and mountains and touchdowns, nothing compares to the people.  Probably a lot to that idea.

As per usual, I couldn't pick four.  So I chose four.  I'm a rebel like that.

Photo 1

This photo is of my dad (on the left) and one of his best friends.  We had been moving cows and I pulled out my camera as everyone was just standing around the pens.  I think that it just captures my dad's personality.  (And apparently he thinks so too....he told me he wants us to use this picture at his funeral one day.  Yea.  That's not awkward.)

Photo 2

This photo I shot at Loud Oklahoma Girl's wedding.  She and her grandma were holding hands before the ceremony started and I thought it was just perfect.  As a girl who can't hold a grandma's hand anymore, it was pretty beautiful to me.

Photo 3



I took this picture at my brother and sister-in-law's wedding in Las Vegas.  I had seen it on Pinterest and thought it would be fun for Little Cowboy.  It turned out seriously better than I even imagined.  I just love Little Cowboy's face and his tux.

Photo 4

This picture is of Great Uncle doing what he did best...playing the piano.  (And apparently I have some sort of hand fetish in my photography.)  More than the actual picture was the memory of that day--the whole family sitting in the living room of my cousin's house, some three deep on a chair, more piled six-fold on the couch, just listening to him play.  It is one of my favorite memories not only of my uncle, but of my family.

Girl Between The Lines: How Does It Compare?

Today's prompt:  We all imagined what our lives would be like when we were "grown up".. . how does that compare to what your life looks like now?? 

Hmm....I suppose I could honestly say that nothing looks the way that I thought it would.  I somehow managed to stumble into living in a sea of maroon in a place that frankly feels like a crock pot for about 3 months out of the year.  I'm not married.  I don't have a car seat or two to lug around.  I don't have a high paying job in San Francisco.  I'm not taking care of a bunch of cows whilst writing a book.  I'm not arguing cases in front of a judge.  I don't own a pair of Louies (not that I ever really thought that one would happen, but hey, a girl can dream!)  

But what it does look like?  It's so much better than the pictures I ever had in my head.

It looks like hour long phone calls every night with a boy that makes me smile.  And a job that I honestly might do for fun even if they didn't pay me.  It looks like a group of friends from all different phases of my life that make up the best support system you could imagine.  It looks like trips to Europe and baptizing God daughters and hanging out with the cutest nephew on the planet.  Like karaoke bars and eulogies and bachelorette parties.  It looks like 7 bridesmaid and 1 groomsma'am dresses hanging in a closet.  Like a family full of crazy fun people who support each other no matter what happens.  Ski trips and birthday parties and girls' weekends. It looks like rushing the field and football games and crossing half marathon finish lines and parasailing over the ocean.

It may not look like what I thought, this life of mine,....but that's because God knew better.  He knew bigger.  I am grateful for that.

Girl Between the Lines: Most Valuable Advice Someone Gave You

Today I am doing something a bit difference and joining a link up called "Getting to know the girl between the lines."  Each Wednesday they have a new prompt for people to write about.  This week's prompt is:  "What is the most valuable advice someone gave you?"

Well, in my typical fashion, I couldn't pick one thing.  So I picked four.  But I'm combining two of them into one topic, so it's really like three, which is basically like one, so there ya go.

Work hard.
The very first thing that always pops into my head when I hear a question like this is a comment that my dad made to me while we were at the show barn and I was about 14.  No doubt I was whining about my friends being at the lake or at the movies or whatever fun thing that "normal" kids did, while we were, again, spending 3 hours at the barn walking pigs and working lambs.  My dad said, "Tiffany, we may get beat, but we'll never get outworked."  A similar piece of advice on this topic came from one of my favorite people, my ag teacher, a couple of years later when he went on a rant at a judging contest where some of the girls apparently were more interested in other things.  He said, "Girls, you can't go around in a short skirt with poofy hair thinking everything is going to work out.  Sometimes you have to put pants on, pull your hair back, and get to work!"  Even now, more than a decade later, I try and live my life in accordance with these ideas.

 Finding God.
I distinctly remember a conversation with my mother about how some of our friends went to different churches than we did.  My mom said something that I've always remembered.  "You can find God in a lot of different churches."  I think that this comment has probably shaped my faith (and probably many of my friendships) more than any other statement ever has.  I am a firm believer that God is in many different churches, and whether you can feel him in one where you quietly pray on a kneeler or one where people yell and scream and flail their arms about while they are singing Amazing Grace, the point is that you're seeking him, and that you find the best place for you to feel him.

Relationship advice.
Long before I was in a serious relationship, I heard one of my best friends make a comment that I have always remembered and that I think was a seed of wisdom that I might not have understood at 21, but that I certainly understand and agree with now.  At SoulMate Friend's bridal shower, someone asked her what she loved the most about her husband.  She responded simply, "He's everything that I'm not."  When I was younger, I thought I needed someone exactly like me.  Someone who was loud and outgoing and Type-A and anal and whatever other adjectives you can come up with.  But what SoulMate Friend knew, and I've come to realize, is that maybe what we needed was someone who was quite different, but who could balance us out.  It has worked out for her and her sweet husband, Tuba Man, for sure and was something that I often think about The Boy from Texas.