Inspiration for April

This post has been percolating in my mind for the last week. There are so many blog posts I found this month that were inspiring and uplifting to me that I considered splitting this post into two parts. However, it took me so long just to open my browser that I think it is better to just make one long list and have it over with. Here are the blog posts that touched my heart and/or made me smile this month: {Quick note. More than half of these posts are from the blog Meg in Progress. I have spent the last few months reading every last post that woman has written, because I find her words very inspiring. So yes, this is kind of a fangirl post for Meg this month. But seriously, read her work. You won't regret it}

:: Meg of Meg in Progress writes a day in her typical stay at home mom life as an antidote to the instagram-perfect lives we all believe each other to be living.

:: Meg in Progress also has a blog series she calls A Call to Womanhood and it resonates so much with me. In this post she talks about feminism and what it means to her. She defines feminism in a way that makes sense to me. Hopefully soon I will get out a post I have been writing in my head for months about my views on feminism. Keep this post in mind when you read it.

:: More of A Call to Womanhood. This post is about woman's intrinsic worth as a daughter of God.

:: Still more of this wonderful blog series. This post is about choice -- knowing what is right for our families and ourselves.

:: This post in the Call to Womanhood series was perhaps the most tender for me. It deals with the way sometimes, others don't see the worth that we have. They don't appreciate the contributions we bring to the table. Femaleness seems to bring with it cliques, and I know we all have felt rejected at one time or another. This post is about realizing that just because you aren't appreciated doesn't mean you aren't worthwhile -- that there is a place for you, and those who exclude you are the only ones who are losing out.

:: For book club this month, we are reading the book Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. I found it fortuitous that this little article on her life was posted on the inter webs this month. Also loved this quote: "There were other values, I was beginning to learn, more important than discretion or even privacy. As I discovered the following spring, in the abyss of the tragedy, I needed to return to a deeper resource. I had to write honestly." 

:: A friend's beautiful expression of the power of the Atonement in her life. 

:: The importance of checking in with postpartum moms. Because hopefully, the postpartum experience is a glowing, special time. But it can also be a dark time of struggle, and as women, we need to help each other.

:: Trying to be positive through dark, difficult times.

:: More thoughts on how picture-perfect instagram and likes on a Facebook status don't make the woman.

:: Thoughts (from Meg in Progress again) about a Heavenly Mother.

:: A bio of an LDS woman who has been called to work outside the home by personal revelation. (Nice to know there are more of us out there).

:: This is my fantasy-dream. (Scott, are you reading this?) I would love to do this someday!

:: Okay I know this is at the bottom, but this is my favorite thing that I have read this month. My absolute favorite. I read it at work and I was crying real tears the entire time. Read it.

:: How to be awesome.