women are so mean sometimes.

women. why are women so weird sometimes? why are we so degrading to ourselves? why do we put ourselves down so often? do we not realize that we are all SO beautiful in so many ways?! i don't get it. i am a complete victim of this horrendous act that women so often commit to themselves. i don't get how easy it is to see someone else's beauty.. and completely forget about how beautiful you are.
i hate it. i hate it when i do it to myself. i hate it when i see others do it. i hate it that i put steven through my self pity stages. i hate it when i am all "woe is me".. i hate it when i don't think i am pretty.

i know i am a unique woman who has been given sooo many talents to help others. i know that i have been given attributes and qualities that make me, me. i know that i a beautiful daughter of our Father in Heaven. i know that His children, you and me, are of the most significant importance. i know that He loves EVERYONE. seriously.. i'm not just saying that. our Father in Heaven loves every single one of us.

then why is it so.. so .. SO easy to find ways to find flaws within our bodies.. within ourselves?

i think it's satan. satan plays tricks on us. satan.. wasn't granted a body like you and me. so satan attacks us. he lurers us in in ways so specific to each individual. he tells us that we aren't good enough. he tells us that we don't need to treat our bodies with respect.. he tries to make us think that our bodies our useless, ugly, and nobody even notices us. satan uses propaganda within ourselves to let us think that we aren't as pretty as the girls on tv.

well.. let me tell you something. don't ever.. ever think that. i know it's easy.. i know i fall victim to it time and time again.. but i also know how to get right back up. recently i wasn't feeling the greatest.. i made it easy for me to put myself down.. and i am so disappointed in myself. i am so disappointed that i would put myself down so much. i feel hurt.. but it's weird because i am the name caller, i am the bully, i am the one who through words stronger than stones... at myself.

i am frustrated that i would be so disrespectful to my own body, my own image. i know that i am loved, so dearly loved by my most wonderful, amazing husband. .. and why.. why would i be so mean to stephanie? so mean to the girl that is blessed in so, so many ways?

i don't have all the answers.. nor do i have the solution to a problem that women face day in and day out.. but i do know that i hate it when i am mean to myself. i do know that i am so incredibly lucky to have such wonderful family and freinds in my life. i am so lucky that i look like me.. and no one else. i am so lucky to have a healthy body. i am so lucky to have a full head of healthy, long, curly hair. i am so lucky to have blue eyes that i can see the beautiful things in the world. i am so lucky to have healthy hands, feet and muscles. i am so lucky to have a healthy smile so i can bring happiness to other people. i am so lucky to have a brain that is functional (most of the time). i am so lucky to be a woman.. to hopefully have the chance and opportunity to carry our children and give birth to those many miracles we hope to have. i am so lucky. it's hard to say because we live in a world that promotes humbleness and meekness, which is good,... but, as a female, i think it is absolutely necessary to look in the mirror, look at yourself right in the eye and tell yourself that you are pretty... and you're not just pretty. you are gorgeous. you have soo, so much worth and soo, soo many people love you for who YOU are. be beautiful. .. and don't just think you're beautiful, know you're beautiful.

i, stephanie melancon, am pretty. i am a beautiful daughter of God. i am the gorgeous wife of Steven and i am so, so thankful to be loved by such a wonderful man. i am not perfect.. but i know that the Lord will make my weaknesses into strengths if i let Him.

i love couponing!

okay so i recently really got into couponing. i got inspired by the show extreme couponing.. also i like couponing because steven and i are young newlyweds on a tight budget and coupons help us out a lot. we've probably saved more that a hundred dollars in coupons in the last month. that's a lot!! today we recently saved 49% of our order at Albertson's grocery store. Our total was originally over $60 and we ended up paying 34ish dollars. This was due to coupons, our savings card, and promotions. It was pretty cool because the deal for the week at Albertson's is that they are rounding all coupons up to a $1. So we had a couple coupons that rounded up to a dollar which more than doubled the coupon! Pretty cool right? Using coupons is fun. I recommend it.. plus you save a lot of money... and it is a good way to build up food storage. We didn't really need anything at the store, but because of the good deals we went and used coupons and purchased the food at low prices instead of paying full price later. It's fun :) We aren't food hoarders by any means... we just try to be very resourceful with the money we have.. and make it go as far as we can.

our honeymoon to myrtle beach.

steven and i went to myrtle beach on our honeymoon. we has such a great time! the weather was just perfect! we got there on sunday and they predicted hurricane irene to hit on that friday. we were so excited to see the weather before the hurricane.. and we really wanted to stay for the hurricane.. but we were already scheduled to leave on thursday rather than friday. bummer right? well.. it was probably safer that way. myrtle beach is like a combination of las vegas and disney world. it's pretty cool. there is probably like a hundred hotels along the beach strip. there are really, really nice ones and some not so nice ones. we stay in an inexpensive resort and were very happy. we played in the ocean, the very salty ocean, went to broadway at the beach multiple times, went to an aquarium and touched sting ray, ate at margaritaville, planet hollywood, hard rock cafe, and lots of other places. we had so, so much fun on our honeymoon. we loved it!

we went to yellowstone and didn't see any bears.

last weekend (sept. 9-10) steven and i went on a little camping trip with our friends jennifer and justin. we do a lot with jennifer and justin... they are pretty much our best friends here and they are pretty cool.. so it works. well on our camping trip we went to yellowstone and saw 673 geysers, 321 bison, 1 deer, and almost all of the united states according to license plates. okay maybe that was an exaggeration on the geysers.. but really we did see a lot. it was a lot of fun and i really like camping. we had received a dutch oven for a wedding present and also an inflatable mattress. we were excited to use both.. but we only got to use the dutch oven because apparently the charger to blow up the mattress needed to charger for 12 hours rather than the 12 minutes we had it attached to its power source. also we only had 1 sleeping bag! aren't we such good campers? haha!! well at least we had a tent and blankets and pillows and each other. i froze all night and was soooo incredibly uncomfortable because we slept on the ground with a sleeping bag as our mattress. it was a fun camping experience.. but i never want to sleep on the ground again! boy was i excited to return to our nice bed the next night! other than our lack of a mattress and heat in our tent, we had a great time cooking food over the fire. we made tin foil dinners and peach cobbler in our dutch oven. yum yum! yellowstone is really pretty.. we really liked it. there were a ton of people there too. we found pretty much every single us license plate except for like 4 or 5. it was pretty fun... also steven decided to cook an egg over the fire and it exploded. okay.. it kind of just cracked, but it was still cool.

our wedding!

well, many of you are probably wanting to see pictures of our wedding. our internet uploading speed is very slow... but here is a picture of steven and i just leaving the temple. our wedding ceremony was so beautiful and perfect. i loved it so much and i am so, so happy that i get to be with the love of my life, steven melancon, forever and ever! being married is pretty much really sweet. i love that we have our own home now. our own two bedroom apartment on the third floor. i love coming home to steven and greeting him when he returns. i love it! today i made apple cake (remember how we picked 26 pounds of apples?)... and the aroma of the baking cake greeted steven as he walked into the door... and i loved it! i love being a wife and being able to serve my husband in so many ways.. and i love it when steven does those special little things for me. the other day he cleaned up the living room (there were boxes everywhere because we were still unpacking) and did so much stuff around the apartment that i was soooo excited when i came home. i love my husband.. and in six days we've been married for a month! hooray!

We went apple picking!

Last night Steven and I and our friends Jennifer and Justin went to an apple orchard on BYU-Idaho's campus. It was really fun and really pretty. A storm was rolling in so the colors were just beautiful. There were so many different types of apples and so many different trees! Probably more than 100. I think all of the apples were crossbred or something. We just kind of picked whatever we thought looked good.. and we ended up picking 26 pounds of apples! Our friends picked 28 pounds... that's a grand total of 54 pounds of apples! Holy moly! But guess what, our 26 pounds of apples only cost us $13 because the apples were only 50 cents a pound. Good deal right? Well later that night we, along with Jennifer and Justin, made and canned 20 pounds of apples into applesauce... and it is scrumptious!

something that you could never get tired of doing.

day 29 something that you could never get tired of doing.

looking into his eyes.