Pretty hilarious

Most of our lives we are told that we have to look a certain way. Men are supposed to be stoic and show little emotion. Women (at least from my experience) are told that a smile is their daily required mask. As a child anything less than simple grins and you'll have men and women yelling at you from their backyards about how a smile doesn't cost anything or how you're going to look so much prettier if you smile.  I find it so odd having complete strangers insisting that they get a smile out of me.  I have no emotional connection to them and yet they feel they are personally put out that I'm not giving them the comfort of a smile.  I'm not a very confrontational person (for the most part), so I tend to give in and smile. I've had people come out of their yards and talk to me about how I need to smile because "it isn't as bad as it seems"... as if they know how a stranger's life can go from day to day. Let's keep in mind this is when I was a kid walking to and from school so I had to be in front of a lot of monitoring busybodies the whole way.

 The only expression should be of a pleasant disposition without being overly emotional.  To this day I find my default emotion is a smile. This has been a problem at times when a grin isn't really appropriate but it is my go to facial expression. The only time that I would feel free would be making funny faces.   I would stand in front of the mirror and make funny faces at myself. I would crack myself up laughing for as long as I could. So let me tell you how excited I was to find a group of women exactly like me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PrettyGirlsUglyFaces

These women understand how fun manipulating your face can be. The standards of beauty are tossed  aside for a while to make something of pure joy. It reminds us not to take ourselves too seriously and we get to see the spectacularly different ways our facial muscles can move.

I highly recommend this to anyone that is feeling down about themselves or how they look.  You can always make yourself look like you're happy. Or you can make a funny face and be happy.  Good luck finding a new way to move your face today.

Ocean drives for inspiration **Updated** Photo of paintings added

Today I went for a drive with my friend Adrien and my roommate Maddy to the ocean. We saw some spectacular waves coming in from the North Atlantic that made me so happy. 

We basked in the wonder and majesty that is our beautiful world's powerful wind and waves.... then scampered back to my place to have a paint night. We gave ourselves an hour to come up with and finish a painting.  We had such different works in the end that it was fascinating and wonderfully gorgeous. 

Adrien's painting was inspired by futuristic military with a dynamic background. Mine was a reflection on the various shades of blue we saw and the extreme white of mist and white caps.