30 Days of Truth

Day 30 → A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

Wow, I can’t believe this is the last one.  Doesn’t seem like it has been thirty days already.

So, I’m not going to write a letter to myself.  I am going to tell you everything I love about myself though. 

I love my husband.  I love my kids.  I love my family.  I love my church, my friends, my doggie and kitties.  I love my home (even when it’s messy).  I love where I live.  I love my state.  I love the sunshine.  I love the rain.  I love the clouds.  I love the thunder.  (I don’t love the crazy heat though.)  I love rainbows.  I love the grass and trees and flowers.  I love the butterflies and birds and dragonflies.

What?  These aren’t things about myself?  Actually… they are.  They are things about me because they are part of me.

My husband has helped me, supported, encouraged me, and loved me into the person I am today.  Sure, I had something to do with it… but it is incredibly hard to go through something without a support system– and he has been my support system.

My kids are the best parts of me.  My happiness is tied to their happiness.  They have taught me how to love unselfishly, wholeheartedly, and unconditionally.  They have also taught me how easy it is to disappoint, and how easy it is to forgive.  It is amazing how something that seems so important becomes so insignificant when you become a mother.  I am blessed to be their mother.  Truly blessed.

My family helped to mold and shape me; teach me and guide me.  From my Mom and Dad to my grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters, and brothers… they have all had a part in shaping me into who I am.  Whether it be from advice, by example, or just their love… they are a part of me.

My church and friends are my extended family.  They are that outside support system that I need on so many occasions.  They are they for me to lean on when I need to lean.  They are there to help up when I fall down.  They help me to see the good parts of myself and the parts that need work.  And they do it with love.

Everything else is just extras.  The icing on the cake.  I love my pets… they keep me company when I’m the only one home.  They listen, and don’t talk back.  And they love me no matter what I do.  My home is where I’m most comfortable.  It is where I surround myself with the things that make me happy… it is where we are a family.  Same for my state and where I live in my state.  The community we live in is great.  Neighbors help neighbors.  Everyone knows everyone.  (Everyone may not like everyone, but that’s okay too.)  It’s a slow southern life-style… why be in such a hurry anyway?  I like to enjoy the life God has given me, in the time He has for me.   And I love the beauty of His creation all around me.  The sunshine, rain, clouds, thunder, rainbows, grass, trees, flowers, butterflies, birds, dragonflies… all created by His hand.  These things are all a part of my happiness.  All a part of what makes me… me.

Most importantly, I love my Lord and Savior.  Without Him, none of these people or things would have been placed in my life.  Without Him, I wouldn’t be who I am.  He has allowed people, places, circumstances, and things to mold me into the person He wanted me to be.

I love all these parts of me.  I love being… me!

The End.

Day 29 → Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.

Outwardly, I’d like to change my weight.  I’ve struggled with it for the past five years, after the birth of my Lil Man, and somewhat before.  Mostly since.  Before I became pregnant, I was losing slowly.  While I was pregnant, I lost a little.  After he was born, I lost a lot.  But in the months after his birth, I started slowly gaining.  Five years later, I’ve gained an embarrassing amount of weight, and now am at my highest weight ever.  Forty of these unwanted pounds came about 3 years ago when I was on the wagon (read: quit smoking) for seven months.  Forty pounds. In. Seven. Months.  Yes, you are reading that right.  The sad part is I didn’t even realize I was gaining that much that fast.  But I did.  And have since added a few more pounds to it.  I hate having weight issues.

Losing weight is the absolute hardest thing anyone will ever do in their life!  (Anyone who has less than 20 pounds to lose, I don’t want to hear it.  Try needing to lose upwards of 50 and then you can come talk to me.)  What we eat is what generally causes weight gain.  Food is something we must have in order to live. Quitting smoking?  Drinking?  Drug abuse?  Doesn’t even compare.  Those are things our bodies don’t require.  Food is a requirement.  We can’t just stop eating.   Doesn’t work that way.

And it’s not as simple as just ‘pushing back’ or ‘cutting back’ or ‘counting calories’ or any of the other things I’ve heard thinner people say.  For them, maybe, and probably because they only need to lose a few pounds– 10, 15, 20 or less.  For someone who needs to lose more than 50 pounds who doesn’t eat that much to begin with, it’s much harder.  Much MUCH harder.

It’s also not just about eating healthy.  Been there.  Done that.  Didn’t work.  I cut out fried foods.  I ate more green stuff than I care to discuss.  I disowned my precious Coca~Cola.   Chocolate was a thing of the past.  (Which by the way, is something I only indulge in once a month– during that ever-so-lovely cycle that is a woman’s best [not] friend.)  I did this for months.  My reward?  A couple pounds.

Incorporating exercise is a help, but not a cure all.  We dedicated an entire room of our house as our ‘gym.’  We spend I don’t even want to tell you how much money on equipment to fill our ‘gym.’  (Equipment that is now gathering dust as we moved back to our hometown into a home that is not even half the size of the one we own.)

And since I mentioned the lack of room we have now, don’t even mention using the great ‘outdoors’ to me.  We live in Mississippi.  Do you have any idea how hot this summer has been?  No?  Well, just to give you an idea… we had several weeks of temps in three digits.  Those same weeks, the heat indices were topping out in the 120-130 range.  In other words, when you walked outside my house and stood in the shade, the air temperature felt about 120 degrees, and more.  People died because of the heat.  We have disgustingly sticky humidity.  Every.single.day.  Just a normal summer here.  Spring?  Spring brings storms nearly everyday; and humidity.  Fall?  What fall.  It’s September.  It was 95 yesterday; heat index… about 105.  Again, humidity.  Kids trick-or-treat in shorts around here.  Winter?  Rain. Rain. and more Rain.  Then. Bitter cold.  Like in the teens bitter.  Do you know what wet cold feels like?  It’s painful.  If we sling a snowball at you (that is, if we’re lucky enough to get a dusting) you better duck… that thing will be as hard as a baseball!

Am I making excuses?  No.  I know the only way I will ever overcome this issue of weight is to incorporate exercise (and healthier eating habits- which is out of our grocery budget right now.  Thank you Mr. Economy).  But to do that, here, where I live, means spending money on a gym membership.  Which also means driving no less than 30 miles one way to said gym.  I would love nothing more than to join a gym, but can’t afford it right now.  Some. Day.

For now, I will continue to be nicely padded.  Sure it makes shopping a royal pain in the rear, but I don’t like shopping anyway. 

Inwardly- there isn’t anything I’d change about myself.  I don’t really have the ability to change myself on the inside anyway.    I -have- changed but not of my own power.  The power of the Holy Spirit is an awesome thing… and the only true power to change a person at their core. Self-help gurus and books and all that mumbo jumbo about ‘spiritual healing’ and ‘enlightenment’ is all just that:  mumbo jumbo.  Only God has the power to change a person’s being.  Period.

Day 28 → What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?

Oh… oooh. What a question!  Well, it is impossible for me to get someone pregnant because… I’m a giiiirl.    So that one is out of the way.

If I were pregnant?  What are you trying to do to me, huh?

Ok, so it’s not possible for me to be/get pregnant.  Well, maybe ‘not possible’ isn’t the right way to say it.  In the words of my doctor… the “chances of getting pregnant are as good as the chances of throwing a deck of cards in the air and catching the ace of spades.”  So yeah, don’t think I’ll be getting pregnant anytime before menopause. *fingers and toes and eyes and arms and legs crossed*  haha

But.. if it were to happen? I instructed my doc while signing the consent form that if I did get pregnant once the surgery was over, he’d be the first to know because I’d be coming after him for child support!  I was joking, of course.  And he got the joke, and my point.  (Plus, I’d already been told that there is a very small chance that I’d ever be able to carry another child to full term and getting pregnant wasn’t exactly easy.)  So, no more babies for me.  The baby factory is closed.  Permanently.  Not gone fishing.  Not on vacation.  Closed.  With cobwebs and all.  Yep.