In the Interest of Self Love

Today has been less than stellar.

Much like this selfie. And the trim job on the bangs. Oy vey.

That Sprout woke up with a fever which kept her from going to school. That would have been all fine and well and good were it not for the fact that I had to go to lesson planning for the Deep workshop tomorrow. I brought her along and as the hour wore on, I could feel my rage, frustration, and despair rising up inside of me. "Why won't she just follow directions?!?!" I wanted to scream. She's 3 and she doesn't feel good, that's why. At least I had the presence of mind to recognize my anger and was therefore able to keep it under control. Although, I wonder if my snarky remarks to my child painted me as the biggest asshole on the planet? Better calm snark than screaming though, right? Right.

A photo of the little beast's shoes during the 17 seconds she sat still today.

The rest of the day was spent waiting for her doctor's appointment where we found out that she has an upper respiratory viral infection. Yay. She can't go to school tomorrow, so that's fun. I don't know what I'm going to do. Take her with me to Deep, I guess. That will be fun.

That Sprout is a pro at showing her booty.

While we were killing time I had hoped that she would feel puny and want to watch Kipper so that I could get some writing and critiquing done. Not so much. I did manage to tend to some of the gasoline damaged books I had hoped to salvage. They were un-salvageable, so I took pictures of them before tossing them in the trash. It was hard. I hate waste.

This was the hardest book to say goodbye to.
I never finished it!

Somehow though, I did take some pictures of my tummy to submit to The Tummy Project - a body love website that is run by my old pal from college, Raynala. The photo I submitted hasn't been posted yet, so in the meantime, I thought I would share them here.

Behold: My Tummy.

The idea is that I need to love my body the way it is if I'm ever going to be successful in changing it. Funny thing - I don't exactly hate my body anyway. I hate a lot of things about my body. That is true. And, a lot of the time I do hate my body. But sometimes I look in the mirror and think "I'm kinda hot."

I am surprised by how un-gross my legs actually are. 

Then I remember that I have never made it with anyone who weighed more than me at any given time. I remember I outweigh all of my crushes, celebrity and otherwise, by at least 15 pounds. Sometimes I outweigh them by close to 50 pounds. But there's a silver lining to this - I am closing the gap. This time last year those numbers would have been 35 and 70. That's progress.

Now, to break 210.

I know that I will never look like *insert ideal female specimen*, but I can be healthy. Healthy is good. Normal blood tests are good. Stamina is good. Being told how hot I am is good, and while I don't hear that as often as I once did (could that be a result of making better social choices?), I still hear it from time to time. There are men out there, my husband included, who appreciate both what is underneath my skin and my clothes. As for the ones who would cringe to see me naked? Fuck em'. I don't want to have naked time with them anyway.

And since we're on the subject of bodies, I love my nose. A lot. I am pleased
to report that my septal perforation should not cause my beautiful nose to
cave in, leaving me to look like a coke addicted Michael Jackson. Praise be.