Operation: Cutie Pie Has Begun

It's no big secret (or maybe it is, but it's not a secret from me due to the fact that it's pretty hard for me to keep secrets for myself) that I struggle with confidence issues.

I fluctuate wildly day to day moment to moment between thinking I am the cutest cutie face ever to not even wanting to acknowledge or deal with my face that's always breaking out and splotchy, with my lifeless hair, with my belly fat and love handles, with my clothes that just never. fit. right.

Can you tell where I am on the confidence scale currently?

But, listen. I'm not a total headcase. I know that I have all the elements of a beautiful lady. I just need to learn and be willing to invest time into making my look come together so that I can feel sure that I'm looking my best. Because those days when I'm wearing ill-fitting clothes and I've thrown my hair up in a messy bun and my makeup consists of chapstick, I just don't feel good.

Some people do and that's awesome. Yay, you guys! I fully support that. For me personally, though, I need to put some effort into myself to feel outstanding.

Which is where Operation: Cutie Pie comes into play.

I took the day off work yesterday. I didn't request it off with the intention of O:CP in mind, but when I started visualizing my day off, I decided that I did want to start the journey into feeling better about the way I present myself to the world. It's crossed my mind a lot recently that it would be fun to start playing around with different hairstyles and makeup, since I pretty much do the same thing every day right now and with the help of Pinterest and tutorials from thebeautydepartment.com, there aren't any excuses. I could very seriously try a different hairstyle and makeup style every day for the next year and not repeat. Which is totally cray and I have no intention of doing, but I could if I wanted to. So, maybe two days a week, I'll play around with it.

Since I had nowhere to go yesterday, except Sprouts, I went with a sixties updo and what started out as a cateye, but turned into SmokeyTown, USA instead.

I posted the result of my playtime to Instagram yesterday.(Can't figure out how to get Instagram pics in a post! Help?)

Annnnnnyhow. To the point. My main source of upset is clothes that don't look good and/or that I don't feel good in.

My brilliant idea? Fix my wardrobe up!

1. Pull all my clothes out of their various hiding places.
2. Remove any clothes that no longer fit or I no longer wear.
3. Remove any tops that don't match at least two bottoms.

That's just the beginning, of course, but I feel like I'm on track to getting the clothes situation under control.

Here's part one of the clothing portion of O:CP.

That's everything.

These are the clothes that don't get to stick around, plus a sudoku book for kicks. The top picture is the before and the bottom picture is everything packaged up for the nearest thrift store or church rummage sale.

Some examples of what is being sent away. The world's shortest skirt that I wore to Eric's 80s birthday party, but never will again because my butt hangs out and that's inappropriate. Ex-boyfriend penguin boxers. The nightgown I bought in high school to wear once I got pregnant. (Hi, Roxy!) A prairie skirt?

Activity specific clothes, which are my workout and camping clothes. These are the clothes I should not be seen in unless I am doing physical activity or I am out in the woods. The workout clothes go into what is still referred to as my "gym bag", although I haven't had a gym membership in over a year. I'm not sure where to store the camping clothes. Suggestions?

Clothes for altering, hemming, otherwise fixing.

Organization is exhausting. Roxy will tell you all about it, if you have the time.

There ya go. That was my day off. I also made shutterbean's Curried Chicken with Coconut Rice and even after reading her fair warning, I have stained my cuticles with curry and they, no matter how much I wash my hands, smell of onion and curry. Yums.

Curry cuticles. One more step toward confidence. It's the hot new thing.

New Years Goals (NOT RESOLUTIONS!)

Not. Resolutions. I don't make them because I don't keep them.

I thought to myself toward the end of December that it would be nice to have monthly goals. I'd like to better myself. Always want to be improving and growing. Wouldn't it be nice to make new mind, body, and spirit goals each month? Of course it would!

January came with the following goals:

Mind: Complete 4 crosswords per week

Body: Complete my gym strength training workout 3 times per week.

Spirit: Learn to keep a plant alive.

Full disclosure: None of these goals is going very well.

Let me tell you something. New York Times crosswords are hard, friend. It's like they're written in some alien language. I should have, as mom suggested, started with the People Magazine crosswords. Those I can handle. You may show me a picture of Bradley Cooper for 1-across & I can fill in his name. I'm talented like that. But " 29-down: They're fed at the side of the road"? Um...pardon? Tigers? Astronauts? Weeds? Your mom? Couldn't that be anything that fits in the boxes? Anything?

I'll keep trying to complete them and perhaps they'll become easier with practice, but this week, I'm just frustrated.

My body goal has not even been attempted. I know what I need to do at the gym & had been doing it until this month. I also know what I can do at home on the days I don't go to the gym. But, this week, my fitness attempts have consisted of a few sets of triceps extensions, a few sets of one-arm dumbbell rows (heavier that I've ever attempted before, btw!), and a walk to the post office. Sad.

The worst part about it is not that I've missed my goal, but that I love working out & feel great afterward, but have been unable to push myself to do it. When I get home, I just need to put my gym clothes on and, if I still can't manage to exercise after that, then fine. I can lie in bed watching Morning Glory and No Strings Attached. I think changing clothes will push me enough, though.Update to follow.

Technically, my last goal is going very well since I haven't killed any plants this week. I'm not sure a plant could die that quickly. Mama Barr graciously gave me an herb garden for Christmas and the idea of having fresh herbs at home thrills me. I think I either water too much or don't water enough. I don't know how one figures out what the correct amount of water for each plant might be. Trial & error has not served me well in life as far as not killing plants is concerned. This goal is important to me, though. I'd like to think that I'll be able to have a functioning garden someday. I hear keeping plants alive is an integral part of a functioning garden.

It appears this has become a "how I failed at the New Year" post.

I've done one thing I'm proud of. Let's talk about that! I bought a journal from amazon.com in which you write one line about each day for the next 5 years. I've written down the highlight of my day every day for five whole days. I know. I'm sort of an inspiration. I know it'll be great to look back on this in 2017 and see what made me happy through the years.

I hope everyone's first week of the new year has been lovely and successful and that the following 51 weeks are as well!

Ok, Universe. I get it.

I'm meant to be unhealthy and lumpy.

The Universe commands it.

See, I'm on a fitness kick thanks to Candice and fitocracy. I've been, for the first time EVER, working out regularly and actually pushing myself.

The Universe gave me a gentle hint last week when two girls walked into the dinky gym in my complex ahead of me. They proceeded to plop themselves unceremoniously on the last two machines. One of those was supposed to be mine! Do you know what they did then? I'll tell you. They sat there and talked, their legs barely moving. Who are these people? I did some weights in the meantime, realized no one was giving up a machine any time soon, and began a quick walk back home. I consider that quarter mile my cardio for the day.

I brazenly ignored that subtle hint, though, and hiked on both Wednesday and Saturday last week. I do what I want, Universe! I've been a bit sore, but was ready to get back into the game today until the Universe decided to BREAK ME!

I was nesting last night. Like vacuum under the bed, rearrange the furniture, put unwanted clothes in a bag for the thrift store levels of nesting. When I was done, I thought I'd attack the kitchen while I was at it. I opened the dishwasher to throw some dirties in and then, being the multi-tasker that I am decided to start the baked oatmeal I had planned for breakfast. I went to my room to grab the ol' laptop and, as I walked back to the kitchen, I began to search for the recipe. Multi-tasking! Woot!

Let me recap for you.

Holding a laptop.

Searching for a recipe.

Eyes on the screen.

Walking into the kitchen.

Now I'm going to need you to picture this last part in slow motion.

I walk full speed into the open dishwasher door. I manage to hit it with both shins simultaneously. I begin to fly (no joke) over the door. In that instant, my laptop was worth more than my life because I hold it up in the air as I come crashing down to the ground. In that last moment before the collision, I managed to turn so I wouldn't land on my face.

Good news: laptop & face are fine!

Bad news: my ass is broken.

I caught a lot of air as I sailed over the dishwasher door and all that weight came down on my right cheek. I could not sleep on that side last night. I can not sit on it today. It's such a deep injury that there's not even a bruise yet (but, lord, there are some nasties on my shins).

In any case, it didn't work. I'm still doing Miramar Lake's five miles today.

I'm not sure I'm ready for what the Universe has in store for me next. Wish me luck!

Food as Fuel: Day 1

I had another one of my brilliant ideas last week. Some people say I get on these kicks & then give up on them after three days &, of course, those people are right. Something must be done, though. I haven't been very routine about meals and the past few weeks have been an excruciating cycle of skip breakfast, eat a huge, greasy lunch, feel sick, and eat a pretty healthy dinner. (Points for the semi-healthy dinner, right?)

So, the idea. Well, boredom at work births most of these plans and this time was no different. I spent a good amount of time creating a table in Word to plan out a general daily meal plan, which resulted in the following guidelines:

Morning pick-me-up

Smoothie (spinach, almond milk, frozen blueberries, flax meal, chia seeds)

Breakfast

Oatmeal with dried apricots & peanut butter

or

Egg sandwich on an everything bagel thin

Lunch

Salad with tons of veggies and a protein (I'm working with garbanzo beans and roasted chicken this week)

Afternoon snack

baby carrots with Laughing Cow light swiss
crackers

Dinner

whatever that may be

The idea is to eat every few hours so I don't get too hungry or cranky, both of which usually lead to questionable food decisions.

I'm also hoping that this plan will give me the energy to, you know, actually move around. Maybe squeeze some physical activity in?

For now, I have no idea how many trillions of calories or grams of fat I'll be consuming in these meals nor do I can. This is more a test to determine how I feel when eating regular, smallish meals.

I'm moving my thinking from food as obligation and into food as fuel.

Here We Go Again!

For realsies, this time it's going to stick and here are the reasons:

1. I'm reading a lot more, so I'll be inspired to write a lot more, right?

2. I got a great pep talk ass-kicking yesterday that was not intended for me, but made me feel hopeful and inspired about my own writing (http://thepioneerwoman.com/blog/2010/09/ten-important-things-ive-learned-about-blogging/)

3. I finally (finally!) realized I'm writing for myself. Just me, no one else. That's beyond freeing.

That's pretty much it. It's simple, but this time I will be blogging regularly. At least once a day, even if it's just a picture of my feet. But I promise there won't be too many of those. No more than five a month.

Happy reading!

D