Life Lessons and Models

Okay, so Jeff and I did a fashion shoot for the dress business in Jersey City, and it was very interesting to learn a few things about myself there. Also, I have been faced with some life changes recently which have taught me a few more things about myself. A chat with a good friend of mine a few weeks before I moved from Utah also enlightened me on these same changes. And I keep thinking about them. So I'm going to empty my head and share my self-reflective mind set with all of you.

It's interesting to see how I change over time -- to get, over a relatively small period of time, various angles that seem to accentuate who I have become versus who I was, say... 10 or 15 years ago.

I will elaborate on a few said moments of enlightenment. First, was when I moved out to Ohio and gave up my gym membership. Previously, I have been nigh short of addicted to exercise and said membership. Not that I don't work out in Ohio. I do. But I can't bear doing home aerobics more than 2-3 times a week. (It takes way too much inspiration and creativity. I mean, seriously, I have to come up with a kick-my-patooty routine each time. I'm just not up for it more than that.) And I admit that I greatly anticipate the blessed occasion when I know where my job is located so I can commit to a convenient gym location and get a new membership. But I've been without it for more than two months, and who knows when I'll get a job. And despite my precarious situation with no gym membership in sight, I am happy and functioning just fine.

This may not seem like a big thing to a lot of you. But having been someone who used exercise quite abusively as a tool to moderate and control my weight and alleviate poor eating habits, it's nice to know I'm actually free of that problem. To compound my issues in the past, not having access to exercise would exacerbate my poor eating habits. Now, I find, within reason, I can eat healthfully consistently even without, and my weight does not balloon when I can't exercise as regularly as I'd like. And to think how afraid I used to be!

Another realization or two came during the fashion shoot. First, when the stylist asked me if fashion had always been something I was passionate about. I responded honestly that I didn't really have a good enough sense of self to be fashion savvy up until I graduated from college. Or around then. It is only a recent love. How interesting that is to me. I always had a sense of asthetics and I know I've always loved shoes (though I used to love much quirkier ones). But I wasn't competent in dressing myself well (and I still think I have improvements to make on that score) until I had the self assurance and took the right self care and thought that I could actually look good in something.

Even now, I look back at pictures from when I was in high school and earlier and I would say to you that I don't look pretty. It wasn't all my fault. My mother didn't know about how to maintain hair or use product on it, so I didn't either. Payless Shoe Source was THE place for shoe shopping (it pains me so now) and I thought high fashion was The Gap, because I knew I never shopped there. I wasn't exposed to fashion and I was never taught to primp or do girly stuff, for the most part. It wasn't in my mother's repertoire. And really, her eating and dieting habits weren't so great either. So I picked up on that pretty well. And then, of course, I didn't take very good care of myself. I was short and a little tubby. I actually had my pediatrician tell me I needed to lose weight. Now THAT is traumatizing. Even if it WAS true and meant for my good. Reality checks are often painful.

My awareness about "primping" came from my sister and college roommates. And they did a pretty good job. That was the good news. And I'm still learning about primping. I don't want to BE high maintenance, but I think it might be a good idea to look high maintenance if I want to. :) The bad news -- However, my awareness of needing to exercise went into overdrive and my eating habits went down the toilet, and they both took years to get back to normal. And maybe this is incredibly girly and superficial of me, but in reality, I find all of those things very attached to my self confidence and sense of self awareness. I warrant that I really didn't have it together enough to have sufficient confidence for a long time. And it showed. With all of these things. It's like they were symptoms of all my problems on the inside.

Another realization came during the fashion shoot as well. The model showed up around 9:30. To my surprise, when I first saw her she didn't look all that amazing to me. I was surpised to find her hair frizzy and curly like mine and her face looked washed out. Her complexion was freckled and she looked a lot thinner than she did in the pictures we saw of her(which I guess is always the case). Once the stylists got their hands on her and she was primped, of course, she achieved heights of beauty I don't even aspire to, but her original appearance was, believe it or not, quite average. I also helped her get in and out of the dresses in the back. And thus, as both my brother and I had to do, we got an eyeful of the model several times throughout the day. Well, again to my surprise, I was not shocked and mystified by her amazing curves and perfection. I was pretty much of the mind, to quote my thoughts, " eh, I think I'm just fine in comparison." WHAT?!?! I don't know that I've ever thought of myself as all that great-looking when down to my skivvies. But I never thought I'd live to see the day when I saw a model and didn't wish to trade bodies. But I didn't. I don't think it's because mine is so perfect. I REALLY don't think that. But I think I've gotten to a point where I'm....... satisfied. For the most part. Though, I admit, not every day.

I wonder how this happened. To me, of all people. I mean, ESPECIALLY considering how bad my mindframe used to be. Well, I don't know. Maybe because I've stopped torturing it. And I try to take relatively good care of it and keep it healthy. The result? Now I'm starting to like it. Crazy how that works.

Even more to the point, the contrast of being at this place from where I was before is SOOOOO different. I don't know that I completely remember how it was to be me BEFORE getting better. Before having achieve what I consider to be some degree of normalcy. I just remember it was relatively miserable and a great impediment to progress not to have it before. I don't know that it would be so debilitating for a lot of other people. But for me, I am very thankful for the freedoms, the confidence and the blessings of having gotten past poor diet, poor exercise regimens, poor body image and lack of confidence. I am certain, without it, I would not have this business venture, I would not have many of my good friends as good friends, I would not have my husband , I would not have accomplished a lot of things, I would not be dependabel AT ALL, and I would not have a great deal of happiness.

I don't mean to say that I am blessed because I am thinner and prettier now. No. In fact, the very first realization and big step to getting better for me, when I was tubby, unhealthy and considered myself very unpretty and less than average looking, was that if I was to be healthy and happy, I had to give up caring so much about being pretty and start believing the crap I told other people: that you're a person of value no matter what you look like. It's your insides that count. And I relegated myself to the idea that guys may never find me attractive and I may never get married (yes, I admit, these things seemed to equate to giving me some sort of value and validation in my early twenties), but I will be happy and a person of value who has something to contribute regardless. I couldn't get better without that. Now I am, in greatest measure, thankful to be healthier, wiser and happier. Those qualities are great confidence builders, great measures of beauty and and bring me much joy and many blessings. How's that for a Christmas present.

New week, new day...very few thoughts!

The Thanksgiving holiday is really just ending for me. I know, I know, it has been over for well over a week, but I am just returning to my humble abode this afternoon, and I figured I would say hello to celebrate all the wonderful treats I enjoyed while away in the wild wild west we call Minnesota. It was a running theme that my older sibling, we'll call Hoser and his peculiarly enjoyable family, including Tootz (ˈṫtz) and the little 'ns live in the wild wild west because they are about 45 minutes outside of Minneapolis. Now, that may not seem like a very far distance, and in reality it isn't, but coming from a New York City suburb, let's just say that in 45 minutes, I feel like I should be hunting or something with that much greenier. And it appears that they do have aspirations of such.

Hoser tends to be a piro, burning everything flammable. Once he torched a couch and a few other things in his backyard, and I believe the flames were taller than the house! Then, the other day he brought home a package of dry ice from work (it was used to transport human organs...nice eh?) so that we could make dry ice bombs! And to top it off, he has been driving around with a hand gun in his trunk, and of the two of them (Tootz and Hoser) Tootz is the one with a carry permit. Go figure!

So, yes, Minnesota is for all intents and purposes in my mind the wild wild west...full of backyard blazes, gun totin' hosers, and home made pyrotechnics! And fortunately for me, I love 'em for that. Although I have no ambition of being a gun-totin', fire startin', bomb throwin' wild frontiersman, I do enjoy watching them get excited about the myriad of entertainment and enjoyment those activities provide them. And it makes me laugh every time they talk about it....and who can pass up a good laugh...I mean really?

Anyways, it is back to the world of the working and living for me..who woulda known?

Pictures & Thoughts

Okay, so I haven't posted pictures in ages. This is largely due to the fact I gave my laptop, which has my camera down-loading software, to my fashion illustrator for an extended period of time. I got it back when I moved to Ohio, but then I didn't have the internet at home and I've been lazy. Sorry. I'm trying not to be. Thankfully, there aren't that many photos to catch you up on because I am very bad at remembering to take pictures. However, I thought I might give you all a good view of Spain Highlights.



Above is a picture of me inside a Church in Cordoba, Spain which was originally built by muslims as a mosque. It was built using aquaduct construction, thus all of the arches all over the place. It was the most unique of all the churches we visited (and we visited A LOT of them), and very cool. The Christians started to deconstruct it and build it their way, but when they realized they were destroying something really really cool they stopped. Smart. So it's mostly all there as the muslims intended.




Here is a big door, Ben size apparently. Or so he thinks. Gotta love a man who likes a challenge. :) We saw these big doors EVERYWHERE in Spain. There were some signigicantly bigger than this, in fact. The funniest thing was, they would cut doors INTO the big doors that they could actually open without employing cavalry and slaves. But they cut these doors to be very small. They were more my size door. Either too big or too small. Those Spaniards just can't win.



And OHHHHH the pretty gardens. I believe this is a picture in Cordoba as well, outside of a palace. How convenient. I needed a resting place.



I think Ben's alter-ego is a medieval warrior. That would explain all of his video-game obsession with warring, his need to tickle me to death and attempt to wrestle on occasion (which I ignore or flail defeatedly), and this picture. You might say this trip afforded a kind of "coming home" to his alter-ego roots.



We noticed the Spanish, and Europeans in general for that matter, are very good at employing what Ben would call "water features." Sharon would call them "fountains", but whatever. We really liked them. They're pretty. Call them whatever you want.



Here we have cute Ben hanging out at one of the restaurants we ate at. This one was known for its fine seafood fair. Ironically, I'm not sure either of us got seafood. They had really good food in Spain. However, they had some seafood that was a bit too exotic for our taste: anemone, sea urchin.... stuff I haven't seen. Dead or alive. But what we DID eat was delicious. We didn't have a bad meal, I don't think. One thing we missed out on was the traditional "tapas" menu -- lots of little hors d'ouvres type dishes that you eat with while you drink beer and relax after a long days work. Since they were primarily served in pubs and we weren't beer drinkers, we felt a little silly going in for tapas. And most of those venues seemed harder to navigate for non-spanish speakers. Maybe next time?



Here we have a doorway, just my size. :) This is in a little hallway inside the largest fortress in Europe, called the "Alhambra", in Granada, Spain. It contains many palaces, small village areas for the servants to live... it was more like a city inside a fortress. And had great views. And lots of garden acreage. And a cool amphitheater. Very cool. It has a maximum of 11,000 people who can attend. Daily. Yeah, a bit like Disneyland. We had to buy expensive tickets with a tour guide to avoid the lines (who wants to wait in a Disneyland sized line on their honeymoon at 7 am on a cold morning?). Very cool place. Did I mention? It was cool.



Here we have Ben and I on a carriage ride through Sevilla. We loved Sevilla and there was a lot to see there. But we only had one day to soak it all in, so we took a carriage ride that gave us a very good drive-by view of the big sites we didn't have time to walk to. And it took us through a lovely park and some big Spanish pavilion where they have a big official building with 5 bridges to it that represents the 5 queens of Spain and 9 sections (or something like that?) of the building, each different, meant to represent each Spanish province -- a very symbolic building.



Here we have me standing next to a phenomenon I loved about Spain. Electric bikes. They had these charging stations everywhere. And the people on the bikes weren't athletic bikers OR homeless people. Just people running errands -- going to the grocery store or going to school. They're so all about a nice, easy pace in Spain. Or at least in southern Spain. I really liked that.



Lastly, Ben and I found it very amusing that europeans like to name their stores the most peculiar, vulgar concoctions of english words. And the european customers love it. Yellow Rat Bastard? What?!? Serious? What does that even mean? You guys are so weird.


Ben and I are still setting into married life. We're on a tight budget right now as I haven't found a job yet and we found ourselves arguing this morning about which should be the bigger priority -- internet or gym memberships. I think everybody can guess which of us was arguing which side. Ah, the joys of married life. :)

Ben also mentioned this week that I should work on getting my name changed. Oh, yeah. Right. Really? I've always assumed I would change my name, but I have to admit.... it's kind of hard. I mean, I won't even change my cell phone number I've had for the past seven years for fear I might lose people. I need to change my name that I've had for the last 29 years? What if old high school friends can't find me on Facebook? And I can't hyphenate. That would be really really Asian. And I'm just not. Okay, okay, I'll do it. Next week, though? Maybe? :)