Galentines

L-R: Bex, Candice, Clarissa, me, and Tanee

Sometimes girls need to celebrate each other. They need to celebrate that before and after and during romantic relationships, girlfriends are there to complain to, cheer on, and reminisce with. Right before Valentines I got together with some friends of mine for a Galentines outing. I told them to come prepared to take pictures, and they did! I loved that Bex donned her red skirt, she was the talk of the day!

Fear is a road leading to boringville

About five years ago, a boyfriend told me that I put too much on my blog. "Too much" basically meaning I was being too honest and open. Thankfully, that boyfriend has been an ex for awhile, but I have had a hard time since then really just being open at the level I was before without discomfort. That boyfriend would also email me news stories about crimes committed in my area to prove to me that it wasn't safe for me to be going out at night. 

Remember, I live with a unique type of family, to give you an idea of what I mean: I walked into the laundry room to find two strange men washing their clothes and wasn't surprised. When I asked my dad who those men were, he said they were homeless and came back too late to get into the shelter (and would be spending the night.) Most of the people people were afraid of were at our house for supper on Sundays. Basically, has family has always lived with less fear than even is necessary at times. 

I said all that to say that I'm going back to the old me blogger. The one who didn't care about a lot of readers, but also didn't fear putting myself out there either. You know that movie "Me Before You"? It was one movie that I could watch a few more times, I cried in the theater. ANYWAY, the author of the book that movie was based on wrote another book that I'm reading now. It is called Paris For One (author is Jojo Moyes) and it's about a girl who never does anything without weighing the pros and cons. She is sensible, if sensible is the keyword for fearful. Then her worst nightmare happened, and her trip to Paris didn't go as planned. Through all the "mishaps" she learned to embrace the unknown! 

Do you know that I went to the post office on Valentines Day (looking a mess after a visit to the gym) and a guy standing near me packaging up his mail started a conversation and asked if I had a boyfriend for Valentines Day. I thought of how I probably looked, and was so embarrassed that I cut the conversation short so that he wouldn't ask for my number because I was sure it would be out of pity. Isn't that sad? I kept going back to it later in my mind, and realized that my fear of what he thought was almost surely worse than what he actually saw. And what if he had thought I looked at mess? Who cares? I don't even know him! I'm not traveling the road of fear to Boringville, my life is meant to be so much more than that. 

New Idea

When I was setting my New Year's resolutions I didn't actually plan on some of these things that I have now decided are really important to me to accomplish. At first I felt bad about it, and maybe a little guilty at the possibility that my goals I’d been so excited about just a couple months ago I wouldn't actually accomplish. I have sense come to the conclusion that one good thing about goals is that they can you know change and develop over time.

So there is this photo project that I want to do and it has to do with my hyper-pigmentation on my face. I found that I haven't really become less self-conscious about it, it's just that sometimes it's not as much at the forefront of my mind. Basically I'm used to it being there, but still don't like it and I still sometimes get the feeling that people are staring at me. For my birthday I want to do a special photo shoot for myself, and I have a friend who is a makeup artist and she will be able to do some really unique things. It’s all just living in my mind right now, but I'm working through the kinks. If you go through Pinterest you can find very fashion forward  pictures of freckled girls. If you look for something similar for acne scars or hyper-pigmentation (that isn’t just advertisement for getting rid of them) you won’t find a thing. I'm all for fading the marks on my face, but it takes time and I need to be able to look in the mirror until then. I literally refuse to wear makeup all the time.

Since I'm not sure that I have the financial wherewithal to get someone really experienced to take the photographs for me, I'm practicing self portraits. Actually my first one was today, and although it’s finally not blurry, it is completely uninteresting (in my opinion.) I’m going to keep practicing in different lights and locations though so I can and I decided I'm just going to keep practicing until the actual event come for the shoot so that I can see how it is in different light and get an idea for exactly what  get a better idea of what I want. I’m not comfortable sharing pictures like this, but it will help me to get used to putting myself out there. It’s not just for me, but for others who struggle with their flaws.

It's not that I was miserable, this was just like the 50th photo lol. 

Thrift Store Finds and Dentist Visit

I'm trying to decide if I have the wherewithal to blog daily, or at least a few times a week; either way, I'm gonna try. I wanted to share this thrift store find because I was so excited when I discovered it benignly sitting on the shelf at Goodwill. A set of Downton Abbey DVDs! Each one cost me about $3 and I know it's a steal of a deal!

This happened on Tuesday when I had my first dentist appointment in five years. Yes, FIVE! I have so many positive memories of the dentist as a kid, as weird as that sounds. This dentist gave us a payment plan (even though it was in the ritzy part of town where we did people's lawn service) and back in that day we didn't have insurance. The staff was always easy to work with and they let us visit the prize box afterwards where we would pick out an airplane or bouncy ball and play with it outside in the parking lot. Anyway, back to the present: thankfully, I have no cavities (I was worried), but my gums were really sore until today! Worth it? Definitely. 

Elisabeth