The Women’s Dressing Room is a Battlefield

I have been struggling with my body image more lately than ever before and I thought maybe if I made more of an effort to work on my appearance it might help me feel better about the way I look. That is why this weekend I went to one of my favorite department stores with the quest to buy a new dress for a future date night with officer P. 

As soon as I walked in the door I saw this adorable dress and grabbed it up right away!

After walking around for a bit I decided to head to the dressing room to try it on and with visions of how it “should look” in my head I felt my heart sink a little. It didn’t fit right. The waist was not falling at my waist and was too tight. The fabric got staticky as I put it on so it clung weird as well. My legs and knees looked thick, I just looked horrible in it. This bad fitting quickly turned my excited mood into one of dread.

As I came out of the dressing room with my emotions written all over my face I waited for my sister to try on a shirt she had picked up. As I waited I saw a teenage girl come out of a dressing room with a stack of shorts and only handed her mom 1 pair. She had, what appeared to be, her whole family with her and as her mom questioned her as to why she was only getting the 1 pair she replied “because they are the only ones that look okay on me.” As her dad and sister chime in with suggestions and insisting that she try on more she started pleading with tears in her eyes that they just leave her alone and take her home, which they finally agreed to.

This left me sad and I had to fight back some tears myself. I felt bad for the girl who was probably close to 20 years younger then me, and certainly had a thinner body than mine, but appeared to be feeling the exact same way I was. I was sad that this is something that almost every women goes through over and over again throughout their lives and that we have learned to hate our bodies for what they are not, instead of loving them for all that they are. 

Since I was determined to buy a dress I went on a hunt for some more dresses to try on. After more wandering around I headed to another dressing room, since that first one was now tainted with bad juju, to try on some more dresses.

                      

Sadly it was two more misses and I decided I needed a break so I headed over to housewares to look around for something for the new house.

After going up and down every aisle in housewares I found myself back in the clothing department. I decided to give it one more shot, and once again I headed into the dressing room with a couple of dresses in hand.

                

Sadly, once again I struck out. I decided 3 strikes (and 2+ hours) and I was out so I went home with these beauties instead.

Since I was unsuccessful in my mission I know I will have to head back to battle soon, but for now I am enjoying my shoes and trying to better prepare myself for round 2.

Have you ever had an unpleasant dressing room experience? How did you get over it and get back in there?

Project Me Update/ March Goals

I have not been posting much about Project Me lately and that is because I became a bit stuck with what to do next. Lucky for me while I was looking for a book to keep me occupied for my 4 hour flight to Orlando I came across “The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin. As I read the subtitle “Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun” it reminded me very much of my own project currently underway. 

I will confesses I’ve only read about a chapter and a half so far, but just that little bit has helped me to get Project Me back on track. In the book she divided the things she wanted to work on into categories, and then assigned each category a month that she would devote to focusing on making the changes in that category before adding in the next category the next month.

With today being March 1st it felt like the perfect time to set up my own set of goals to help bring me closer to becoming the person I want to be. Since I’ve decided I really need more balance in my life I plan to choose 1 or 2 [non-weight related] physical goals as well as 1 or 2 emotional/mental goals to work on each month.

I tend to have a rather *focused* personality so I like to go all in and then I burn out or get discouraged quickly; so I am really going to make an effort to keep it simple this time.

For this month I think I really need to work on my discipline since I’ve been finding myself falling more and more into complacency. I have a long standing quote I like to throw around

and this is what I feel like I’ve been doing. Yes, life is a bit of a challenge for me right now, but choices have been made that have brought me to this point and I need to just suck it up and deal with it.  

So here are the things I want to focus on for the month of March:

1. SLEEP! I need to establish and stick with a decent sleep schedule to allow my body adequate rest.
2. Move My Body! I sit around on my bum most of the day. I need to get back to being more active, even if I don’t follow a certain workout routine.
3. Give myself a “time out” at least once a day to decompress and refocus my energy.
4. Stop comparing myself to everyone else!

Do you set time specific goals? What is something you want to work on about yourself in the coming month/months?

All Ways Are Not MY Way

Okay, a small confession here. I am a bit of a “Type A” personality. I like for things to be MY way and I can have controlling tendencies, especially when it comes to food or vacation planning. Of course if I am met with opposition I usually just fold (remember, I’m non-confrontational), but if no one is going to challenge me I run with it!

I don’t think this is always a bad thing, I mean it’s good to have opinions, right? But none the less I have decided to make a conscious choice to just “go with the flow” more.

I have discovered that I often create more stress for myself by trying to control situations that just can’t be controlled. A huge example of this right now is our relocation from California back to Houston. To sum it up simply, it’s a mess. I’m in California, officer P is in Georgia, our house is being built in Houston, and the lender is in Colorado, so needless to say coordination is pretty difficult and the timelines are ever changing. Basically we are looking at anytime between March and May.   

This is simply out of my control and since I can’t control the situation I am working on controlling my feelings and reactions to the situation instead. It has been, and will continue to be, full of ups and downs, but I have been working on letting it go.   

It’s not always easy, but I have found that by taking the time to decompress a bit and give up some of the control I have been able to defuse some issues that have came up, which at this point is the best I can ask for.

Although I do not necessarily like that all ways are not my way, I am finding that by embracing it my life is becoming a little bit easier.  

Do you find that there are certain things you feel the need to control? And others you simply can’t be bothered with?

Look For Kindness and You Will Find It!

As I have been working on cutting down the negativity in my life I have discovered that I often only see what I am looking for. If I am expecting people to be rude and uncaring, that is usually all that I see. This led to the decision to look for the small acts of kindness that surround me everyday, but often goes unnoticed.

On Thursday I took the kids on an outing to Costco (I know, I know, we are wild and crazy) not even thinking that it was the beginning of the month and that it was closed the day before for the holiday. It was much more crowded then I would have expected for a Thursday around 1 and I really try not to take the kids shopping in crowds because it stresses me out! I can not even count the times that they have been hit/ bumped by carts and criticized for being in the way of grumpy shoppers in crowded stores over the years.
Since we were already in the parking lot by the time I realized my mistake I figured we might as well brave the crowd and venture in. It was very crowded. There were at least 5-10 carts down every side isle in the store and many more in main ones, and although I am sure there were many a hurried shopper cursing everyone else for being in there way, I am happy to report I did not witness them.

Source

Instead I saw a women reaching for some cherries that were above her head and the container opening and spilling out all over the floor. I also saw one women, and then another, stop their shopping and bend over to help her pick them up. Even after the women had thanked them many times and insisted that she had it taken care of. I also saw a man unaware of what had happened walk past a run away cherry on the floor and then doubled back to pick it up and toss it into an empty box near by.

Sure these were very little acts, and took no more then a minute out of their day, but there were out of concern for someone other then themselves. They certainly didn’t HAVE to help at all, but they chose to anyway and that is pretty darn cool.

I am going to give you all another challenge this week. I want you to look for the small acts of kindness that surround you everyday, that you might have otherwise missed, and come back and share them with me! They can be anything! Big or small, I just want you to be out there looking for the good in each other! 

Project ME: Consider Your Motivation

Long before the clock struck midnight, and the New Year began I had been thinking about “project ME”. I tried to decide just what I wanted to gain from it, and how I would even begin to take it on. Thankfully the answers were quite simple, I want to have peace in my heart, and free my head from negativity. I want to be happy with who I am, and to be comfortable in my own skin. While the answers were easy the process to obtaining that is going to be the hard part. 

I figured if I started working on the negativity, my heart is sure to follow, so that is what I am doing. One of the ways I plan on doing that is by taking the time to stop and consider what my motivation is for saying or doing something I may not feel completely comfortable with. Am I not comfortable with it because I feel it is wrong? Or is it that I am afraid of what others might think?

A few days ago I practiced this for the first time, and honestly the outcome was somewhat surprising to me.

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, which I do several times a day, and I saw 2 friends had both posted this:

Now reading my blog I am sure you are able to find many instances in which I have used incorrect grammar, or even the wrong word all together! I try not to make these mistakes, but I’ll be honest, my mind is much more math oriented. Grammar just does not come easy to me. I can not even tell you how many times I have read a sentence over several times trying to decide which word pairing was correct, so it’s not that I don’t care. That is why when I saw the first comment posted was this:

“ Wish people knew how to type! No idea how one cannot understand proper grammar anymore!”

I was annoyed, and even a little offended. I quickly typed up this response:

But I didn’t post it right away. Instead I read it over a few times. The first couple of times trying to insure that ever single word was used correctly, and then to consider how it might be received. This is where the old Summer would delete the comment because it quite possibly would offend the original poster. I even left the comment un-posted and scrolled down my feed a bit before coming back and hitting send.

I felt the person very well could have gotten offended and unfriended me, but after really thinking it over, and keeping “project ME” in mind I felt it was worth it to have my voice heard, and I am glad that I did. I woke up to a PM from the poster in the morning saying that they hoped that they did not upset me and that they would never intentionally make someone feel bad over grammar.

Is this going to change the world? Of course not. But might that poster think twice about posting things designed to belittle others in the future? I truly hope so. 

Now this is where I am going to give you the challenge to consider your own motivations. Are you coming from a place of true compassion, concern and/or caring? Or are your intentions mean spirited and fueled by fear, jealousy or insecurity?

The Courage to Be Me

Newsflash, I’m insecure! Like obnoxiously insecure. In fact I am so insecure I am even insecure about being insecure.

These insecurities also make me non-confrontational to a fault, and I happen to have some highly confrontational people in my life. The kind in which my mere existence has ruined their life. Yeah, seriously. How can you even argue with that anyway? There is no winning. 

When you mix a non-confrontational personality with insecurities you get a people pleaser, and that is what I have been. I have taken a great deal of criticism over the years and just internalized it because I didn’t want to deal with the ramifications sure to come with me standing up for myself, my family, and the things I believe in.

I know these things about myself, and I know that there is not going to be any easy “fixes”, but I feel I am at place in my life where I am ready to grow up and make some changes.

Officer P says I always have to have a project to focus on, and really he’s right. This is why I have decided that for 2014 I am going to take on my biggest project yet . . . ME.

For the next year this blog is going to serve as a journal following my journey to becoming the best me I can be. Both inside and out. I know not everyone is going to like it, and really that’s okay because this is my journey to take, anyway.  

I hope you will follow along with me as I work on becoming the person I want to be, and who knows . . . you may just learn some things about yourself along the way!