Honesty....

So I have debated back and forth about posting this wonderful update on my stellar day. How honest do I want to get? It came down to this, how am I supposed to share my "journey" with people if I don't share my days that feel like they have a big fat FAIL stamped all over them as well as the days that I soar. So here it goes, my day.

Things started out ok this morning. I woke up on time, to my wonderful husband telling me to go back to sleep for the next hour, he would take care of things. When I got out of bed he and my daughters had made me breakfast. That was wonderful. I got the girls ready and dressed, AJ off to school and P-nut and I went to the store.

Sounds good so far doesn't it? Yeah, this is where my day starts to fall apart. It shouldn't have been too bad, it was just a quick run in to get some foundation. So in we went. P-nut applying her lip gloss every 5 seconds until I made her put it away. We get to the make-up section and I proceeded to spend the requisite 30 minutes looking at foundations since the one have had been using was no longer in stock. After making a decision we headed to the check out counter. P-nut asked to hold the foundation so that she could help pay, no big deal, the girls do this all the time. When I get to the check-out counter to pay I look down to tell P-nut to put the foundation on the counter and was shocked. She had opened the foundation dumped some in her hand and was licking it. My 3 year old was EATING foundation?!?!?! What?

So there is dumb moment number one, but don't you worry, my day wasn't over, there is yet another moment to share.

After we got home I went to the bathroom to put the aforementioned foundation away. P-nut followed me to use the facilities. She was flushing as I was putting some things away in the over toilet cabinet, and just my luck things started falling out of the cabinet. So now we have a flushing toilet full of deodorant, contact solution, and eye make-up remover. The remover was just the right size to get flushed down and get stuck. So I did what any Domestic Diva would do and tried to fix the problem myself. I plunged the toilet, I flushed the toilet, I even pushed my sleeves up and tried to stick my hand all the way down the toilet. Nothing worked.

So it was time to make a very embarrassing call to maintenance. One of the things that I do love about living in military housing is that maintenance is here to help take care of anything, and they come quickly when I call. The maintenance guy came within 2 hours and started trying everything he could to remove the remover from the S curve. After he worked for 45 minutes with no change he decided that taking out the entire toilet was the only option. So I have a hole in my bathroom floor and a toilet upside down in my yard for a while. (Yes I took pictures)

So as I sit here at the end of my day, which I am proud to say I finished without a single glass of wine, all I can say is thank goodness tomorrow is another day. Oh and there is one good thing that came out of this, I got all of the old, stained, moldy caulk removed and replaced. It's the little things in life that make me happy.

~DD

Tuesday... Cleaning... Blogging

I should be cleaning right now. I told myself I would clean today. I told my husband I would clean today. I even had a whole plan on what I wanted to clean today. However, I am not cleaning today. Nope, after all of that thought, planning, and big talk I am back on the computer playing stupid Facebook games instead of cleaning. Oops. Then when I ran out of things to clean, build, and farm in my settlements, and cities I came here to blog. Yup, I'm on a roll today.

I find in ironic that I started a blog to track my ability to be that domestic goddess and now I am using that blog to avoid housework. Yup, I'm skilled like that. In my defence the house isn't bad, the kids are dressed almost picture perfect. I just have no motivation today.

Ok, I'm off, and going to put the folded laundry away. Really, I promise, unless something else that needs to be done comes up, like I get sucked into Bejewled.

Happy Tuesday!
~DD

When I look in the mirror.

What do I see when I look in the mirror? Is it the way that others see me? What do I focus on that is generally looked over or ignored by others? What I do see in exaggerated proportions so that I think something isn't true?



As I start to work on resolution number 2, I am thinking about the way that I see myself when I look in the mirror and how that view is affected by mental issues. When I look in the mirror I concentrate on things that bother me, I see issues where there are none and I take minor imperfections and they become huge. When I look in the mirror I am not seeing the true picture of me, but instead I am seeing what my mind wants me to see. Unfortunately it isn't always the positive and uplifting part of my mind that has control of what I am seeing. In my mind my zits are the size of a quarter, and I weight 300 lbs. I know that this isn't true, but I have such a hard time getting past those mental issues.

So how do I start to change the way that I see myself in the mirror, what is the best way to go about this whole change in my way of thinking? It's going to require undoing years of self-depreciating and trying to live up to unrealistic standards that are shoved in the face of people everywhere. Honestly, I'm not sure. If I can figure out how to change this the possibilities are endless. What would it be like to live in a world where we don't have to worry about out daughters hating themselves and wanting to change who they are and the way that they look? What would happen? A world where there are no thirteen year olds with eating disorders, no thirty-something women who take drugs to lose weight that they don't need to lose, no men who work out until they pass out just to look like a professional wrestler. It would be amazing.

Here we are back again with the question, how do I appreciate what I have? How do I look at myself and see the good before the bad? The way that I am going to start this journey is to force myself to do that. Every morning when I first wake up I am going to look in the mirror and find something beautiful. First. Before I start to critique, and poke and pout I am going to tell myself that my eyes are beautiful, that my hair looks great, or just that for the first time in a week I woke up without dark circles under my eyes.

Will this work? I haven't got a clue, but I'm pretty sure it can't hurt. So here is to a New Year and a new me who appreciates myself.

~ DD

p.s ~ I'll get into the whole inner beauty thing another time, don't think I've forgotten what is the most important thing ;-)

2011 It's a New Year!

Time to break out the resolutions, a new year a new you, and all of those other cliche phrases you see thrown around this time of year. The whole concept of resolutions is a good one I think, but honestly I also see a few problems with them.

I love that making resolutions causes you to re-evaluate your life and look at ways that you can improve. I think that personal improvement is something that we should always strive for. No one is perfect and there are always things that we can do to make our lives, and the lives of those who are around us better.

I hate that peoples resolutions so often tend to pick things that are related to living up to the unrealistic expectations that society tends to place on us. Women and men both resolve to be more perfect in the eyes of others. They want to look like the perfect tall, thin, healthy, together no problems person that is always on TV. The resolutions that are prompted by feelings of inadequacy are the ones that worry me.

When people decide that their lives need a change, that change needs to be prompted by something from within, not from outside pressure. We need to make resolutions that are rooted in the desire to accomplish something, not resolutions that are rooted in guilt and peer pressure.

Now to me... I have been guilty of making resolutions for all of the wrong reasons for many years, so this year I am changing my thinking and making resolutions that will help to make me a better person from the inside out and not from the outside in. So here they go.

1) I resolve not to make any resolutions that are motivated by peer pressure and feelings of inadequacy.
2) I resolve to love me for me, this includes all of my faults as well as the areas that aren't. I will try to stop obsessing about things that I notice about myself and my appearance that bother me and instead remember that I am beautiful for who I am.
3) I resolve to be more supportive of and helpful to the people that I come into contact with, this includes family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers. I will try to make sure that the way I treat people always leaves them feeling better rather than worse.

I think that this should be it for now. Those are both pretty big and pretty difficult so I will stop there before I set myself up for failure.

So what were your resolutions? Did you make them because they are really something that you want to do? Or were you motivated by pressure from friends and society. I urge you to think about the motives behind your resolutions and make some that are honest and true reflections of things that You want to change about You to make yourself a better person from the inside out.