The red flannel is a low maintenance light weight cotton. It really feels comparable to wearing one's jammies. The blue number is also a light weight cotton, but tends to wrinkle on the collar and bottom hem requiring ironing.
I have just a couple more coming including a pair of shorts I made! Now I need to plan what is next on my list. I have been wanting to make a skirt for work, but have been holding off until I loose a little
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In writing this I realized that it's amazing how much my body perception can swing in the course of even a day. If I could bring around with me the lightening from my bathroom, well, I would be set. I leave the house looking good! (That mirror is magic, I swear). Then I get to work, see what I look like in the fluorescent lights and cringe. Much like posting these pictures.
The pictures in the red plaid were taken right before we headed off to a barbecue at a friend's house this weekend and I was feeling pretty cute. Then I look at the pictures and see how small my eyes look behind my glasses and how round my cheeks are making my lips look so small and thin when I smile. Ugh. I know that you will all say I am being harsh, and perhaps I am. But that's what this is about, after all. Not how I really look, but my perception of myself. That is the hardest part to change.
I struggle with this now more than ever these days: as a woman who is no longer as young as she once was, a woman who's body has been through pregnancy (or rather MEGA pregnancy), a wife who now looks different to her husband, as a mother of young girls, and somewhere inside the shy girl who still measures part of herself based on her waistline and come-ons.
How do you start to set this aside and show your kids a difference between health and thinness, between femininity and sex appeal, between self confidence and vanity, between human imperfection and gluttony? I suppose it helps when you are a role model. Which brings me back to waiting on that skirt. To getting off my couch. To saying no to ice cream. Ugh. Being a role model is never easy or fun.
What are your thoughts? How do you model these things for your kids?
I really don't know. I come at it from a different angle because I want my boys to view women of all sizes as beautiful. I don't want them to look for stick figures when they're looking for a wife. The best I can do is to help them notice the beautiful in everyone.
ReplyDeleteYou already are beautiful to your daughters and to your husband, your opinions about your own looks are jaded by society. The people that love you want you healthy and happy. Your girls need you to model for them that healthy eating and moderate exercise are important for your body to work well. None of us are the same shape or size....and wouldn't it be boring if we were!?! I instill in my son that it does not matter what someone looks like on the outside - tall/short/big/small, handicapped or not -- what matters is if we are gentle and kind with each other - and with ourselves. If you are down about how you look, your girls will pick up on that. Highlight your "assets" and be as healthy as you can be. (reducing intake of refined sugars is a great start, so a smaller bowl of ice cream!) And as for your skirt, why wait? Make one for now and be proud of your body...if you end up needed a different size later on, make another one that fits later! :)
ReplyDelete~Abby
Oh, and your smile is SUPER cute...a smile makes you beautiful no matter your size, shape, or clothes! :)
ReplyDelete~Abby