daily self portrait

Have you heard of this little trend that's going around the interwebs?
Okay, here's the sitch. So often it's the Mamas who are taking all the pictures of life-as-we-know-it and we get left out. When we look back over our year's worth of pictures, we are nowhere to be found.
I want to look back and see that I was an active part of my children's lives and for my children to see that one day too. I know that I am involved. But it'd be nice to see some proof.
So Sarah from The Sunday Spill started taking pictures every day of herself; with her kids, her husband, by herself and either holding the camera herself or using a timer. I was so inspired that I decided to join along for the ride.
I've included a link on my sidebar to my album of daily self portraits and you can follow along with me there!

It's interesting because I'm really hard on myself and how I look in pictures. So this is also a journey in me continuing to learn to love myself in a realistic way. Because at the end of the day, my kids don't care if I'm a size 6 or 16. They just want me to be present. To cuddle with them and read them stories. To bake them sweet things and play hide-and-go-seek.

So here we go!

moi

i liked what i wore today.

i liked how i felt today.

i felt pretty. 

and cute.

and put together.

and the opposite of frumpy. whatever that is.

still on the journey to love me.

does that sound weird?

either way, it's true.

Me in Pictures

I've been wanting to blog about this for a little while now but here I sit, finally doing it.

Anyway, it's nothing big...only that, well, lately I've actually liked how I've looked in photographs. Even the candid ones.

This is new. At least since I've had kids {and haven't been pregnant because I always like how I look when I'm pregnant}.

And it's hard to admit that. But it's true. I'm vain. But mostly it's because my self image has gone down the crapper {along with my mental ability to retain knowledge and otherwise IMPORTANT information other than the lyrics to Sharon, Lois & Bram and any sort of stomach muscle tone I ever had}. I haven't even liked how I felt about myself. Because I haven't liked myself. For a long time.

But lately I've been running. And eating yummy food - trying to eat GOOD food, but what with mouth-watering butter-filled recipes like ones from The Pioneer Woman and Bakerella, sometimes I go overboard and it's hard not to eat the last 5 cookies in the container. But I digress...

So I've been running. And while the number that shows up on the scale hasn't exactly gone down dramatically, I feel better about myself. And I'm not sure if it's because I'm learning to accept and love myself or it's because I've actually toned up or lost flab or maybe it's a bit of everything.

But somewhere along the line, I think I've started to figure out this whole thing called balance. And I gotta say that this desire to go for a run is something entirely new to me.

And I love it.

And if nothing else, that is one of the best things to happen to me in a long time.