the Dove women

Real women have real curves.

I'm not fat, but I'm well padded in all the appropriate places for an avid horseback rider.

I think I went straight from girls 14's into juniors 7/8. Woke up one day with hips, I did. Now I'm trying to figure out the logic behind the small leap from juniors 7/8 to women's size 8. I think it has something to do with sitting in front of a computer all day for a living, and a little to do with having two children. But probably mostly due to never learning how to cook and eating far too much junk food.

Not that a women's 8 is big. (Marilyn Monroe had more badonkadonk, depending on what source you believe.) Just that I don't feel like me in this body. I am convinced I should be the size I was in high school, when I could still eat an entire pizza for dinner, and still look good in acid washed miniskirts and big hair. (At least I thought I looked good. For the 80's.)

I exercise ... you can call walking to the office from the farthest parking space in the lot that, right? I lift weights ... horse hay, laundry baskets, groceries, the occasional sleeping kid. I work out every day ... lots of stretching and aerobic breathing to get a size 10 body into those size 8 jeans I refuse to give up.

Now I just need to eat better.

rwerwertwererwearcreearrawre

Sorry, a bit of chocolate fell on my keyboard.

today

I drove in to work with my hard rock music cranked up loud, screaming through speakers not meant for quality output at that volume, trying to convince myself I'm not old. "Survival of the Sickest" is blaring and I'm singing along, much to the amusement of the truck drivers I fly past at 76 mph on the interstate.

It is the 5th anniversary of my 29th birthday. For someone once convinced they wouldn't make it to 21, that's old. But for someone who has only really lived for the past five years, it's young.

The worst of it all ... a woman's greatest fear: I look my age. I don't get carded, and I couldn't pass for early twenties, even with my flare leg mid-rise jeans and slim stretchy print tops and chunky heeled boots. I hope I don't look like I'm trying too hard to look young ... but I sure don't feel mid-30's. I don't feel like a soccer mom, either, but there's my Vue outside ... a cross between a station wagon and a small SUV. I have parent-teacher conferences today with my son's 5th grade teacher (wasn't he just 5 yesterday?) and my daughter's 2nd grade conference (gosh she was just a baby) is the day after tomorrow.

Believe it or not

People you meet on the Internet will often try to give you advice.

Really.

Even if you weren't asking.

Take what you can use, and leave the rest.

No sense getting your knickers in a twist over advice YOU think is silly, bad, wrong, harmful, outdated, dangerous, callous, insincere, inappropriate ... get it? It's just advice. You get what you pay for. Snopes it, Google it, rub it on down ... makes no matter.

Are you really up for giving yourself an aneurysm over advice you got on the Internet?

had a GREAT weekend!

We camped with horses at Ionia for the second time. It was our new horse's second trail ride and he did great. ONE good spook, at a deer just off the trail so he's excused... my old horse would have done the same. (We didn't see it... hmmm)

Saturday we rode out in the morning for a good 12-14 mile route. Once we got out a ways, Westley kept saying, let's stop here, or look at that meadow ... I chewed him out about leaving the marked trail. That's bad. ;)

Finally we got to the "outlook" just past marker 8. The trail was completely closed at the top of the hill, with new wood posts and caution tape blocking the way. I was trying to refigure our route when he said something about stopping and taking a break, something about his knee. I'm thinking okay (whatever you big wuss) and got down and looked around at the view.

Well he came over to me and pinned me up against one of the posts. He was fiddling around with something in his pocket. I said "What are you doing?" (thinking he was doing something else altogether) and he said "Proposing."

One of my very best friends in the whole wide world (I have been blessed to have no less than four people I'd call a BEST friend, most of whom I've known since before high school, and still talk to regularly) asked me to marry him! I hugged him and kissed him and he said "Is that a yes?" and I said YES and cried a little tiny bit but don't tell anyone because no one saw it. *grin*

Anyway he pulled out a ring and I was shocked ... amazed really ... he's been complaining about not having the money for a ring and a wedding (we've been talking about getting married for 2 years but he'd not officially asked) and so for a temporary ring he made a braided horsehair ring with hair from all three of our horses and also a little from his own ponytail. It could not have been more perfect. Fits right and everything. HE HAD NO IDEA that I've been talking to someone about horsehair bracelets, and getting a gift for him made from some tail hair from his first horse... JUST this past week! That's just the funny connection we have.

You couldn't have smacked the smile off my face all weekend long. :D

xpButtercup
aka Westley's FIANCE!

P.S. Next summer!