Full of Awesome...Creating Beauty

Earlier this year a friend posted on her blog her 20's Bucket List. Jennifer turned 29, so I think she is going to be really busy this year doing fun things! I thought this was a cool idea and I made my own 30's Bucket List. I like reading Jennifer's blog and seeing the things she's accomplished.

My list is in my journal...so in essence the full contents of it is Top Secret. However, it has a lot of travel destinations in it. It is shorter than Jennifer's list and I have 3 1/2 years left to complete it. I hope I do! Every once in awhile I look back on my list and remind myself of these goals.

This week, after I got home from visiting Jen in Las Vegas, I remembered that "Visit Jen in Vegas" was on my bucket list. Check! (The Jen I visited in Vegas is not the same Jennifer with the Bucket List. I guess I'm just blessed with friends named Jen/Jennifer.)

One of the awesome things about visiting  Jen was being around her creative energy. She has an amazing work space for craft projects and she is really encouraging of her daughter to make her own creations, too. More than once I heard Olivia say, "This is too hard. I can't do this." And Jen's response was always, "Yes, you can. Just keep trying."

We spent a day doing craft projects and talking. I don't really consider myself all that crafty, but around Jen I could feel myself start to believe in myself and my inner creative energy. I sort of felt like I was a second kid in the house because I was saying stuff like, "Oh, I can't really do that. I'm not crafty." And Jen just said right back, "Yes, you can. Just try."

One of the things Jen told me about was her art journal. She paints, draws, doodles, writes, whatever she feels like on a page a day. I thought it was a cool idea but I really was overwhelmed at the thought of having to fill a whole full size page. But I noticed that I have a 2011 daily planner that is about finished. It's a cute little book and instead of throwing it away when the years over, I converted it into my art journal. Each page is the perfect size for gluing a 3x5 card.

In just a little over a week of stamping, coloring, gluing stuff, painting and writing on at least one 3x5 card a day I can feel myself more in touch with my creative self. I realize that I am creative, I just put that part of myself down too much and dismiss the ideas I come up with as 'not creative' or put it in the 'I'll remember that for when I become creative' corner.

So this week, here are some of the things I've created or made.

1. I tried a new recipe from an old Martha Stewart 'Everday Food' magazine. Cook fish with herbs wrapped in parchment paper and foil. I baked them at 400F for about 35 min or so. I love fish, but I never make it. This is pretty easy and tasty and I felt creative using the parchment paper I bought ages ago and didn't do anything with.

I found these cool little star noodles!

Dinner for the week! I can't wait to eat it!

2. I rearranged one cupboard (yes, Paula, just one!). I have a counter area with my hot water kettle and I set up a 'drink station.' So now I have all my mugs, teas, hot chocolate and such all in one spot.

3. I don't really have a picture for this, but I've been trying to create a better body image. I've been having some health problems lately and I've really noticed lately how often I see pictures of skinny women with perfect abs. Have you ever noticed how every month the fitness magazines have articles about the newest and best ab workouts? I guess I'm not the only one who wants flattering, well defined, sexy abs.

So it's really sucked for me that I've been struggling with abdominal distension lately. My waist is extended two inches beyond normal in the morning. By the end of the day it's expanded another inch or two. I don't know where my abs are any more because I look like I have a pot belly. I know it's not a pot belly and that something is wrong because it hurts when I push on it and it hurts when I don't push on it, too. I don't really have any energy for working out most days and quite frankly why bother because doing sit ups literally makes me throw up on some days.

Doing my art journal, working on my scrapbook from my Prague trip and the other ideas that I come up with have helped me to feel like there is beauty in my life. I can create beauty and it doesn't have to be what seems like the constantly elusive six-pack, super model body.

Today I had an abdominal ultrasound.  As I lay on the table and watched images of my liver, gallbladder, pancreas and kidneys on the screen, I thought about how amazing and beautiful the human body is. I live, breathe, and move around every day in an amazing creation. I will probably be a life time devotee of eating healthy foods and always participate in some form of sport or exercise. I will do those things for the fun and the joy of them as well as an effort to care for this amazing, imperfect body. I will never be a super model. I will probably never have a six-pack of ab muscle. I will just be imperfectly, wonderfully me. I am good enough. I am beautiful. And I can be beautiful with a pot belly, a muffin top, a six-pack or just a regular, unremarkable, un-photographable stomach (even though I know which one I really want and I just can't let go of that desire completely no matter how unrealistic or unhealthy for me it may be).

Here are some links to body image and women's issues that I found on the web today that are thought provoking for me. Maybe they will be for you as well.

A. Waking up Full of Awesome

B. Real-Life Barbie


4.And lastly, here is a random picture of my street corner. Some days there are strange things on my street. Once there was a lost port-a-pottie in the middle of the road, one day a chair, this week a sink and the following day a fan. I don't know where this stuff comes from or where it goes because it doesn't stay long. But it's entertaining to see what surprise the day may bring. And because I work swing shift and sleep late, I feel quirky and random taking pictures of this crap in my pajamas and slippers in the middle of the day.