Tuesday, August 2, 2016

love your body

Today’s post is going to be a little raw. The topic has been on my mind for a few days as I wrestled with it in my own life and have finally come to terms.

When do you plan on being happy with your body?

I’m serious.

When is your body going to be where you want it to be?

Do you need to lose weight? Get some muscle tone? Maybe you need to gain a few pounds? Or perhaps there is some kind of feature you have thought about surgically removing or enhancing?

When are you going to love your body for what it is?

I know that for years I have dwelled on the various imperfections and at times been hung up by them. There have always been things I wanted to change. And I know I am not the only one.

Thankfully, there is a new trend happening. This new fad of “real women” gracing magazine covers, and celebrities revealing untouched photos. It’s a wonderful change, and it got me thinking…

You see, in our apartment the bathroom mirrors are HUGE and when you are getting into the shower, you can see it all. Every imperfection, jiggle, and dimple. It had become my least favorite part of the day because I didn’t like many aspects of my body.

Each day I would tell myself, “Maybe if you work out harder, you will notice a change at the end of the month and be happier with what you see.” And that is all fine and good, I should increase my workouts and strive to see changes in my body, but what about this moment?

This picture was taken at
our family lake day, you can't
see my thighs super well, but
I still was hung up about this
picture of me, but NOT
anymore!
Why do I have to be insecure about different parts of my body now? Everyone on this planet has a body issue, something they would change or alter if given the chance. But that takes away from this moment. It steals a little bit of your joy by not enjoying where you are at.

So I changed up how I see my body. Instead of focusing on the imperfections, (for me it’s cellulite and stretch marks on my thighs), I have decided to praise my body for where it’s at.
 My body is strong. There is nothing I need to accomplish, or want to, that my body cannot handle. And that for me is enough. I won’t stop working out or pushing to see changes, but I refuse to hate on my body anymore.

I’m not going to beat myself up when I eat too much pizza and am a little bloated. I’m not going to feel like a failure if I take a day off from working out. I am not going to avoid wearing a bathing suit because I’m insecure about my thighs.


I am going to love my body exactly the way it is. Because for each imperfection I see, there are millions of other reasons to love it. And it was designed specifically for me by God. So I refuse to waste another day not loving my body, and I invite you to do the same.

Monday, August 1, 2016

Insurance Nightmare

Ok, today was a totally mess. I contemplated not even doing a post because I would much rather call it a day and pop open a bottle of wine to relax. But then I realized what I went through today is something worth talking about because not enough people pay close attention to what is going on in their finances and bills.

To make a long and horribly frustrating story short, Josh and I had a terrible experience with our IL insurance agent.

Ok, that may be too vague… Here is the short version of the saga that has (hopefully) concluded today. When Josh and I got married we took out life insurance policies, a new auto policy for our car, and jewelry insurance. One may think, that’s easy, just take out the policies and make your payments and things will be great. You would be wrong. Our life insurance policies cancelled and reinstated multiple times causing us to be constantly fixing the problem, until we got fed up in March and switched life insurance providers. Then we moved to WI and had to transfer our auto policy. That should have been finalized in May, it is now August 1st and we are still getting bills for the IL policy. In my quest to get that policy officially cancelled we learned my car has a policy in IL and WI. And we learned that our life insurance policies were never cancelled correctly so we never got our reimbursements.

3 hours, 5 emails, and 10 phone calls later, we MAY finally have it in the works of being sorted out.

So I tell you this story (sparing so many frustrating details) to encourage you to be on top of your finances, insurances, and bills. Don’t just toss letters for things you have on auto-pay or ignore your monthly bank statements. You work hard for your money and should be conscious of where it is going at all times. And anyone that you hire to do a service (insurance, auto care, housekeeping, ANYTHING), should be willing to work with you and solve problems. But always make sure you get confirmation of things being accomplished and SAVE receipts, emails, letters, any correspondence as proof so that you can fight charges you don’t deserve.


Don’t be lazy about your money or allow yourself to be taken advantage of.