No Resolutions

My end of year has been fantastic so far. I know it's not quite over yet, but I spent my final month visiting NYC and taking some great photos of beautiful women. New. York was amazing. I went to Rockefeller plaza and saw the giant tree (while being squished like a sardine!), went through time square and Chinatown, walked through central park, ate amazing food, went to the American Museum of Natural History, saw the Statue of Liberty, and spent way too much time on the subway.




 Then I was spending time with family for the holidays which included getting a new lemon beagle named Lenard whom we rescued from a local shelter. He's the best, sweetest dog in the world and I'm not even a dog person.

The holidays were beyond great. Everyone gave and received wonderful and thoughtful gifts- I gave my brother's girlfriend a book called Crafting With Cat Hair and she absolutely was thrilled with it.

There was some slight stress when we woke up and out heat was out right after we came back from NY, but I'm looking forward to New Year's Eve and staying up until midnight and kissing someone at that strike of 12.

One thing I won't be doing though? Making a resolution for the new year. Partly because most of them through my life consisted of weight loss goals- this year I'll join a gym, this year I'll stick to that diet (eating disorder), this year I'll lose 50lbs, this year I swear, i SWEAR, I'll hate myself until I'm socially acceptable. Well, for the past four years I've made the decision not to make any resolution. Not only because some research suggests that they just plain don't work, but because I have nothing to strive for that I don't already strive for all year.

Being healthy, happy, and making the world a better place. Loving myself more as much as possible, even when that means just maintaining a little self esteem in a world that insists I am worthless. But how do you survive the constant onslaught of resolutions about body hate? Well, I passive aggressively post body positive updates on social media and make snide replies like "I don't have a resolution because I love myself as I am!". I don't make comments about their resolutions or get down on them, but rather I focus on myself and how happy I am and try to set a good example.

I hope that, this year, your resolution, if you have one, is to continually try to love yourself and your body. That's not always easy, especially if your body feels like it betrays you like in the case of chronic illness for example. Trust me, I know. But loving yourself is worth it. I'm personally looking forward to a great year in 2015 and I hope you are too.

Happy Belated New Year!

So everyone's doing a new year post and I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon. I don't have a lot to say about new year's resolutions because, well, I resolved to quit doing resolutions. So far I've stuck to that. Besides the fact that the vast majority of resolutions are fat hating with losing weight being the number one resolution for 2012 (also notice that only 8% of people achieve their resolution goal. How many do you want to bet achieve weight loss?).  Heck, a third of goals don't make it past January.

But after decades of vowing to lose weight every year and trying to hate myself thin, and after watching everyone around me fail at the same goal, new year's resolutions have left a bad taste in my mouth. That may have been the diet food though. So if losing weight is at the top of you  list, please, for the love of all that's good in the world, throw it the fuck out. Seriously, write it down on a piece of paper, throw it away, burn it, tear it to pieces, scratch it out and feed it to your pet goat. Do anything but make that resolution. You know the science says that 95% of weight loss attempts fail anyway.

My secret? Don't make any resolution at all. If you want to get healthier, do it, and do it in a fun creative way. If you want to stop smoking, do it and do it with an arsenal of support around you because you're gonna need it. If you wan to get out of debt, get better organized, get out walking more, spend more time with your family... just do it. You don't need a resolution. All that does is puts pressure on yourself and makes you feel guilty when you take too long, don't do it, mess up, or otherwise fail in attaining that goal. There's almost no way not to fail.

Instead take it every day at a time. Go on a walk on days you feel like it. Organize one room at a time or, hell, one desk or corner at a time. Make it into a success, a positive, something you accomplished. But whatever you do, don't make it a resolution.

Pink makes me happy

I am, of course, referring to my new pink strawberry flats. I'm also trying out the fluffy belted rockabilly style skirt thing. I'm fairly sure I'm rocking it- what do y'all think? (also, i totally look annoyed in that second photo, don't I?)