Today is the day I turn 37.  I am the last of my friends from high school, in my grade, to turn 37.  I can no longer bask in being “younger” than them.  I recently spent the weekend with them celebrating my best friend Tracy’s birthday with a girls’ weekend.  It was a blast.  These ladies are my loves.  We’ve been in love more for over 20 years.  Here are a few pictures of what we were doing…

A little dancing…

taking lots of pictures…

More dancing…

lots of EATING!

more picture taking…

and LOTS and LOTS of girl talk.

It’s kind of a joke that Beth FS and I have similar taste in a lot of things.  We often buy the same things separately, and then realize it happened later.  For instance, we both have the same Otter Box – the pink and gray one – on our white iPhones.  This is a small example, but it seems to happen often.  So, it was kind of funny when we both got ready to go out on Saturday night.

This is what happened…

Chevron Sisters

Anyway, spending the weekend with these girls is very uplifting, and always thought provoking.  I always find myself examining my life after hearing about all of theirs.  You see, my friends are no slouches.  They are beautiful, successful, fun, great moms, loving wives, and just all around awesome people.  For me, this is good and bad depending on the state of my mind when entering it.  Sometimes, instead of just enjoying the moments, I find myself comparing my life to theirs.  Usually, with the way I treat myself, I am finding all of the ways I am inadequate.  You see, I have this voice in my head that is so mean to myself.  I’ve talked about it briefly before in regards to exercise, but not with everything else.

And then, I log onto facebook, and Weight Watchers has posted this:

And so, I got to thinking about these comparisons I make.  I need to just look at my own life, and be grateful.  I am truly blessed.  I have a home that I love, a husband that I adore, and a job that I am meant to do, even if it will never make me rich in money, it makes me rich in spirit.  And plus, I get summers off.  Bonus.

So, for my 38th year, I am going to be nicer to myself.  I am going to treat myself to exercise, I am going to feed myself food that fuels me, and not drains me. I am going to stay in our budget.  I am going to try all of my new recipes! I am going to give it my all at work.   I am going to be nice to me.  I am going to accept myself like I accept all of my friends, family, and loved ones.  I am going to give myself a break.  I am going to hang out more with the people I love, and travel more.  I am going to work on living in the moment.

I read this thing the other day that says if you worry, you are living in the past, and if you are anxious, you are living in the future, so be happy and live in the present.  Those kind of quotes are hokey, but it really struck a chord with me.

So, here is to a new phase…the be kind and grateful phase.

I hope you are all having a lovely Friday! It won’t be long now until I am counting down to Fridays for the weekend.  But, for now, I am enjoying my summer.  One day at a time.

xoxox, Beth WA

PS  Recently I made a brief outline about what I would blog about each day of the week.  I am loosely sticking to it.  For example, today I was supposed to write about the actual exercise I did this week.  And, I didn’t do a damn thing.  I was sick Monday-Wednesday, but let’s be honest, I probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway.  HA HA.  But, since I am nice to myself now, I ain’t gonna hate on myself about it. Right???