Life Well-Lived, Vol. 11

Hello, readers!  It's WEDNESDAY, so that means it's time to celebrate LIFE WELL LIVED!
In case you needed a reminder, LIFE WELL LIVED is all about celebrating ALL the joys in your life, both big and small.

(Don't forget to follow @MyLifeWellLived on Twitter!  Blog, or just tweet about what makes your #LifeWellLived (don't forget the hashtag) and join in the fun!)

Let's get to it, shall we??

Today is kind of a special day for LWL, because I'm using part of a project I'm working on with the wonderful ladies of the Denton Women's Collective I've been a part of for a couple of months now. At our last meeting, I asked each girl to send me a picture of herself that she loved along with 10 things she loves about herself. Here are a few that I've gotten so far, with my own at the bottom (click on the pictures to see the larger versions):

1.) Brittany

1. I have smooth, soft skin like a baby. Seriously, I forgot to put lotion on this morning, but you could never tell by rubbing these elbows.

2. I have really, really good taste in music. Ok, look, I know this could be considered subjective, and I definitely make up for it when it comes to television (Jersey Shore comes back this week….GTL, baby!), but my music collection runs the gamut from The Band to The Avett Brothers and everything in between, and I think that’s pretty awesome.

3. I have a big ol’ booty, I’m good with that! No matter how many lunges and squats I do, it’s just not going anywhere, but that’s ok. In fact, it’s one of the few parts of my body that I don’t often wish was smaller. It makes me feel curvaceous and feminine and besides, even white boys got to shout, baby got back.

4. I’m almost always willing to give someone a second chance. Sometimes this makes people say I’m too nice (as if there is such a thing!), and sometimes it means I have to learn my lessons the hard way (just fyi, the FIRST time your boyfriend lies to you would be good time to dump his ass). But it also means that when a friendship or relationship ends, I can leave it knowing I gave it my all, feeling peaceful about the way I handled things.

5. I’ve been told I have a warm smile. You know how the best compliments always come from a stranger, someone who has absolutely nothing to gain from being nice to you? Well when I was in college I got a call from a family looking for a nanny, and I had to tell them that I had just found a job and wouldn’t be able to interview with them. They told me they were disappointed because that had seen my picture and loved my “warm smile.” Isn’t that one of the greatest compliments you ever heard?! That was 8 years ago and it’s stuck with me!

6. I’m good at being an adult. That sounds silly, but I’m really proud of the fact that I live on my own, am financially independent, and can put together a console table all by myself (and in less than 20 minutes, holla!). And when my boyfriend of six years cheated on me on a business trip, I moved out of our house without once losing my shit and slashing his tires or throwing his electronics out of a second-floor window. If that’s not something to be proud of, I don’t know what is!

7. I have awesome hair. I was at the mall a few weeks ago, and as I strolled through the purse department I overheard a clerk say to her co-worker, “That girl’s hair is so cute! I think that’s how I should cut mine.” And while I’ve been pulling my hair back mostly just to avoid, you know, DEATH, during this summer heat wave, four people have told me they love my little pony tail this week alone! Sure, this is mostly thanks to my awesome hair stylist, but hey, I rock it!

8. I am a hard core planner. My absolute favorite Christmas gift last year was a “Life Planner” my brother gave me. It has my name on the front and pockets and tabs and stickers and just….guh….it’s ridiculous the amount of pleasure it brings me. I’ve recently become obsessed with the ColorNote app (Post-Its on your phone!!!) and I can make a list like nobody’s business. Sometimes I feel like I need to focus more on being spontaneous and going with the flow, but being such a planner means I’m able to arrange days off work to hit up a music festival, or put together an awesome bachelorette party for my best friend, or even help plan an awesome community outreach event for young girls!

9. I kind of have great boobs. They’re small enough that I can get away without wearing a bra when it’s 109 degrees out (seriously, c’mon, mother nature!), but existent enough to look pretty hot in a low cut shirt.

10. I can say with certainty that I touch people’s lives. This is most definitely the thing on my list I am MOST proud of. I work with kids with learning disabilities, so almost every single day I have the opportunity to make a difference for them. There are days I want to bang my head against a wall while simultaneously poking myself in the eye with a pencil. But then someone goes and does something amazing, like reading an entire page from a grade-level book without a single error, or clearly articulating the difference between multiplication and division, or giving me live frogs for teacher appreciation week (yeah, that for reals happened) and I remember why I am so incredibly proud of what I do. A kid told me once, “Ms. Sassaman, I’m getting smarter, and it might be because of you.” And that’s plenty of reason to love myself right there.

2. Vassi

3. Rachel

4. Mandy

Also, I've been toying with the idea of making my own commercial like the now famous Dove commercial (seen here), and I decided to give it a shot yesterday.  The commercial shows how quickly a very beautiful woman is turned into someone completely unrecognizeable, but who is the person we see on billboards and magazine advertisements for cosmetics. I actually feel like with this song I should be taking OFF my makeup, but I think that the message this ends up sending is that it's kind of sad how much time we spend (yes, I'm guilty of it) putting on makeup and trying to enhance ourselves. There's some irony in there, so I kept it the way it is.

I encourage you to try EITHER of these projects to remind yourself that you are beautiful JUST the way you are made.  Wear makeup, sure, and feel girly (like I talked about here in my girly questions Vlog), but remember that you really are perfect just the way you are!