A Bushel and a Peck

I came across a quote about happiness (or loving yourself, which I feel is directly connected) today that I love. I love it because it so perfectly describes what I've been doing for so long and why I've been unhappy doing it. And as I recognize what I'm doing wrong, I can change and start to do things right. Or at least better. "If you water yourself down to please people or to fit in or to not offend anyone, you lose the power, the passion, the freedom and the joy of being uniquely you. It’s much easier to love yourself when you are being yourself." — Dan Coppersmith I grew up with the idea that the recipe for happiness included at least small amounts of three things: the approval of others, the admiration (and sometimes its more potent form - jealousy) of others, and the appeasement of everyone. If everyone loved me, I was guaranteed to love myself, right? Unfortunately, it took until my college years for me to realize that such a recipe almost always resu...

32 weeks with Sweet Boy and 32 weeks with Baby Girl Growing up, I was very thin - I knew it, and I was glad. One less thing for me to feel awkward about, I guess. A couple of years ago, I started to gain weight and I didn't like it. Then I gained 50 pounds with my first pregnancy, and "failed" to lose the last 20 pounds. At the beginning of this (second) pregnancy, I weighed 40 pounds more than I did in high school. I may be 6'3", but a 40-pound weight gain makes even a tall girl look different. I started running last summer in an attempt to lose some weight. I ended up quitting due to some breastfeeding issues that were causing me some discomfort, but I felt frustrated that I'd lost less than 10 pounds. I should have been proud of myself for getting to a point where I could run 5K's, but I let my disappointment eat away at my pride in myself. Around that time, Kate Middleton had her baby, and people started freaking out about her "post-b...

So, while I have a million things tumbling around in my mind that I'd like to write about someday, I'm not always sure I'm ready to write about them. And I'd love to know what you guys want to hear about. So let me know in the comments (blog or Facebook comments), and I'll see what I can do! Also, please check out the rest of the blog - the tabs at the top or the two posts I've already written. They're all intended to give you (and me, ha!) a bit of an idea of who I am and what this blog is about.

Since many of you may not know me very well, I thought a little introduction of myself was in order. I have to admit, this is another daunting step for me. I have a tendency to clam up  around people whose opinions I'm not very sure of. I suppose my logic is best summed up by the saying "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt." I'd rather be thought shy or foolish than open my mouth and let people hate me for who I really am (or find out just how  foolish I am).  One of my goals in starting this blog (aside from improving my writing) is to overcome my fear of putting myself out there. I need to freely be myself and let people judge me, whether they're willing to be fair and open-minded or not. I'm currently taking baby steps, but I plan to get to the point where I refuse to let my fear of what others think dictate whether I can be myself.  So who am I?  I am Kara. My reflex is to give my height next, as it has ...

First off, I am no writer. I am incredibly intimidated by trying to write down my thoughts and feelings in general, much less with the idea that someone may one day read them. When I do write, I spend so much of my time editing and re-editing before I even finish the first paragraph that I give up out of sheer mental exhaustion. So why on earth would I start a(nother) blog?  Secondly, this will be the third blog I've tried to start. The first was born my sophomore year of college and was intended to be more of a journal that my then-fianc é  could read while we were across the country from each other. I may have flattered myself that someone other than him would be interested in what I had to say, but it really was a very short-lived endeavor. The second blog was an attempt to keep family members updated on our little family (aka: cute new baby boy), but I quickly became overwhelmed by the idea of trying to summarize entire months of my son's life in a reasonably-lengthed (h...