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I've been watching American's Next Top Model with my daughter -- it's incredible how average girls get transformed into polished beautiful women in just twelve weeks. Week by week there isn't a big change but by the end...all these changes add up to amazing. Sometimes they even have plus size models... They use a lot of kickboxing to tone the girls up.

I've been experimenting with myself -- listening to what they are saying and trying to absorb some of it. I've become aware of how much I crunch my body, and how I don't have as strong of posture as I could. Little things...telling how you feel about yourself, and how you think you appear to others. I wonder if I could be beautiful like that...going from plain to beautiful, little by little. Sooo, I keep up my exercise, and let Abigail continue to do my nails. I put on Makeup, even though I'm not really "into that." I'm never going to be "American's Next Top Model" but I can be the best version of myself. I'm trying to find my style, and who I am..really, not what I thought a "girl who barely deserves the oxygen she breaths and needs to be ultra conservative religious modest look...." etc. At 44, to still be struggling with this.

This came out of the fatigue that I had...at first, I was simply trying to knock myself out of the "depression" (I thought I had) into my old "fierce warrior princess" mindset...so that now that I'm feeling relatively normal -- I can see parts that no longer work for me. I don't want to be "timid, shy fat girl in the corner, don't look at me" anymore. But "Warrior princess" is no longer me, either. I want to be somewhere in the middle...a self-confident mature woman who likes ducks and writing. I find that thought to be strangely attractive for the first time in my life.

Charlotte